Robbins Gets $4M For Water System Upgrades

Reliable delivery of water is a key component of attracting investment and economic growth in communities, and Robbins has long suffered from the lack of all that.

In recent months, a handful of water line breaks and leaks have caused water cut-offs to fix problems.

“We’re in a predicament that a lot of towns are in,” said Town Manager Clint Mack. “To get jobs in that era, the federal government put a lot of money into infrastructure for towns like us. The problem is maintaining it.

“Instead of it being a 50-year cycle, we’re actually almost at that 100-year cycle,” Mack said. “We’re trying to get it fixed little by little, but helping through federal dollars allows us to revamp it.”

A touch less than $790 million in water and wastewater infrastructure funding came to the state through various federal programs. That money was disbursed to help pay for 385 projects statewide, including 140 construction projects.

Robbins’ $4.3 million comes through the Drinking Water Viable Utility Reserve and will replace nearly 12,000 feet of outdated water lines along two major thoroughfares in the town, over 20 isolation valves and update the town’s water metering system.

The grant will also cover the town’s project engineering, design, permitting and administrative costs, on top of construction expenses.

“When I saw the reward, I was like, ‘Wait a second, that’s the exact dollar amount I put in for,’” Mack said. “We would’ve figured a way to do that, (if the full amount wasn’t approved) by using a state revolving loan or something. Anytime you get that chunk of money, you’ve got to find a way to use it.”

On top of the much needed changes to stretches of water pipes in the town, the new water meters will save staffing time. Currently, public works employees from the town have to check more than 450 water meters manually, and approximately 200 meters can be checked remotely. Those manual water meters are logged into a notebook, and inputted by a worker in town hall to a computer system.

Once updated, human collection and error will no longer be part of the process for water system billing.

“It’s not really a meter day, but more like a meter week,” Mack said of the reporting that public works workers have to go through on a monthly basis. “If there is a day that we do have a leak, instead of four guys out there, it’s two guys and that takes extra time. Or they are working overtime to get those bills.”

New systems that the town could use would allow it to see irregularities in spending for its customers.

“These new systems have some sort of dashboard, where you can see every user,” Mack said, as a way to see if there is unnecessary water usage from a leak or other issue at the home.

New lines will be installed on Hemp Street, North Middleton Street from the town limits nearing Spies to the railroad tracks, and Fousher Street behind the Robbins Fire and Rescue Station.

Mack said the new valves are as important as the water lines.

“We put that in there so when we do have leaks we can isolate the problem more efficiently, without turning off the main line,” Mack said.

Construction bidding is expected to begin in a few months, he said. Mack hopes work can start in the spring.

“If we can get bidding and everything done in the late fall, and break ground in the spring, that would be really good,” Mack said.

Since taking over as town manager last July, Mack said this latest financial award is the first major state-run grant the town has received. Other bids the town put in were for sewer system upgrades. After not receiving funding this time around, that application is being resubmitted for another round of funding slated for the fall, Mack said.

Contact Jonathan Bym at (910) 693-2470 or jonathan@thepilot.com.