FAIRHOPE — Federal COVID-19 rescue funding could help Fairhope pay for several projects needed to improve water and sewer services as the city expands, officials said Monday, Feb. 14.

Mayor Sherry Sullivan said city officials are meeting with the Alabama League of Municipalities and Alabama Department of Environmental Management to discuss using money from the American Rescue Plan Act to pay for projects to expand the water and sewer system as the city grows and replacing aging pipes.

She said projects in Alabama will be eligible for up to $765 million in funding over the next five years.

"It will pay for pre-engineering, the money will, depending on which bucket that you get money out of, but they have asked us just to submit our projects," Sullivan said. "They are due by June 1 and once you submit your projects, they will determine which bucket of money they use because they have tons of it coming down and this is only the first pot. There will be more that will come down as well."

Jason Langley, city water and sewer superintendent, said one project now being considered is laying a larger water main to meet growing demands.

"The first one is the 24-inch water main that we've been working on, on County Road 33 from Treatment Plant 3 back to town to the 3-million-gallon tank there at Walmart," Langley said.

He said the estimated cost of the project is about $6 million. He said engineering on that project is about 75% complete and work could start soon.

Another planned project is to improve the area of the city's sewage treatment plant that receives the wastewater, known as the headworks, Langley said. The City Council voted Monday, Feb. 14 to hire the company Garver LLC to begin engineering work on the headworks.

"We've discussed that in the past. It's on the agenda tonight if there's money in the budget to do the preliminary engineering and then to move forward with whatever you all decide to help us with, on what that's going to consist of, but it's going to be a sizable project," Langley told council members.

He said a "shot in the dark," estimate was that the project might cost $3 million to $4 million.

Langley said the plant can process up to 4 million gallons of sewage a day, but the headworks needs improvements to keep up with the flow. He said that in the last month a manhole overflowed outside the plant during heavy rains because the headworks could not process the amount of material flowing to the facility.

"It's just the preliminary review of the headworks to get it to where we need with the flows that we've got coming in and the headworks is the bottleneck of the whole plant that's where you have our major issues when we have heavy rains," Langley said.

He said the demands on the system are increasing as the city grows. By the time the plant is expanded, the demand will also have increased.

"You set that goal and you meet it, and growth has outrun what your goal originally was," he said. "So, if you set that plant up for today, the loading on that plant is 2 ½, 3 million gallons a day, that's what we're talking about. By the time that we get that in place, I won't even be here. I'll be retired and gone, but by the time it's in place, you're treating 4 to 6 million gallons a day."

Two other projects that could be funded with ARPA money include replacing old lines in the Fruit and Nut Section in Fairhope and increasing the size of water mains on Baldwin County 32 to move water from Treatment Plant 3 to the south side of Fairhope.

"That's going to be the water system from this point forward and it's to get the water back to town on the south side," Langley said.