By Mark Webber
Another step has been taken that might eventually lead to Columbus city water being made available to some Garden City residents.
Approval has been given by the Bartholomew County Commissioners for a local firm, Administrative Resources Association (ARa), to move ahead to apply for a $500,000 grant to bring municipal water to the Garden City Mobile Home Community LLC.
If funds can be obtained through the Indiana Office of Community and Urban Affairs, a line will be connected to a water treatment plant, and extend across property owned by Columbus Regional Health before it reaches Garden Street, which is in reach of the mobile home park, ARa Municipal Program manager Trena Carter said.
The quality of drinking water in the small town southwest of downtown Columbus has been a concern for several years. The Garden City Groundwater Plume site was placed on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Priorities List in December 2013.
“This has been something that has been needed for some time,” commissioners chairman Carl Lienhoop said.
While the mobile home park is hooked up to the city sewer system, it is not served by the city’s water utility at present. Instead, the homes are served by shared wells where pollution has been a concern for several years.
For more on this story, see Friday’s Republic
