The City of Summerville is receiving a limited amount of water from the Chattooga County Water District and the Town of Trion; but the amount of water is no where near what the city needs to service customers until the water treatment plant on Raccoon Creek Road is back up and running.

Summerville Mayor Harry Harvey said at a press conference on Wednesday afternoon that the city is doing all they can to get the water treatment plant online, but work remains before that happens.  He was hopeful that water could be restored in the next few days but as of Thursday no time lines were being released.

WZQZ News asked Summerville City Manager Janice Galloway about the amount of water could receive from the county.  The city manager said that at this time, the county could only supply 100,000 of gallon per day.  The city manager said that she was not given any explanation from the county water district or Commissioner Blake Elsberry as to why the county was only allowing 100,000 per day.  She did say that the Town of Lyerly is now purchasing water from the county instead of the City of Summerville and speculated that may have something to do with the amount of water the county is willing to sell the city.

The county water system has a tank on top of Taylor’s Ridge that holds 500,000 gallons of water.  The tank is fed by a county-owned well on Butler Dairy Road.  The Butler Dairy well is capable of producing more water than is necessary to fill the tank on top of Taylor’s Ridge daily and supplies water to county customers in Gore and Subligna.  In years past, water usage in the Gore-Subligna area has been around 150,000 per day.

WZQZ News asked County Commissioner Blake Elsberry if there was any reason that the county couldn’t supply the City of Summerville with more water.

We are still waiting on a reply from the commissioner and will pass that information along when it is available.

Eugene Cordle with the Chattooga County Water District sent the following information to WZQZ News on Thursday afternoon:

Thank you for your interest in the ongoing water issue in the City of Summerville. As you know we have been extremely busy bringing in resources and distributing water, and we appreciate WZQZ in helping to keep the public informed on the resources that are available.

The Water Authority was dissolved in 2013. They may have told you at the time that Well 7 was capable of 1 million gallons per day, but in reality, it only produces 720,000 gallons per day.

Before the flood, the county was not supplying water to the city. On Sunday, the city contacted me to see if they could take water from the county’s connection. I advised Terry Tinney that he could do this but he needed to limit the intake of water to 115,200 gallons per day. After the flood, we had a leak in one of our main lines that we isolated, but could not be repaired until the flood water receded. That leak was depleting the tank on Taylor’s Ridge. After the leak was resolved, we notified the city that they could increase the water intake to 172,800 gallons per day.

Our usage from Well 7 and Taylor’s Ridge can be as much as 450,000 gallons per day.

I was not here during the Berryton fire, but after researching, I found that as the fire grew, they realized the city’s water supply was not adequate to fight the fire. So, they decided to put lines directly into the creek and relay the water to fight the fire. No county water was utilized to my knowledge in this incident.

If you have any more questions, please let me know.

Eugene Cordell

Superintendent

Chattooga Co. Water District

706.734.2827