Most LCWSC customers are drinking Lake Greenwood water - more work for full permit.
In June, customers of the Laurens County Water and Sewer Commission to start to receive notices, see newspaper advertisements, and view on the agency’s website legal notices about tests for chlorine in the water. It is the final step in obtaining a permit to operate the Lake Greenwood Water Treatment Plant from the SC Department of Health and Environmental Control.
One of Laurens County’s largest ever infrastructure projects, the Lake Greenwood Water Treatment Plant, and its nearby raw water intake near Camp Fellowship, is fully operational. It has a partial permit and is legal to operate. But, not only operate, the plant is supplying most of the water now for LCWSC’s massive distribution system.
An area of Northern Laurens County still gets its water, purchased by LCWSC, from the Greenville Water System. LCWSC also has partnership agreements with the City of Clinton and the Laurens Commission of Public Works (Lake Rabon).
The Lake Greenwood water comes up Hwy 221, through Waterloo and to the Raider Road pumping station, for the area outside Laurens, and along Hwy 72, for the area outside Clinton and the Joanna community. LCWSC has a new tank at Milam Road.
LCWSC also is replacing the tank in Hickory Tavern (in a separately funded project) and is negotiating with Laurens CPW for the Raider Road tank. The agency also has 3 of the 5 infrastructure projects before the Laurens County Council for consideration with the ARPA Money (ARPA is the Biden Administration’s American Rescue Plan Act) and recently received a $2 million federal grant for a jobs-creation water project in Gray Court.
It is an agency that stresses growth - $323,875 in contributed capital for water line extensions during the last 3 years (non-industrial) and 429 new water taps installed for this fiscal year. There were 101 installations for the month of March.
“That exceeds the (new taps) budget for the year,” Jeff Field, executive director, told the LCWSC board at its April 26 meeting.
At the Lake Greenwood Water Treatment Plant, technicians will be working with ozone to mitigate taste and smell issues, working closely with their counterparts in Greenwood County to perfect this science.
They also will have to do a tracer study, which shows how quickly the water moves through the clear well, as a requirement for a full permit to operate.
Field acknowledged that recent supply-chain issues have slowed some projects - especially ones requiring steel. The Hickory Tavern Tank, budgeted out at $2.2 million two years ago and funded by sales tax, now is expected to top out at $3 million.
