Richmond Hill awarded $3 million loan for sewer system

RICHMOND HILL, Ga. (WTOC) - The city of Richmond Hill was awarded a $3 million loan for its sewer system.

The loan will help finance the installation of water main, sewer force main, and reuse water main infrastructure.

The loan will be paid off in about 20 years or so and Assistant City Manager Scott Allison says the city believes in infrastructure before development, and before the new Belfast Keller Interchange is done, they want to make sure the city’s sewer and waste infrastructure is in place first.

Allison says the loan was given to them through the Georgia environmental financing authority, which is who they borrow money from to do water and sewer projects.

He says phase one of the current sewer and waste project is about 95 percent done. Crews have been busy installing new pipes so the area around the new interchange will be ready if future businesses are built.

Phase two, which is currently in progress, is a critical phase because that is when they tie the sewer into the waste water sewer plant.

He says by doing this it will help preserve the amount of water in the city, not only that but it will save other manufacturers money as well.

“Our waste water treatment plant has the ability to send reused water back to the customers and from the waste water treatment plant is the treated sewer. It’s reused water that we can’t drink but it’s used in manufacturing, it’s used for irrigation purposes. The quicker we can get that around the interchange there are a number of industries that would love to come to that space and utilize that reused water it saves them a lot of money.”

Allison says phase two should be done by August or September.

He says for the final phase they are not sure how much money they will need to borrow, but the maximum amount of money they can get for each phase is $3 million.

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