Water Woes Continue In One North Mississippi Town, City Leaders Now Growing Frustrated

SALTILLO, MISS. (WCBI) – An alderman in Saltillo said it’s taking too long for the city to switch its water supply and he wants answers and an audit from state officials.

In July, city leaders in Saltillo voted to switch the entire city to river water.

That vote followed months of complaints from citizens who said their water, pumped from city wells,  was often dirty with a foul odor.

Many of those complaints began in October of 2017 when all customers were switched to groundwater from river water.

Three months after the vote to go back to river water, the switch still hasn’t happened.

“It’s just been delayed too long,” said Alderman At Large Copey Grantham.

Grantham said he wants answers, and during Tuesday’s board meeting, he requested that the State Auditor’s Office conduct an audit of Saltillo’s water and sewer department.

“I just want an independent audit, somebody from the outside to come in and tell us what’s going on with or water and sewer system,” Grantham said.  “It’s time to take this seriously, it’s time to take the people of Saltillo seriously, they wanted a change, we listened and it’s time to make a change.”

Mayor Rex Smith said the switch over is taking longer than anticipated for several reasons including higher than expected costs for several parts of the project.

“As we approached the river board about coming back on, there were some things they were going to require us, a little different, and added some costs to it,  we were going to be putting in a new meter,” said Mayor Smith.

Smith said there are also additional engineering and equipment costs that will add about $60,000 to initial estimates.

However, the mayor said things are moving forward.

“People have been good to us, they have been very patient,” Smith expressed. “I will just ask them to be patient a little longer, I know they get tired of hearing that, when it’s all said and done we’re going to have a great water system.”

The mayor said the switch will cost over $100,000.

According to Smith, the city is willing to pay for the switch and will borrow money from outside sources to help them do so.

“The project entails really two different feeds from the river water,” the mayor explained. “One of them we could go ahead and do but my worry is that if we do it now and a couple months down the road we do the other one, we’re going to create some issues there so I would rather just do it at one time, fight those issues whatever they are, and get them taken care of and be done with it.”

The board now has to send it’s interest rate proposal over to Northern District Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley before it can continue to move forward with this project.