A meeting was held last week for area leaders to come together and witness what the future of water will hold and how it will be sold in the area.

“This facility is yours. This facility is for the future and present,” said St. Clair County commissioner Paul Manning, who also serves as a board member of the Coosa Valley Water Authority.

He said that the area has changed from people lining the commission chambers who wanted roads fixed to people who are now on public water in areas where the rooftops have sprung up like few could have imagined 20 years ago.

The vast majority of houses and businesses in the area are on public water, Manning explained. He urged leaders from surrounding cities to take heed of what the system can do for their areas they represent and serve.

The system, which stretches from Springville, though Odenville, over the mountain to Ragland—where its main intake is located on the Coosa—is state-of-the-art.

“We don’t know of a system any more modern than this,” Manning said. “We’re living in a time where everything is very restrictive and I’m entering that plea.”

The plant operates at around 1.5—3 million gallons pumped through it a day, but is permitted for up to 12 million. That extra could be used to feed surrounding areas and is something the project overseers are looking into for the immediate future.

The facility can supply St. Clair County’s water on the worst drought day it has seen recently, but the goal is to supplement existing wells.

The new phase of pumping and selling water is a balancing act, explained Batemon. He said he challenged every mayor that questioned the cost to look at what it would have cost to put in a well and pump the water, compared to what the facility is charging.

“That’s an elusive figure, nationwide, Batemon said. “We feel like we have a very good product at a good price.”

He said if the facility gets to always pumping six million gallons a day, then the water would then become “relatively inexpensive to produce.”

Rick Ailiff, President of Clearwater Solutions, which operates the plant, said the board and the systems that came together to create the plant has gone as smooth as he has seen in his 23 years in the business.

He explained that the three-part process of cleaning the water “is the best water quality that I have seen in my career that’s coming out of this plant.”

He said some customers have a different consistency in their systems, but that Clearwater is working closely with surrounding municipalities to make sure the differences in water won’t be affected when pumping from the facility into the surrounding cities.

“We have something here that’s the first in the state,” I’m very proud of it and the quality of work,” said Jimmy Bailey, of Odenville Utilities, who also serves as a CVWA board member. He called the plant a “true jewel” and echoed its ability to serve not only St. Clair County, but surrounding areas.

Board member Earl Peoples from Springville said that droughts in recent years, before the plant came online, saw his area’s water levels drop to the lowest levels he saw in 32 years.

“This has been a long process,” St. Clair County Commission Chairman Stand Batemon said. “It’s  been a tough thing to do, but if it wasn’t tough, you’d see one in every county.”

He said part of the process being so long was finding out what the needs were for the area. Having the water authority formed helped to streamline that process. Other area members such as the cities of Lincoln and Pell City also joined, as did other communities in helping to get all the permits and other necessities when setting up such a huge operation. “The county has been totally behind this process,” Batemon said.

Through the process members traveled around the state and region to look at other facilities that served areas like St. Clair, which is vast and mountainous in places.

Having a clean source to draw on—The Coosa River—was a plus, as was having utilities in the area that would work together to get the project completed.

Some water is also pumped out of a quarry located just off the Coosa, that was formerly used by National Cement.