All of the work Brownstown officials and the town’s grant writer put in to obtain funding for a sanitary sewer collection system improvement project has paid off.
On Friday afternoon, Lt. Gov. Eric Holcomb and the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs announced Brownstown is one of 12 rural Hoosier communities receiving Wastewater Drinking Water Program grant funding.
Brownstown will receive $450,000 of the more than $6 million awarded to the 12 communities.
The town will have to come up with $300,000 in matching funds, which most likely will be done through a bond issue, said Brownstown Town Council president John Nolting.
The grant will allow work to begin on the Priority 1 sewer lines and manholes.
“I’m ecstatic,” said Scott Hunsucker, superintendent of Brownstown Wastewater Utility.
He worked with Shannon McLeod of Priority Project Resources of Greensburg to prepare the grant application.
“Considering where the rates are in town and the age of the system, we’ve got a lot of repairs to do in what we need to do first, and that’s what this is setting up to do,” Hunsucker said. “I’m going to fix the worst of the worst with this grant and our part of the match. I’m just glad we got it because I don’t know how we could have done it all, all of the (Priority) 1s and all of the 2s on our own.”
Hunsucker said the work will be bid out near the end of September or first of October so sliplining of the sewers and manholes can begin by the end of the year.
Nolting said the council has had sewer improvements on its radar for the past couple of years.
“We’ve had a number of people that were having sewer issues in town and decided it’s time to do something about this,” he said. “We’re trying to be proactive here rather than being reactive. In other words, we want to do something before we start having sewers collapsing on us and really having major issues.”
Nolting said a lot of credit goes to Hunsucker and McLeod for helping the town receive the grant.
“I’m elated that we got this,” he said. “This is going to let us get going on this project and get started, especially our Priority 1s and Priority 2s that we looked at. This is the first step to get going.”