WCSA recently completed the Mendota Road Water Line Extension Project, which continued the installation of water line infrastructure begun approximately 20 years ago, and provided service to 62 additional residences along a more than eight-mile section of Mendota Road. It also allowed these residences to be served by WCSA’s water system from its Middle Fork Water Treatment Plant.
Residents in the Mendota community previously relied on wells, cisterns and springs for their water. Bacteriological testing revealed total coliform bacteria in numerous water samples, which represented a health risk to the users of these private water supplies. In addition, residents reported that their water was insufficient in quantity.
Public water service was first made available to the Mendota community in 1993 when WCSA constructed a water line to supply the community and a short portion of Mendota Road served by the Mendota Well. Nearly a decade later, the service authority implemented a series of projects that added additional infrastructure along Mendota Road, which provided service for 38 residences.
In 2013, WCSA constructed a water line that extended east along Mendota Road from the Scott County line to the end of the service authority’s existing line. In 2018, a majority of the residents living along the remaining unserved section of Mendota Road indicated they wished to participate in the water line extension project. A feasible funding offer was not received until 2021, when the Virginia Department of Health offered $5.5 million in grant funding for the project.
Although water line installation began in January 2023, the project had to be scaled back due to construction costs exceeding existing funding. WCSA began pursuing additional funding to complete the entire water line. By the summer of 2023, approximately 30,000 linear feet of water line has been installed.
Between January and summer’s arrival, WCSA worked to acquire additional funding to complete the remaining 3.1-mile section of the water line. These efforts resulted in WCSA receiving funding from the Virginia Department of Health Office of Drinking Water and an additional $1,184,000 to complete the project.
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