Henderson County Water District Superintendent Mark Julian requested $2.64 million Tuesday from Henderson County Fiscal Court to fix a hemorrhaging county water system that he says leaks more than 40% of its water before getting to customers.
Judge-Executive Brad Schneider, a fiscal conservative, asked, is it enough?
Julian said the money would be enough to get the system to a point in which the district can handle from then on.
Schneider even suggested the possibility of giving more funding than Julian asked for. He said he wanted to avoid an allocation having a “band-aid” effect with Julian returning later asking for more money. But he was firm that the Fiscal Court would help and magistrates agreed.
“I don’t see how at this point we don’t assist,” Schneider said during a nearly 45-minute presentation and discussion about the water district’s needs and plans.
Julian and the water district board find themselves engaged in a Sisyphean effort of sorts—repairing water mains and leaks in one part of the county only for others to come to light in a different part of the county.
Without funding to properly address all the issues, employees are chasing leaks in the aging system that Julian said Tuesday dates to the 1960s when many in the county were getting their water from wells and cisterns. Since the water lines were put in then, not much maintenance has occurred as federal grants designated for that work dried up, Julian said.
According to a Hendersonian article last summer, Julian said the HCWD system has been suffering significant water loss since 2018 which predates Julian’s arrival at his spot by about five years.
Also last summer, the water district applied for grant money from a new state program that designates funding specifically to repair aging water districts across the state, many in the same boat as HCWD.
The local water district applied for $1.125 million from the Kentucky WWATERS program, an initiative created by the 2024 General Assembly and administered by the Kentucky Infrastructure Authority. Julian said Tuesday HCWD didn’t receive the funding because other water districts across the state ranked higher in need.
Add to that, the Kentucky Public Service Commission, which oversees the local water district as well as others across the state, won’t let a district raise rates if its leakage is more than 15%–HCWD’s more than doubles it.
Without funding to address a problem that may be growing, Julian brought his case Tuesday. He also brought a plan to address the aging system. The first piece includes designating five different zones throughout the system and then determining which zone has the largest amount of leakage, he said. That zone of highest leakage would be worked on first, he said.
Julian said the water district would work to get a better representation of the entire system through GIS. Currently, much of the knowledge of piping throughout the system is contained in old paper maps, he said.
He also plans for advanced leak detection throughout the system, targeted repairs and upgrades and real-time monitoring that both the district and customers can view. Julian said he wants the system to reach below 35% leakage in 18-24 months and below 20% in 24-36 months.
Additionally, Julian laid out future projects, much of what would be handled by the water district once it regains its financial footing. In addition to advanced metering infrastructure implementation, he said ongoing service line replacement and water main replacement are needed. Those projects total $13 million-plus, he said.
Magistrate Taylor Tompkins agreed with the need for funding, but was adamant that the water district needs to get it right and needs to offer a more detailed plan to the Fiscal Court about what will occur.
“Where does the buck stop?” he said.
Schneider asked that Julian return to Fiscal Court for a later meeting with a detailed project timeline from beginning to end, completion goals and another detailed plan in place to prevent future system problems. He also said the water district would need to report monthly to the Fiscal Court.
“I’ll be back as soon as possible,” Julian said.