Although the infrastructure has been in the ground for a few years for the Towns of Tryon and Columbus and City of Saluda to exchange water, the system still does not work.

The towns are now moving forward, after winning a lawsuit against the project engineer, to hire a new engineer to give an opinion of the system deficiencies and repair cost estimates.

Tryon Town Council met on Oct. 20 and Saluda City Council met on Nov. 9 and approved hiring engineer Jonathan Hollifield to be the new project engineer.

During Tryon’s meeting, town manager Joey Davis said the towns’ three managers and attorney Bailey Nager, who represents all three towns, met and agreed to hire Hollifield since he is familiar with the project.

Tryon commissioner Roy Miller asked what the town’s financial responsibility is on the repairs.

Davis said no one has said they are willing to pay anything above the settlement. Davis said the towns have approximately $150,000 to play with.

The three towns filed a lawsuit against engineer Joel Woods on Oct. 21, 2013 after discovering parts of the interconnect system did not work. The towns won $300,000 in the lawsuit, but after attorney fees, about half of that money will be available to fix the issues.

During Saluda’s October meeting, city manager Jonathan Cannon said an engineer is needed to determine exactly what the deficiencies are and how much it is going to cost to fix the deficiencies.

The towns hired Wood in 2008 to design the construction of a new water line along Howard Gap Road so all three towns could share water resources. With the interconnect, Columbus, Saluda and Tryon would all be connected as well as Polk County, since its water system is connected to Columbus. A lawsuit was filed after the towns discovered that the interconnect system was defective including that Saluda could not send the planned amount of water to Tryon without losing significant water pressure.

Following the $300,000 settlement, the Town of Columbus said it will not agree to put any additional funding towards fixing the system beyond the money won in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit claimed that Wood was negligent by failing to perform studies and/or modeling to determine a reasonable design to provide adequate pressure to meet the towns’ needs; failing to design a system that would provide adequate pressure; failing to recognize during design and construction that the system as designed would not provide adequate pressure; failing to advise the towns during design and construction that the system as designed and built would not provide adequate pressure and failing to advise the towns’ of the need for a fix to the system; and failing to devise and provide a reasonable fix during and after construction.
In September 2009 the engineering plans for the waterline project were approved by the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources (NCDENR) and construction began in early 2010 and continued throughout the year.

In December 2012 after Saluda’s engineer Jonathan Hollifield completed a water model of the city’s system, Saluda discovered that it cannot send water to Columbus and Tryon without straining its water system.
The project between Tryon and Saluda was made possible through a $1.73 million grant that the towns shared from the N.C. Rural Center and a $300,000 grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission. Each town is also sharing the financing of $1.43 million obtained from the North Carolina Drinking Water Fund for the project, totaling $3.46 million. In order to pay back the loan, all towns’ water customers have a monthly user fee.

Columbus Town Council has not yet approved hiring Hollifield as the project’s engineer but meets on Thursday, Nov. 19. An actual contract with Hollifield could be approved by the towns in December.