By Myrna Trauntvein
Times-News Correspondent

Tuesday evening, Nephi City held a public hearing to receive public input with respect to the issuance of water revenue bonds and a bond anticipation note.
Just five interested Nephi citizens were on hand to discuss the issuance of those water revenue bonds.
In attendance to discuss the issue were Donald Ball, Max Bramall, Norma Bramall, Madaline Davis and Kent Jones.
"The water revenue bonds and bond anticipation note are needed to finance the construction of important water system improvements and with respect to any potential economic impact to the private sector from the construction of the improvements project to be funded by the bonds and the note," said Mayor Mark Jones.
It is expected that the project will cost approximately $19 million.
The Nephi Culinary Water Improvements Project—2017, is a major culinary water improvements project and will allow the system to meet culinary water system standards now and as projected for the next 20 years.
"I haven't lived her for 50 years," said Kent Jones, "but I support you. We have had unbelievable low rates."
"We still want to keep the rates as conservative as possible," said Mayor Jones.
"We can see that you have not made a five-minute decision," said Norma Bramall.
She said it was evident that a lot of time and planning had gone into the proposal.
Max Bramall agreed and said that they could tell that a lot of work had gone into the plan and proposal.
On December 20, 2016, the mayor and city council of Nephi City adopted a resolution declaring the intention to issue its Water Revenue Bonds and Bond Anticipation Note pursuant to the Utah Government Bonding Act, Title 11, Chapter 14, Utah Code Annotated 1953, as amended and to call a public hearing to receive input from the public with respect to the issuance of the Bonds.
The public hearing on January 17 was held for that purpose.
"We almost saved 1 percent on the interest when we locked the funding in by the end of December," said Jones.
Randy McKnight, city administrator, said that the existing culinary water system does not meet all of the current standards set forth in the Utah Division Drinking Water Systems Rules.
The base rate for culinary water had recently been changed to make the request of the city for grant and loan funding from USDA Rural Development to finance important improvements to the culinary water system more appealing to those agencies.
"When we go ask government agencies for money, they ask us what rates we charge," said Jones. "If we do not charge enough, then it is hard to get a loan and grant."
"The culinary water source capacity and storage capacity are currently inadequate to meet requirements of the rules," McKnight said. "In addition, many distribution pipelines are undersized."
A large percentage of the system cannot meet the 1,000 gallons per minute (gpm) minimum fire flow required by the state, under peak-demand conditions, and the system is far short of the targeted fire flows of 1,500 gpm for residential areas and 3,000 gpm for industrial areas.
"Many existing fire hydrants are undersized and several fire hydrants in the system are over 70 years old," said McKnight.
The system also needs additional valves and unnecessarily large areas of the system are routinely required to be isolated in order to repair leaks or conduct maintenance.
With the exception of the recent sub-divisions and the blue storage tank, which is 44 years old, most of the system is at least 50 years old or older.
M. Bramall asked about the plan for water storage.
McKnight said that there would be two additional culinary water storage tanks constructed which would add an additional 3 million gallons of storage capacity. One of those would be on the north and one on the south.
Those storage improvements will include a small booster pump system to fill and circulate water in one remote tank.
The question was asked if the construction would tear up the streets as had been done in the recent Main Street Improvement Project.
"We have 26-miles of water main which need to be replaced," said McKnight.
Approximately 1,555,000 feet of PVC pipe and fittings would be used to replace undersized main pipelines throughout the city and small-diameter, cast-iron, lead-joint pipelines will also be replaced where possible.
That would mean that many of the streets in town would need to be disrupted for replacement.
Rehabilitation, reconstruction and upgrading of existing system wells will be done in order to provide an additional 3,400 gpm of culinary water source capacity. An additional culinary well may be purchased or constructed if required to meet the projected required source capacity.
"We have 13,000 acre feet that we can draw," said Larry Ostler, city council member.
The project calls for new meters to be added or upgraded for all wells and springs, chlorination system upgrades to ensure that the culinary water system meets disinfection requirements, approximately 220 new system mainline valves, approximately 140 new fire hydrants and a system-wide SCADA system to monitor and control various culinary system components.
In addition, the project is designed to combine the output of Upper and Lower Bradley Springs into the existing Upper Bradley Spring transmission pipeline, which is deteriorated.