Progress being made on Cabinet Heights water moratorium

Progress is being made by Libby City officials after it was informed it would need to halt new water connections in a development area, or risk contaminating the municipal water supply in April 2022.

After a municipal water moratorium was issued for Cabinet Heights, a housing development area of the City of Libby, the city has dedicated over $1.1 million in grant dollars to the project – currently in preliminary stages, before approval to engineer the project is given by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality.

In April, Libby City Administrator Saumuel Sikes issued the moratorium on new hookups to the 6-inch water main, which is currently in use. The main serves areas surrounding the Cabinet View Golf Club south of Libby.

Sikes told the city council that recent development in the area was beginning to impact water services for residents, and the fully-tapped main requires the city to pay $2,500 annually in order to circumvent the overburdened water main access, according to prior reporting by the Western News.

In a recent email, Sikes said a site to establish expanded water services was located last month. The site will host a raw water main, a treated water main with customer services and sewer main. Engineering for these services is currently in preliminary stages, after the discovery of the site.

“Once preliminary engineering is complete the project will go to the DEQ for approval,” Sikes said.

The moratorium will remain in place until flow issues are resolved, Sikes said. Replacing the water main is a matter of public safety and there is still no firm timeline set for when a larger 10-inch pipe will replace the current, smaller, water main.

A loss of water pressure could allow contaminated water to enter the municipal water supply, Sikes told the city council.

If the DEQ approves the engineering, the city could potentially break ground in the spring, Sikes said.

“The DEQ does not like to approve anything that is more than ‘adequate’ to fix the current problem without consideration for the future,” Sikes said in an email.

This project may move smoothly because the city has not received or requested any state or federal grants, Sikes said.

Instead, the city has received $638,000 in funding from the American Recovery Plan Act, and will use $463,000 in additional funding from the Capital Improvement plan for a total of $1.1 million dedicated to the project.

“I have conferred with the city engineer and have confirmed that the water pressures are very low or non-existent,” Sikes wrote to the city council in April of his decision to issue the moratorium. “Low pressures are a serious threat to the health and safety of the users.”