By CARLOS SANTOS
RICHMOND, Va., Oct. 6, 2000 (Richmond Times-Dispatch)—Plagued by bad well water for decades, 41 families in this small community in rural Nelson County have finally found a solution to the problem - install several miles of a water system with their own sweat and toil.
Yesterday, volunteers began digging with backhoes and shovels to lay some 18,000 feet of an 8-inch main water line that will be hooked to the Lovingston water system.
The project, including smaller lines connecting the homes to the mains, will take about three months before sweet water will be theirs.
Shipman's water stinks. The smell of sulfur in it is readily apparent.
"The geology is part of the problem," said Tim Castillo, head of the Nelson County Service Authority. "There's lots of iron and manganese and some sulfur. The water is very limited in quantity and quality."
The county didn't have enough money to install a water system to all of Shipman. In the early 1980s, parts of Shipman were connected to county water until "the funds ran out and rocks showed up," Castillo said.
Overseeing the current water project are Nelson County officials as well as the state Department of Housing and Community Development.
The Virginia agency is kicking in federal money to make the project work as part of the "Virginia Self-Help" program, which allows communities to offer sweat equity and save hundreds of thousands of dollars.
"By doing it like this, we're helping ourselves and saving tax dollars," said Mildred Crank, a resident of Shipman who is spearheading the project. "This is not an easy thing. . . . We have to dig ditches, lay pipe, lay sand, put up erosion fences."
Shipman, an old railroad town just off U.S. 29 near Lovingston, has too small a population to stand much of a chance to win a full community block grant to install the system.
Chris LaRosa, the community representative for the Department of Housing and Community Development, said "typically, communities like this are too small and too remote for conventional projects. It's too expensive. But if a community is fired up enough to get in the ditch . . . it can work."
"What I like about it, it's a sweat equity deal," said Bernie McGinnis, a longtime Shipman resident and businessman and a volunteer on the project. "It brings the community together and it isn't a handout. It's a partnership."
LaRosa said the self-help idea began in Texas. "We became the second state in the country to initiate it."
Under the self-help program, communities must show a 40 percent saving on the overall cost of the project. At least 51 percent of the households involved also must have low to moderate incomes.
The total cost of the Shipman project was estimated at $650,000 if done by a contractor under a competitive bid. The cost of the project using volunteer labor will be about $315,000, LaRosa said. That money, which will come from federal money administered by the state Department of Housing and Community Development, will be used to rent a backhoe and a trencher and to pay for the pipe and other construction supplies.
The self-help idea is "becoming more and more embraced" in Virginia, said LaRosa, as communities find out about it.
Three water systems were installed under the program in Southwest Virginia in 1998, and five were installed by volunteers in Southwest Virginia in 1999.
Seven projects are either under way or about to begin this year in Sussex, Southampton, Smyth, Buchanan, Wise, Tazewell and Nelson counties.
The first project, in Tazewell County in 1998 near the small community of Smith Ridge, was a "real good success," said Michael Taylor, who got the project moving.
"We averaged 16 or 17 volunteers a day, some working an hour and leaving and some working all day," Taylor said.
A total of 62 homes plagued by scant water were hooked to the Tazewell County water system with a $315,000 community block grant. In all, some 38,000 feet of water line was laid. Officials estimated that a saving of almost $770,000 was realized because of the volunteer work force.
"We didn't have any problems," Taylor said. "The quality of work was great. . . . Everybody is delighted."
Crank, who buys bottled water by the case because her water is too bad to drink, said volunteers are needed especially during the week. Supplies - including food, fuel, gloves, safety shoes and gravel - also are being sought. "Anything we can get, we'll accept," she said.
Churches and civic clubs are being recruited as is the Nelson County Sheriff's Department, which is offering a few offenders who need to work off community service hours. In all, some 60 to 70 Nelson volunteers eventually will be involved in the project.
Yesterday morning, 14 volunteers, including Crank and LaRosa, worked to lay the first stretch of pipe - about 185 feet.
"It was just a glorious day," Crank said. "Everybody seemed happy and worked hard. . . . It was like birth."
© 2000 Richmond Times-Dispatch via Bell&Howell Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved.
