Gladstone soon to get new pipes for water

By Scott Marshall


Published: August 20, 2008

Nelson County authorities will break ground next week for a system that will provide clean water to more than a dozen Gladstone households that otherwise would be stuck with a 70-year-old system that coughs up water brackish enough to brown their clothes.

The project will cost about $480,000 and should be finished in about 150 days, said Tom Castillo, executive director of the Nelson County Service Authority.

Grant money will come from the rural development program within the federal Agriculture Department.

Authorities identified the need two years ago but bids last spring were over budget, said Castillo, who credited Rep. Virgil Goode for helping get the funds.

Work to replace the system, which includes pipes that move water eight-tenths of a mile, could begin as early as next month.

A total of 17 households in Gladstone will use the new water-sewer system, which will replace a spring-fed system in which water traversed pipes that were sloughing rust and other impurities.

“Basically, the system was constructed by the railroad in the 1930s,” Castillo said. The pipes were such a problem that the service authority began flushing them monthly, then twice monthly and then every 10 days.

CSX Railroad turned over the water system to the service authority in 1997.

The water system is the only gravity-fed system in Nelson County.

The new pipes will increase water pressure and quality and also improve water storage, Castillo said.