The City of Monmouth has been pursuing multiple grants to help build a new water treatment plant and above ground storage to provide an adequate supply of water throughout the city and for the Americold and Smithfield plants. City Administrator Lew Steinbrecher says this option to purchase water system improvement is a $12 million project:
“That project is intended to ensure an adequate supply of water throughout the entire community and also to accommodate some expansion plans at Smithfield as they have indicated that might occur in the next couple of years out there. We entered into that purchase agreement last year with the option to expire on December 31st of this year. In the meantime, we applied for four different grants. We are still waiting to hear back on those grants. We did receive one grant in the amount of $2 million, but we still have three other grant applications that we have not heard. There is a need for us to extend the option on about 2.5-acre tract of land on the north side of town, west of Smithfield, and west of Americold.”
A motion was made to extend the option to purchase for another year in order to secure more funding for the project. The motion was approved by City Council.
**Written by Director of Communications Kelsey Crain**
