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Farmville’s water and sewer infrastructure needs some work. That’s not a surprise. In fact, it’s why the town council hired Hurt & Proffitt to do an asset management plan. Matt Gross from the company gave a presentation on what they found during the council’s Wednesday, Feb. 5 meeting. 

“The purpose of an asset inventory is, in this case, tracking the water and sewer features that you have for water lines, valves, hydrants, manholes, sewer lines,” Gross said. “You can plan upgrades and replacements, track and plan for the future better.”  

There just seemed to be some confusion over exactly how many hydrants and manholes the town actually has. Gross said at the first kickoff meeting, the company was told Farmville had 283 fire hydrants. During the second meeting, they were told the number was around 300. Public Works later indicated they had a map that said Farmville had 400. 

“We actually found around 460,” Gross said. “We ended up driving every street and categorizing every hydrant. We detailed when the fire hydrant was manufactured, who the manufacturer was and what type of fittings were inside.” 

The problem, Gross said, is due to the age of some of the hydrants in town. 

“Some of these fire hydrants have been in your system more than 65 years,” Gross said. “And if you put a theoretical lifespan on them, you’ve got fire hydrants you need to start planning for replacement.” 

A similar sewer issue 

There’s similar problems with the sewer system, Gross said. The company surveyed more than 1,300 in town, with the issues mainly due to the manholes.  

“We found a lot of problems with some of your manholes, including three we recommended urgent repairs for,” Gross said. 

Some of the problems involved leaks or areas where water was getting into the manholes and into the sewer system. The town is paying then to treat all that excess water. Other manholes were under asphalt. Davis explained that those are mainly ones the town inherited through the years, after taking an area into its sewer system. 

The main problem, Gross said, didn’t involve leaks or covered up manholes. Instead, it involved areas where the manholes aren’t shielded from rain just pouring in. 

“If you have runoff from the rain running over the top of a manhole, and there’s holes in the top, one inch of rain is about 10 gallons a minute going into the system,” Gross said. All of that, he pointed out, is water the town is paying to treat, even though it’s not needed. “One manhole lid with 12 holes, where water can go into it, that’s a lot of water getting into your system.” 

He mainly suggested a cheap and quick fix, involving either covering the holes or putting something under them, to limit how much water can get through. 

What about capacity? 

So what about max capacity? Both Gross and Davis told the council Farmville was nowhere near the maximum capacity for sewer. 

“When the university and the college are in session, we treat about 1.1 to 1.2 million gallons a day,” Davis said. “Our (maximum) plan is 2.9 million gallons. As far as treatment is concerned, we’re not at capacity.” 

The question had been a topic originally raised during last year’s council retreat, both about the condition of the system and capacity.  It’s been brought up a couple times since then, as the Farmville council looks to get an idea of what the infrastructure looks like. 

Council member Adam Yoelin asked if, now that they have the data, does that mean the town has what it needs to move forward on repairs? 

“That was the whole reason for this, so that we can start planning budgetary how we can start (repairs),” Davis said. 

Water and sewer infrastructure improvements will be included as part of the upcoming budget discussions.