County Commission looking at helping JEA extend water services

Madison County Commission Chairman Mike Taylor is encouraging his fellow Commissioners to approve a resolution at their monthly meeting on Monday, Aug. 19, that there is some pushback on.

The resolution does affect the financial future of the County, but that effect isn’t immediate.

Taylor said he had conversations with leadership at Jackson Energy Authority about if they have any plans of moving infrastructure to the western portions of the county to give them services like water and sewer.

JEA COO Ryan Porter was at the Commission’s Republican caucus on Tuesday to discuss the matter.

“If the county is going to grow in any direction, it’s going to be on the western end with Blue Oval and everything going on over there,” Taylor said. “And I reached out to JEA to ask them about any prospects of extending water and sewer services to that end of theunty in the next few years.”

Porter answered that question.

“It is in our long-term plans, but it’s not anything we’d act on anytime soon because of the cost,” Porter said.

As of right now, JEA water and wastewater pipes extend westward down Highway 70 to the intersection with State Highway 223 near McKellar-Sipes Regional Airport. They extended the pipes a few hundred yards within the last decade when Central Distributors built their facility about a half-mile west of the intersection on 70.

Taylor’s specific discussion was about extending both of those pipes to Providence Road to have them available if anyone had interest in putting a housing development in that area near Exit 68 off Interstate 40.

The current cost estimate for the extension would be about $24 million, and Taylor asked if those plans could be moved up on their priority list if the County were to commit to paying for half the project.

Porter told the caucus there wouldn’t be a definite yes or no to the question until the JEA Board met to discuss it, which wouldn’t happen until the Commission approved the resolution.

There was discussion at the caucus about tabling the vote to give residents of the area a chance for their voice to be heard before any kind of commitment were made, but the ultimate decision was to go ahead with the vote to initiate the process because it would still be a long-term project.

No developers have been contacted. No official talks have been had with anyone who might be involved in this other than the County and JEA.

One concern Commissioner Gary Tippett had – who’s one of two Commissioners who represent most of the area in question – was about annexation into the City of Jackson if JEA were to be servicing the area.

There’s no requirement for any area that JEA services with water and wastewater treatment to be inside the city limit. And cities no longer have the ability to annex land without permission of the landowners, so any annexation that will happen will if anyone who owns any land there were to ask to be annexed.

“A lot of developers now won’t develop without the use of water and sewer lines,” Taylor said. “So I think giving them that option as soon as possible might stimulate growth in that area.

“When you’re in that area and near the interstate, you’re about 45 minutes away from Memphis, which is what a lot of the people at Blue Oval want.”

If the resolution were to be approved on Aug. 19 and the JEA Board were to approve the project, Porter said they’re still at least 18 months before the first work would be done because of all the surveying and planning that would need to be done before putting the first shovel into the ground.

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news