The city of Sturgis’s plan to shut down its water plant and move to the county water system is a good economic decision. That’s the opinion of Department for Local Government Commissioner Tony Wilder. He said the 34-year old Sturgis water plant spends 40-thousand dollars a year to meet current cleaning standards. Wilder said it’s cheaper for Sturgis to connect to the Morganfield plant than to build a new local one.“And over the past few years particularly, there have been a lot of EPA standards applied that are new and more stringent, and that always results in higher costs for smaller utilities," Wilders said. "So it makes a lot of sense sometimes to regionalize and we’re encouraging that across the state and there have been a number of communities do that.”
The Sturgis plant has received 33 Notices of Violation since 2004 for unsafe methane and gas levels in water. But Public Works Superintendent Jeff Wilson says the current water is violation-free. The state announced nearly four million dollars last week to fund the water project. It should be completed next year.
