The Greeneville Water Commission board approved a bid for a riverbank stabilization project at its intake facility along the Nolichucky River during its meeting Thursday morning.
The board approved a $394,400 bid from Robert Clear Coal Company out of Bean Station for the project, which will be entirely funded through a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) grant. There is no local match required for the grant.
USDA officials will oversee the project, according to Greeneville Water Commission Superintendent Laura White.
The Water Commission’s intake facility was heavily damaged by flooding caused by Hurricane Helene in 2024. Crews with the Greeneville Water Commission worked tirelessly repair the building and restore pumping operations, but recovery work at the site continues which includes the stabilization of the surrounding riverbank.
The riverbanks near the intake facility were scoured heavily and destabilized by rushing floodwaters during Helene. The grant-funded riverbank project is expected to include the stabilization of about 200 feet of riverbank on either side of the pump station. The project will see loads of stone brought into the site and rock riprap put in place. According to officials, the stabilization will prevent the banks from eroding further and will prevent the water intake structure itself from being undermined by the river.
The bank stabilization work is expected to take about a month, although the contractor will have up to three months to complete the project according to the timeline outlined in the grant.
In other business, the board voted to install a new SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) system in the utility’s intake facility at a cost of about $22,000.
According to White, the system will allow the pumps at the intake structure to be controlled remotely from the Water Commission’s water treatment plant on Buckingham Road. Once the system is installed, the Water Commission will no longer need to post staff at the intake facility around the clock to manually operate the intake pumps. The components of a similar remote operating system were washed away from the intake structure during Hurricane Helene, and their replacement will be another step toward regular operations for the Water Commission.
