Residents of Sunnyside Park in Jefferson say they have have lived with bad water for years.

Finally they are on the brink of a solution – hooking onto the town water system.

Monday night’s meeting of the Jefferson Board of Aldermen was just the latest in a long line of meetings between the residents and the town over this situation. Town Manager Cathy Howell said there had been problems with the community’s water (too much iron) since before she came to work for the town in 1989. In previous meetings, residents wanted help, she said, but decided against whatever solutions the town offered, which at one time included annexation.

That is still a solution, said Alderman Charles Caudill, but the one chosen by the residents is for them to split the cost with the town to hook onto the town’s system. If they can get 20 of the residential households to participate, the cost for each household would be $3,050, paid over five years. A pretty good deal, said Howell, noting that the town will shoulder more than half the cost by increasing the line to loop around the community.

Once hooked on, the residents will have to pay out-of-town water costs, which is double that for residents within the town limits. If annexed, the community would pay far less for hookup, perhaps around $500, but would then be subject to town taxes and recipients of all the town’s services such as police protection, street maintenance and trash pickup.

Speaking for the group of residents that filled town hall Monday night, Rick Ashley said they are anxious to hook on but wanted the best deal possible. Howell said she had taken out of the original contract (which would have been about $4,700 for each household) all costs related to the tap, leaving only construction costs and engineering fees. That left the residents with the $3,050 cost that can be paid over five years in equal installments. The entire cost would have to be paid before a home could be sold, and any new residents hooking on would pay the same costs to the town.

While the residents are more than anxious for the hookup – one showed a glass of dirty water and another said she would pay the fee the next day – the town anticipates hookup availability in a month or more. The work has been done, and the taps are ready, but the engineers must do a final inspection and the town must await state approval before turning on the water. Residents must also take it upon themselves to extend lines from their homes to the tap. Howell said some have the ground already dug up for lines simply waiting for the go-ahead. And the first installment on the payment (about $610) must be paid before the town will turn on the water.

Howell said she understands the residents’ concerns. She used to live in that area of town and could not wash her white clothes at home because of the level of iron in the water. There is a vein of iron that runs under the ground in that part of town, she said, which was probably not apparent when the community was established in the late 70s or early 80s.

In other business at the meeting, the board said it would look into a complaint from residents of Faw-Roland Street about an allegedly derelict house on the street with many adult residents, trash in the yard, high grass, noise and other problems. Residents of that street asked about a town ordinance being established to restrict the number of adults that could live in a single family home or requiring certain upkeep of a home. They said such a situation devalues their own homes.

The board was invited by Alderman Gwen Ashley to meet next month at the Museum of Ashe County History, and plan to do so on Monday, Aug. 23 at 7 p.m.