Washington Court House City Manager Joe Denen discussed the city’s current water levels during Wednesday’s council meeting.

Currently, the total water reservoirs are at 154 million gallons while the available water is at 114 million gallons. Denen explained the reason the available water is less is due to difficulty in withdrawing water, as the water level gets lower in a reservoir—as there is sedimentation.

Denen explained, “Well number eight is pumping away and that gets you 2.8 million gallons per day. The farm wells—and you see those if you walk around the reservoir out by the YMCA that the pipe dumps in there, that’s the water from those. You get 0.6 million gallons per day.”

According to Denen, the average demand for water is 1.5 million gallons per day.

“So you’re still in very good shape,” he said. “It’s been dried up long enough that we’re going to continue to keep a close eye on that. We have been pumping a bit out of the creek.”

Other updates from Denen during the meeting included a quick mention that Washington Avenue is near completion and that “Red Mile” has had action taken to address citizen concerns.

The Washington Avenue construction is an Ohio Department Of Transportation (ODOT) project that, according to the ODOT website, began in April and has an investment of $3,385,000. The strip of Washington Avenue that has been closed for the project for multiple months now is between Columbus Avenue and Stuckey Road.

Although the initial completion date for the project was in October, the date has been pushed back due to various setbacks, as previously reported.

The project includes a new storm system, gutters, sidewalks, street and water main line along with driveway approaches for the residents.

“Red Mile—the houses that are under construction out there,” said Denen, “(City attorney) Mr. (Mark) Pitstick sent the builder a letter saying that we have observed that they are in a nuisance condition and the builder responded to that letter. (Building & zoning inspector) Mr. (Rod) Bryant has been out and had a meeting with the builder at the site and location to talk about the issues that we are concerned about with those houses.”

“The builder was directed to make repairs as soon as possible so that they can be secured,” he further explained. “To do clean-up work. Specifically, with the dumpster and all the mud they’ve tracked out on the street, and that is something that we will continue to work closely and pay attention to what is going on there and move that along.”

Denen then thanked council for paying attention to the Red Mile complaints and said they may need to continue paying attention to the project.

Two different types of legislation that council addresses are ordinances and resolutions. The first time legislation is seen and approved by council it is placed on a first reading, the second time on a second reading and the third time on a third reading. Adoption of new legislation can occur once ordinances are placed on the third reading and resolutions are placed on the second reading.

There were only two ordinances addressed. Both were placed on second reading and are pertaining to the 2020 fiscal budget.

While each ordinance has several categories, as previously reported, some of those categories pertain to Fund 101, costs of staffing, paving and durable equipment investments for the service department, debt retirement, projects such as the Waste Water Treatment Plant and the Temple Street Bridge Project, etc.

One ordinance has a list of appropriations showing a grand total of $47,844,765 while the other ordinance has a list of appropriations with a grand total of $2,917,880.

Reach Jennifer Woods at 740-313-0355 or on Twitter @JennMWoods.