City leaders meet with Frankfort water officials, discuss pipeline; initial estimate of cost is about $1.25 million

City Council Member John Holloway, Mayor Grayson Vandegrift
and Council Member Bruce Southworth posed for a picture during
their tour of the Frankfort water plant. (Photo provided by Vandegrift)

Midway city leaders held their first meeting yesterday with Frankfort Electric and Water Plant Board officials about the city's plan to build a pipeline to Frankfort, to replace Kentucky American Water Co. as its wholesale water supplier.

"All are in agreement that it is a very doable project with benefits to both entities," Mayor Gayson Vandegrift said in an email. "This was just an initial discussion, so we didn’t nail down absolutes, but we are going to continue moving forward with this project to potentially become a wholesale customer of the Frankfort Plant Board no later than 2025."

Vandegrift toured the Frankfort water plant with City Council Members John Holloway and Bruce Southworth. "All agreed that it’s very impressive," the mayor wrote. "While the current treatment facility was built in 1974, the only things that old are the concrete; they’ve been very diligent about continually investing in technology, most things in the plant are less than 20 years old, with a significant portion newer than 10 years."

The mayor said the next meetings "will involve more engineering and discussions of probable cost"of a 12-inch pipeline to the Frankfort system at Duckers. "Initial estimates are around $1.25 million. However, as previously mentioned, the FPB wholesale rate of $2.55 per 1000 gallons is significantly less" than Kentucky American, even more so since the state Public Service Commission recently gave the company 18.5 percent of the 21.5% rate increase it requested, Vandegrift said

The new rate will be $4.796 per 1,000 gallons. The current rate is $4.053, plus a tax of about 16 cents a gallon that is passed through to the Kentucky River Authority. The tax would apply to water from Frankfort, which also gets its water from the river.