Finally, Tobin water problems run smoothly
It’s been close before, but this time it looks like all problems have been resolved and the tiny community of Tobin will get a legal water supply.
That was the word from the Community Development Commission Executive Director Roger Diefendorf when he addressed members of the commission May 21.
The project, which began in 2012, survived one retired executive director, an acting director, and now Diefendorf is seeing it through in his fourth year, he explained.
It’s “finally coming to fruition,” he said.
Supervisor Jeff Engel who has worked long and hard to get the residents of Tobin the water they need finally handled the last issue, Diefendorf explained.
Union Pacific representatives wanted to charge $2,000 for a permit to get access to a bridge. That bridge has held up the project for years, Diefendorf explained earlier.
At first it looked like one size of pipe could be routed across a UP bridge. Then engineers decided the size of the pipe had to be changed.
It’s been one stumbling block after another, but Engel met the last challenge — the use fee — head-on and got the company to waive that cost.
Then there was a misunderstanding between the Stantec contractors that the county is using and the UP contractors. Diefendorf didn’t go into detail about that issue. “I think we resolved that yesterday,” he said.
Diefendorf went on to explain that Stantec representatives might need to go beyond the May 30 deadline to finish this project.
“Did you tell Jeff Wilson?” asked Supervisor Lori Simpson.
Diefendorf said that the head of the Tobin water company was involved at the important steps along the way.
