BY GREGORY A. HALL
The Cincinnati Enquirer
FORT MITCHELL -- Five Northern Kentucky counties could be drawing their water from the same well, so to speak.
Kenton, Campbell, Boone, Grant and Pendleton all need more water and face huge costs to provide it to residents and businesses. The counties are looking at buying water from the same source -- either the Northern Kentucky Water Service District or a private company.
The county officials foresee two possible benefits for the 385,000 residents in the five-county area.
The first is the extra water that's needed to meet growth demands could be provided more cheaply if all buy from one source.
Customers "don't care where it comes from," Kenton Judge-executive Rodney "Biz" Cain said Monday alongside his four counterparts. Secondly, they believe privatization could save money.
The Northern Kentucky Water Service District, which already provides water to parts of four of the five counties, plans to build a new treatment plant -- expected to cost between $75 million and $100 million -- to meet future demands.
Also, Grant and Pendleton officials have been discussing building a dam to serve the water needs of both counties.
"It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I think," Mr. Cain said. The roughly 20 separate water districts within the counties would still distribute the water on their own to customers.
And any private firm would have to buy existing water treatment plants from districts that would be turning that role over to the new company.
The possibilities, announced at a news conference Monday, will now be investigated by various county officials and discussed locally.
A decision could be made in about three months, said Campbell Judge-executive Ken Paul, who supports the study.
"It's going to have to be proven out on paper," he said.
The timing is crucial, Kenton officials said, because the Northern Kentucky district is planning an expansion into southern and western Kenton County that would put water lines close to Grant and Pendleton.
The pipes for that project, expected to start in November, would have to be resized and extended farther to serve the outer counties. "It has possibilities," said Dennis Willaman, general manager of the Northern Kentucky Water Service District that serves about 200,000 people now.
Some private companies are willing to treat drinking water and sell it to districts, even if they don't distribute the water themselves.
"I really can't speak for how many bids you'd have on that, but it is one of the options out there," Mr. Willaman said.
The treatment facility currently being planned was going to be located in western Boone County. Mr. Willaman said serving the southern parts of Grant and Pendleton counties could force a new, more central location and would increase the current cost estimate of up to $100 million.
"Getting five counties to agree on something is going to take some effort but it can be done," he said. "There's nothing that I see that should stop this."
Rob Thrun, an architect for Kenton County, said new environmental regulations should encourage smaller water districts to go along with buying from a central provider.
"The technology for that is very hard to do on a local basis," he said.
