Dixon looks at joining KYWARN

by Matt Hughes

J-E News Editor

The Dixon Commission was in session on Monday, with Commissioner Arthur Junior Little acting as mayor in place of Mayor Linda Frederick who was absent from the meeting.

“The mayor is not going to be here,” Little told the other commissioners. “I don’t know too much about what’s going on, but I’ll try to do the best I can.”

With the guidance of city attorney Ben Leonard, the commission moved forward with their brief agenda.

The only real item was a proposal from Dixon water operator Jamie Harkins for the city to join a program called KYWARN, a Mutual Aid Agreement and process for sharing emergency resources statewide between water and wastewater utilities.

“KYWARN will put us in an online database,” Harkins explained. “If we ever have a disaster, we can call these folks for help. If there is something we need but don’t have, we can call them and have access  to borrow it from another member.”

The program has 64 current members which include a number of utilities in close proximity to Dixon. Clay Water and Sewer, Dawson Springs Water and Sewer and the Webster County Water District are the closest.

Webster County Water Superintendent Paul Lashbrooke is a member of the KYWARN Steering Committee.

Harkins explained that, in the event of a disaster, if Dixon was in need of a certain size of water line but didn’t have it, he could search the KYWARN database for that line. 

“It’ll show you a list of those closest to you who have what you’re looking for,” he said. “If I borrowed a piece from Owensboro, I’d be responsible for replacing it.”

During an emergency, KYWARN will match equipment, resources, and personnel with those best available within the KYWARN network. KYWARN will coordinate relief efforts for the donating and receiving utility through the incident command center. KYWARN will work with the corresponding local, state, and federal agencies as necessary.

“Even if you are a member, you don’t have to help if someone calls,” Harkins said. “But being neighbors, that’s just what neighbors do.”

“It sounds like a good thing,” said Little. “We might never use it, but it would be a good thing to have.”

The KYWARN agreement requires the signature of the mayor, so commission members decided to wait until Mayor Frederick was back in town to pursue the issue further.

In other business, Harkins told the commission that he had recently been contacted about the water meters that had been removed during recent upgrades to the city’s water lines.

“There is a company in Houston, Texas called Global Industrial Supply,” he said. “They buy those meters and sell them overseas. I’m not sure, but I think you would have to declare them surplus so we could sell them.”

“It would have to be declared surplus,” agreed Leonard. “Just to be proper I think we need to put it on the agenda for the next meeting so we can have a vote on it.”

Harkins told the commission that he had already checked the value of the meters at a couple of local salvage  yard. Global has said it would pay the value of the brass that is in the meters, which is the same price they would get at a salvage yard. The only difference is that the salvage yards would want the brass and copper separated, while Global wants the meters as is.

The only other business of the night was a brief discussion of the city’s Christmas lights, which have yet to be removed. Harkins said that he was waiting for the rain to stop, then he was going to get someone from the Webster County Jail to use a bucket truck to take them down.

“The only thing is, if we use these lights next year, we’ll have to do something different,” he told the commission. “Three of them were hit by trucks.”

With no other business, the commission adjourned.