BusinessTN

Two new water lines will change lives in Marion County.

The first will connect Bridge-port, Ala., to Orme, Tenn., on the Cumberland Plateau. Once a thriving coal-mining town, Orme, population 145, seemed to dry up when industry did. Now the nearby spring is drying up, too. By late summer, Orme had four hours a day of running water--and that was hauled in by truck. Mayor Tony Reames says the grant-funded, two-mile line will end years of summer drought.

A few miles east, another water line is being laid. This one, paid for by Maryville developer Mike Ross, connects Rarity Club, his gated community on Nickajack Lake, to South Pittsburg on the Tennessee River 17 miles away. Mayor Howell Moss expects the 1,000-home development will change more than just the landscape of Marion County--it will also change the lifestyle, doubling the county's tax base.

Rarity Club is just one of 18 planned developments in Marion County; other Sequatchie Valley counties are booming as well. Some 20 new subdivisions are underway in Sequatchie County, where tax assessor James Condra estimates the population has grown 26% in five years.

Throughout the valley and its flanks, the Cumberland Plateau and Walden Ridge, out-of-state homebuyers are thrilled by the high vistas and low cost of living, and developers are busily accommodating them. Dan Graber of Sequatchie Mountain LLC says that company will spend $1.5 million just to pump water 1,000 feet up Walden Ridge to its newest venture, Sequatchie Pointe. The 3,500-acre community, which boasts an equestrian center among other amenities, is advertised as "right smack on an unspoiled mountaintop." In Sequatchie Valley, "unspoiled" often means "without running water." A great many area residents still rely on contaminated wells or, as in Orme, dying streams. Developer-paid waterlines can be a boon for existing residents with the proximity and means to tap in, says Moss, who has spent years cobbling together tax and grant dollars--and connections from various small utility districts--to get water to rural residents.

Still, Moss warns that piecemeal fixes are not a serious solution to the twin challenges of population growth and disappearing water. He has long advocated consolidation of smaller utilities, many of which are in disrepair or near capacity. But in Sequatchie Valley, where planning can be suspect, convincing communities to cede control of that resource has been a hard sell.

"In this part of the country," Condra says, "we've not been overly concerned with water issues. That's changed--we just don't know it yet."