An old lift station in Whiteland is getting a long-needed upgrade, and the town is getting most of the cost covered by a state grant and a donation.
Whiteland’s interstate wastewater lift station is the oldest lift station in town, and has been in need of an update. In the last five years, the station has taken on significantly more capacity with all the industrial developments pumping into it. Also over the years, as problems have risen with that lift station, town employees learned many parts needed for it aren’t made anymore.
“This lift station is like from the 70s. So it’s way out of date, and it’s starting to show signs of being a problem,” said Shaun Young, Whiteland’s street superintendent, at the May 8 Whiteland Town Council meeting.
The upgrade and expansion is expected to cost $618,000. More than half of that will be paid for with a $325,000 grant from the state’s Regional Economic Acceleration and Development Initiative, or READI, program.
Mohr Capital, owner of the Mohr Logistics Park, is also donating $200,000 to the project. That will leave Whiteland with around $93,000 to cover.
READI is a program created by Gov. Eric Holcomb and the Indiana Economic Development Corp. to dole out funds to regions in the state with the original intention to make Indiana’s communities more attractive places to live and attract workforce talent. The first round of READI funding was $500 million — funded with money from the federal American Rescue Plan Act — divided among 17 formed regions in 2021.
Johnson County is part of the 180 Alliance region, along with Boone, Hendricks, Montgomery, Morgan and Putnam counties. The region received $20 million in funding from the state for its projects. Different projects proposed for READI funding include quality-of-life amenities, main street restorations and infrastructure projects.
The Whiteland Town Council last week approved the READI agreement to start the process to get the funds for the lift station project. There are many steps, rules and lots of paperwork involved to get the money, since it is technically federal dollars, but given out by the state, said Carmen Young, acting town manager and community development director.
Because Whiteland is part of a region to get this funding, the agreement also has to be approved by the Indianapolis Metropolitan Planning Organization, which is the fiscal agent for the dollars. The IEDC will give the money to IMPO to then distribute to Whiteland.
Whiteland also asked to move the completion date back to December 2025 for a few reasons, including the tornado and recovery after that, Carmen Young said. IMPO will have to approve the revised agreement with the new completion date before the agreement can be official, she said.
There is no exact timeline for the start and completion of the project yet though, and it may not take all the way until December 2025, Carmen Young said. The project will not take that long once it begins, she said. Whiteland asked for an extension because READI puts a project deadline on all of its awards and the town wanted to give itself more time.
Overall, town officials say the lift station project will set up the town to take on more capacity to benefit the current development near the interstate and for future developments.
“That lift station has been kind of a choke on any new development down there,” said Joe Sayler, council president.
