LISBON - The county has reached a tentative agreement to resume purchasing water from Salem, three years following an acrimonious split over the prison water contract.

Columbiana County Engineer Bert Dawson told county commissioners Wednesday he and Salem officials have agreed in principle on a contract that would have the city provide water to five county buildings located west of the village in Center Township.

"It looks like we're getting close to an agreement to have Salem supply water," Dawson said. "We obviously need water for the county jail and Robert Bycroft School, and we've been discussing buying it from (Salem)."

The water would come from an existing Salem waterline that serviced the federal prison in Elkton for 10 years. Under the contract, commissioners purchased the water from Salem and resold it to the prison.

The waterline has been dormant since 2006, when the contract came up for renewal and commissioners dropped Salem and started purchasing water for the prison from the Buckeye Water District. Commissioners were unhappy with Salem's continued refusal to sell the county water from the line for other projects, and then Salem tried to bypass commissioners by offering to sell water directly to the prison.

Since then, Salem has begun selling water to the villages of Washingtonville and Leetonia.

Dawson said they resumed talks with Salem after Mayor Jerry Wolford was elected and took office in 2008. He said the negotiations have included members of the Salem utilities board and utilities Superintendent Don Weingart.

"We've worked out most of the terms of the agreement," he said. The next step is to have the agreement put in writing and approved by commissioners and Salem.

The plan is to run a separate line off the former prison waterline south on Gamble Road to the Robert Bycroft School on state Route 172, a distance of about one mile. From there, the line would go to the Sheltered Workshop located over the hill on County Home Road and to the county juvenile detention center, county jail and county dog pound, which are located nearby on County Home Road.

These agencies are served by separate wells and have been experiencing problems of water quality or quantity, or both. Dawson said the waterline would solve all of those problems and more.

"It makes a whole lot of sense," Dawson said. "If we can get that waterline out there maybe that will spur development in that part of the county."

The cost of the project is an estimated $630,000, with the agencies benefiting from the waterline sharing in the cost based on anticipated usage. Dawson is applying for a state loan at zero percent interest to cover half the cost.

The county took a similar approach when faced with a state mandate to replace separate mini-sewage treatment plants serving the jail complex, juvenile detention center, Sheltered Workshop and Robert Bycroft School. The agencies joined to build a single sewage-treatment plant, with each of them sharing in the $1.2 million cost, based on anticipated usage.

tgiambroni@mojonews.com