USDA vies to recoup leftover funds from Florida city

1/9/2012

High Springs, Florida, officials stated their case before a federal hearing officer to retain $1.6 million from the United States Department of Agriculture to help fund its wastewater system, Alachua County Today reports.

More than five years earlier, High Springs was given a $4.05 million USDA grant and a $6.3 million USDA loan from the agency's Rural Development program to be put toward a wastewater project.

However, USDA and High Springs had come to a mutual agreement over a period of time - five years to be exact - that the city had to use the funds. Now at the end of its sixth year, the USDA is attempting to collect a leftover $1.6 million.

If allowed to retain the money, the city would use to it connect additional residents to its wastewater system. This would force officials to spread out the costs of maintaining its water treatment facility.

The USDA is no stranger to providing wastewater and sewage loans. The New Burn Sun Journal reports that a six-mile-long sewer plant discharge pipe is being funded in Havelock, North Carolina, thanks in part to an $8.5 million loan.