— WAGONER — When Kelly Grooms hears that another water line in the city has been updated, he feels like he’s had a visit from Santa.

“I  smile every time I get a call that another new water line is going in,” said Grooms, Wagoner’s fire chief. “It’s like Christmas.”

The city of Wagoner received $300,000 in federal stimulus money and a $900,000 loan from the Oklahoma Water Resource Board last year. The money has been used to replace the city’s main water transmission lines, as well as the fire hydrants along the way.

The Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality, the funnel for the money, was  impressed with the quality and timeliness of the city’s work. DEQ officials have nominated Wagoner for an award from by the Environmental Protection Agency. The award is given to honor municipalities for outstanding stimulus projects.

“They most likely will win,” said Rebecca Poole, a DEQ official and engineer. “They were our only nomination in the state of Oklahoma out of 24 (stimulus) projects.”

Wagoner Mayor James Jennings said the city received a fax this week from DEQ notifying them about the award.

“It was for the scope of the project we did with the stimulus funds, how well we did the paperwork and completed the project,” Jennings said.

He said the Wagoner project is 90 percent complete. The city hired 10 new workers for the project, nine of whom were previously unemployed.

“Most of them are from the Wagoner trade area,” Jennings said. “Half now have permanent jobs with the city.”

Public works director Dwayne Elam checked Friday on the progress of a new 6-inch water line being laid along Road 280 South (Pierce Street) north of town. It replaces an old 1-1/2 inch line in the former Shepherd Water District that was acquired by the city last year. Elam said the old line is in a sorry condition.

“The only way we could fix the old line was to go to O’Reilly’s and buy radiator hose and band clamps,” Elam said. “We had losses of 140,000 gallons a month on that line.”

Kenneth Peters, project manager for the upgrades, said the Shepherd line serves 33 customers. The new line will have capacity to serve 100 to 125, he estimated.

Peters said one dairy farmer at the end of the 4.5-mile line will be a happy camper.

“We’ve got a dairy farmer out there who uses 100,000 gallons of water every 30 days to wash down his barn,” Peters said. “At night in the summer, when other customers are home and watering and taking showers, he doesn’t have any pressure right now. This will fix that.”

Reach Kirk Kramer at 684-2901 or kkramer@muskogeephoenix.com.