Work is still underway to get Leitchfield’s new water intake on Rough River Lake online.

Members of the city’s utilities commission learned Thursday, Oct. 4, that crews are trying to get air out of the new water pipeline so they can do pressure testing.

“It’s still got air in it, but it’s getting better,” utilities superintendent Kevin Pharis told the commission. “It’s getting to where they can do longer filter runs.”

He said the intake had been in use since Monday, Oct. 1, and that air in the line was slowly bleeding out, much like air does when water service to a house has been off for a while.

“Air is causing us trouble in that long line,” he said, explaining that the air forms a foam that clogs the filters used on the water.

“Two to three days is the normal filter life,” Pharis said. “We’re getting about 11 hours now before we have to change them out.”

Leitchfield draws water from Rough River Lake for residential and commercial use. The new intake, about 4.5 miles from Rough River Dam, will replace the current one that goes from Peter Cave to Clifty Creek. The new spot will give the city a larger area to draw water from during winter pool, allowing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to drop the lake level. It also could allow the city to draw more water overall if needed for future growth.

A roughly nine-mile pipeline will be bring water from the new intake to the city’s treatment plant.

The $5 million project is being wrapped up this month.

Commissioners also approved several change orders for the water intake project, incuding paying $26,609 to Cleary Construction of Tompkinsville, which is building the $1.076 million intake, and paying Horsley Construction $44,200 to replace 400 feet of 18-inch discharge line at the water plant.

Commissioners also learned the utilities staff worked with pipeline builders Clay Pipeline of Manchester to return unused construction materials, saving the city $103,753.