Officials in Dover and Cove City met in their town's respective boardrooms on Tuesday for  updates on projects expected to sufficiently near completion in mid-July to start piping sewage.

Sewer project coordinator Joe McKemey of McDavid and Associates, the Farmville engineering firm that designed the two connected systems, met for a progress report in each town with members of their boards of aldermen and with contractors from Herring-Rivenbark of Kinston and HML Corporation of Greenville.

The system was originally scheduled for completion by May 2009 after grant funding was secured and bids were let last year following nearly two decades of effort by local residents and  leaders. Failing septic systems and soil unsuitable for new ones has left empty houses and stymied growth in both western Craven County towns.

McKemey said an October  final completion on both projects is now expected because assorted change orders and, in Dover, a second contract, changed the required finish.

On Tuesday, however, he was clearly nudging contractors to get the job done, itemizing which lift stations needed to be ready for inspection by the first of next week in the meetings with both contractors in both towns.

"The town is most willing to work with you," he told an HML foreman, but will probably hold the $45,000 to $50,000 it has retained for damages until the work is done. "They want it finished."

Bids in 2006 came in well over estimates to connect sewer to all 450 homes in both towns and install 16 miles of pipeline to Kinston Sewer Treatment Plant, where it will be treated and users billed under an interlocal agreement with the City of Kinston. Kinston also had a representative at the Tuesday meetings.

The May 2006 bid for Dover put a price of $9.058 million for that town's 9.75 miles of pipe and the gravity system and lift stations to connect all homes there. Bids received in June 2006 by Cove City for six miles of pipe from Cove City to Dover and the infrastructure to connect about 231 homes was $9.17 million.

The cost was more than the North Carolina Rural Center and Clean Water Management Trust Fund grants that had been promised both towns. 

The entire amount could not be found but $5.598 million for Cove City and $5.393 million for Dover projects that would connect 75 percent of the homes was assembled in various grants from the agencies.

McKemey said that rough estimates based on the amount spent show work on the Herring-Rivenbark contract for the Dover project about 82 percent complete and work on the HML contract about 70 percent complete.

Work in Cove City, using the money-spent calculation, shows work there about 38 percent complete, he said. "That seems a little low, it's probably closer to 45 percent."

Change orders continue to come for contracts in both towns, including one considered on Tuesday because of a 12-percent increase in the cost of generators. Approval must come from the Rural Center and the town boards, which meet Monday in Cove City and Tuesday in Dover.

Other minor snags, like whether to wait for the N.C. Department of Transportation to fix a collapsed drainage line before paving to avoid paving twice, and approval of applications filed months ago to use North Carolina Railroad right-of-way could also affect completion.

But mostly, McKemey said at the close of the second meeting in Cove City, "I think everything is going well."  

Herring-Rivenbark project manager Jim Britt agreed. "I've never worked with a better bunch of people. It's been a pleasure."