Stonington ― After almost a year and a half of administrative work, a $1.95 million federally funded project to ensure adequate water pressure and supply in case of a water main break in Pawcatuck is moving forward.

The project, funded through the Department of Housing and Urban Development, will connect two dead ends in the water system in the area of Mary Hall Road and Greenhaven Road.

The town applied for the funding, championed by U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, in 2021, and was notified of the award in spring of 2022.

On Monday, Town Engineer Chris Greenlaw, said the town hopes to have an engineer on board by mid-October to design the approximately one-mile water line extension, with construction projected to begin in 2025.

He said the project will lay approximately 4,300 feet of water lines on Greenhaven Road and an additional 1,100 feet on Mary Hall Road creating a loop which will create redundancy in the system and improve water pressure.

An additional 700 feet of water lines will be added on Renee Drive to create a mini-loop if there is enough funding after the initial project is complete.

First Selectman Danielle Chesebrough has said the Pawcatuck Fire Department identified the issue during former First Selectman Rob Simmons’ administration, but the project was shelved by the Board of Finance because it was too costly.

“When I took office in 2019, one of our earlier meetings was with Pawcatuck Fire Department and they reiterated that this was still something that was causing stress and challenges, especially as more development was happening in the area,” she said.

“The concern is, if there was ever a water main break in any of these segments, because it doesn’t loop, there is no redundancy; it would just turn off,” she explained.

With water unable to bypass a break, fire suppression systems along the dead end would fail.

State law requires that residents in housing complexes must be evacuated after 24 hours without water.

Complicating the issue, the evacuation point for the area is Stonington High School, which would be affected as well as the police department, Brookside Village Apartments, Spruce Meadows, Davis Standard and Stonington Arms, among others.

“So legally we would have to evacuate people, but the place we have set up to evacuate them is also in the same zone,” she said, adding that there were other locations residents could be evacuated too, but it highlighted the severity of the issue.

She said Westerly Water, which is responsible for the water lines, has been very helpful through the process. She added that dead ends in water systems are allowed by law, so Westerly has no legal obligation to close the loop.

At a Board of Selectmen meeting last week, Chesebrough said the complicated federal funding process, which requires a great deal of administrative work and environmental surveys, have made the project seem stalled, but it is moving forward in a timely manner.