HOLLSOPPLE — In Lincoln Township, Somerset County, officials are permitting new water taps for the first time in years.

In Somerset Borough, officials no longer have to rely on an endangered watershed as their sole supply.

And in Somerset Township, the village of Friedens is poised to get a new, $4 million water system to replace a patchwork system of small companies.

It’s all because of the county’s new $23.1 million Quemahoning Pipeline.

And with the Que system showing those tangible benefits after less than four months of operation, officials believe they’ve tapped into a veritable gold mine.

“What this project really provides is potential,” county Commissioner Pamela Tokar-Ickes said.

Gathered under a white tent in the shadow of a 2-million-gallon storage tank in Jenner Township, Tokar-Ickes and scores of other officials on Monday formally dedicated the new pipeline system.

Tokar-Ickes said the day had been “a long time coming,” and she was not exaggerating: She is now serving her third four-year term, and the pipeline project began in 2001 – her second year in office.

Along the way, there were plenty of headaches, long meetings and controversies, including an extended, public argument with Greater Johnstown Water Authority officials over whether the county should build a water-treatment system at all.

But those on hand for Monday’s event said the pipeline – built by Somerset County General Authority – represents a critical investment made with local, state and federal money.

A lack of adequate water and sewer services is “still a problem,” U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Johns-

town, told the crowd. “And it’s a problem in the rural areas.”

U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Hollidaysburg, called the pipeline “vital” to the county’s future.

“If you don’t have water, you can’t build homes, you can’t build businesses and expand,” Shuster said.

“It’s absolutely essential.”

The new treatment plant already is churning out more than 1 million gallons of drinking water daily, and the facility easily could be reconfigured to process up to 4 million gallons daily.

In carrying Quemahoning Reservoir water to the Somerset area, the pipeline feeds five municipal customers so far: Boswell Borough, Conemaugh Township, Lincoln Township, Somerset Borough and Somerset Township.

There can be no denying the water system’s early impact.

Jon Wahl of Somerset Planning and Engineering Services has seen that impact firsthand.

His company handled pipeline engineering and also has worked with Somerset Township, where officials are taking full advantage of a “spur” attached to the Que pipe.

“Over the last two years, Somerset Township has designed and permitted an entire distribution system for the Friedens area,” Wahl said.

That $4 million system will serve roughly 200 people. In addition, the township already has tapped in more than 100 new customers, “and that was just on the spur to get the water to Friedens,” Wahl said.

Officials believe they’ve just begun to tap into the potential demand for drinking water in Somerset County.

Tokar-Ickes said a project in the Stoystown/Reading Mines area would leave those communities “less than five miles away from the terminus of the Quemahoning Pipeline.”

Other talks are ongoing.

“We are having preliminary discussions with the Gray Area Water Authority,” Tokar-Ickes said. “I don’t imagine they will be served directly (by the pipeline), but there is potential for them through Lincoln Township.”

While officials are thinking big, the results of their hard work also were apparent on each table at Monday’s ceremony.

Attendees drank from 20-ounce bottles of water bearing a label that disclosed the source: “Bottled by Somerset County Water System: Quemahoning Pipeline.”