CHERAW – During last Tuesday’s Cheraw Town Council meeting, Progress Energy Transformer Substation Maintenance Supervisor Dan Temple, presented Cheraw Fire Department’s Chief John L. Melton, III with an appreciation certificate for the entire staff for their assistance with the substation fire that occurred last month on Covington Road. The department will also receive a $500 check from Progress Energy as a token of their hard work and efforts.

“We are glad to help in any way possible. Saving lives, preventing and putting out fires are our main priorities,” Melton said.

The explosion and fire was responsible for a major power outage around and in the Cheraw area.

“The Wallace Fire Department requested assistance from us to help cool that equipment with a tanker,” he continued.

“There was nothing we could do until the experts from Progress Energy arrived,” said Melton. “In situations like this we must consider the risk verses the benefits, and with high voltage we depend on them for guidance,” Melton continued.

“Once we were assured that all the power was isolated, we made an attack on the transformer, which was fully involved in fire and spewing out super-heated oil. We had to use foam to suppress the fire to allow Progress Energy to get in and begin repair work,” added Melton. He said that Progress Energy personnel told him that they never have seen a transformer burn as hot and severe as this one did.

In other business:

Cheraw Town Administrator Bill Taylor presented a lease agreement to Mayor Scott Hunter and Council members to renew a lease agreement between the Town of Cheraw and the Chesterfield-Marlboro Economic Opportunity Council, Inc. (CMEOC) for another 10-year period. Samuel D. Bass is the director of the CMEOC. The vote was u-unanimous with one council member, Jacqueline Ellerbe-Shannon abstaining.

The Town of Chesterfield recently approached the Town of Cheraw about the possibility of Cheraw selling water to Chesterfield via an agreement to increase the amount of water that the town is presently selling to the Chesterfield County Rural Water Company (CCRWC). No decision was made on the matter as of yet and Hunter tabled the issue for further discussion possibly at the next Cheraw Town Council meeting.

The Cheraw State Park Golf Course was named in the Golf Digest Magazine identifying the park’s golf course as the best public golf course in South Carolina.