ATWELL — The Fire Station at 135 Concordia Church Road is considering a move to a new building in the upcoming years. The Atwell Volunteer Fire Department has not yet decided whether they will upgrade the current station or build a new one.

The potential move is being caused by a septic system problem that the current building is having, said Atwell Fire Chief Tim Beaver. The current lot is too small to house a septic system large enough to service a fire department that is open and populated with firefighters all day.

Fire Station 40 was built in 1972, and Beaver said that it was not made with running a modern volunteer fire department in mind. The fire department is currently being forced to call in a service to clean out their septic system every three to four months in order to keep it running.

The fire department has already acquired property a quarter mile away. The property would be across Highway 152 on Deal Road. Beaver noted that the new property would even be visible from the old fire station, so response times should not be affected by the move.

However, any potential move would have to wait until Fire Station 50 at 8480 Unity Church Road has been fully paid off, which Beaver said should take around a year. After that, the new fire station would be up and running in three years if construction sticks to the current timeline.

Beaver also noted that while they are not far enough into the process to have decided upon funding sources, typically money for this project would come from Rowan County allocating taxes to the fire department along with any grants they could possibly apply for.