I write in response to article about the joint meeting with Lewes BPW and the mayor and city council about the water issues in Burton Subdivision. As the resident who lives closest to the automatic flusher President Tom Panetta described, I can tell you it is an extremely wasteful and ineffective way to attempt to hide the underlying problem. The flusher operates four times a day for 15 minutes each time, flushing at about 500 gallons per minute – a hydrant flow test on the hydrant showed the average flow was 493 gallons per minute during the 10-minute test. That means that BPW is wasting over 900,000 gallons of water a month to try to mask this issue. For perspective, that is enough water to empty the water tower on Schley Avenue three times each month! For further context, if a home used that much water, the bill would be about $7,000 a month. At the terms that BPW can borrow money, $7,000 a month would more than service the debt on the funding necessary to make the long overdue repairs. So what is the holdup?
While we are on the subject of cost, why is BPW able to charge affected ratepayers the full rate for water that is damaging to their homes and health? Until this issue is resolved, BPW should bear the cost of providing filtration systems to affected homes. Lewes BPW has reimbursed ratepayers in the past for damage done to their property as a result of discolored water. Why not now? I also might suggest that rather than referring to citizens as ratepayers, they refer to us as water users. Perhaps they might then be more concerned that our water is potable, rather than if our checks are cashable.
The only suggestion provided to residents was to call in whenever the water was especially bad. They claim that is the only way to track the issue while admitting they have no system for logging the calls in a useful way. We would be calling every day if we followed their advice, and it would be a colossal waste of time.
I urge BPW to do whatever is necessary to fix the water issues, and not just continue to waste a valuable resource while giving excuses.
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