Schwalm says PSWID needs to come clean

The following is from Sam Schwalm of the watchdog group Water for Pine Strawberry:

Hello Neighbor,

At the end of this update is the “all clear” notice from the Pine Strawberry Water Improvement District (PSWID) that was sent out yesterday afternoon.  

The PSWID board has scheduled a board meeting for July 28 at 10 a.m. in the Pine Cultural Center. Should be an interesting meeting.

Some items to consider:

1.      The water in Pine was heavily chlorinated for awhile. On Thursday mine was halfway to pool water. If you had that water going into your septic tank it might be prudent to give your septic tank an extra shot of Ridx in case the bacteria has been disturbed by the chlorine.

2.      As the notice below indicates, PSWID is asking residents to continue to conserve water. However, when asked about what conservation stage the district is in, the answer was that no change in conservation stage has been declared. That means that we are still at Stage 0 (equivalent to the old Stage 1) with no restrictions. If the conditions warrant the need to conserve water, why doesn’t the conservation stage reflect that?

3.      PSWID is hauling water to catch up with the water that was lost. When the water system was purchased from Brooke Utilities, the PSWID board put in place the same water hauling surcharge that Brooke had. It will be interesting to see whether that shows up on next month’s bill.

4.      There may be quite a bill for this crisis. The contract with CH2M Hill only covers basic operations. The contract allows CH2M Hill to bill PSWID for emergency and major repairs. PSWID is responsible for the cost of all materials.

5.      Where are the missing board members? Mr. Robert Kuta, Regional Vice President for CH2M Hill became the face of the district. I am not aware of any communication to the public by the board members. While Mr. Kuta probably has a lot of experience speaking to the press and can adequately address the operational details, he is a stranger to the community. One would think that a board member should have always been present to provide the information on the situation for the community. There is also the question of where Mr. Kuta’s loyalties may lie between the interests of CH2M Hill and the community. That is where a board member could have added some balance.

6.      Mr. Kuta has been limiting the amount of information available about the problem. While the discussion of how and why the problem happened, and any responsibility for the problem, can wait for a later day, it is only fair that what has happened and the steps being taken to resolve it be described in detail. Clearly this was not a run-of-the-mill failure. It deserved more than the typical avoidance of providing information.

7.      While communication could have been more frequent and detailed, the methods did improve. I heard that flyers were put on doors on Thursday and I heard that people in the affected areas received a robo-call for the “all clear” message. Overall, responding to a crisis is difficult to do smoothly, in my opinion overall the response went fairly well.

8.      To maintain the public’s trust, the board needs to provide a clear explanation of how the problem occurred, the extent of the problem, whether the vulnerability to the same problem exist in other parts of the water system, and most importantly, what actions will be taken to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. That will go a long ways towards putting this event in the rear-view mirror.

6-22-2012 2:30 p.m. Pine customers get OK to resume water use Pine Strawberry Water Improvement District officials are pleased to announce that service has been restored throughout the system, reserve supplies are returning to normal levels and laboratory analysis of water samples indicates that the water is safe for consumption, so customers in the Pine area may resume normal use. Although service is back to normal, officials stress the need for all customers to continue conserving water by eliminating all non-essential use. Although indications are that the system is functioning normally, District officials do not want increased usage to cause any further problems. In addition, the region continues to experience high temperatures and extremely dry conditions, making it imperative that an adequate reserve water supply remains available. PSWID officials apologize to all affected customers for the inconvenience created by this service outage and express appreciation for their patience and cooperation as the District worked to resolve the situation.

This update is from the group Water For Pine Strawberry.  Water For Pine Strawberry is a group of residents who are concerned about the community’s water issues and how they can best be resolved. Visit our web site, www.WaterForPineStrawberry.com, for more information. The website for PSWID is www.pswid.org .

Clarifications can be submitted by anyone who is explicitly named, implicitly identifiable, or a board member to items in this update. Clarifications will be posted on our website. We reserve the right to post a response. Clarifications must deal with the topics discussed in the update that relate to the individual or the board. They must be in family friendly language and be non-abusive. When the clarification is accepted, it will be posted to the website and notice of that posting will be added to the next update.