I wish more citizens were this attentive to their community…
Shari Johnson, Publisher, Ridgeview News
Shari,
Good morning and I hope all is well with you and your family. You may have thought that I was satisfied by the answers provided. I am following up on the Monday Mount Zion PSD meeting that I could not attend unfortunately. I did watch what you were able to show and do have a follow up if anyone cares. I have heard time and time again about decades of neglect. I agree that there were years and maybe decades of neglect to the system and to the customers, but you cannot continuously blame everything on that. This goes back to the whole accountability thing I have been trying to address.
The board member mentioned they are working slowly on the hydrant issues, repairs, replacement, and flushing. Purchasing an extra hydrant wrench is not really moving forward. Put the wrench you have on a hydrant and start flushing. That is how you complete this task. Which again, is a WV state law to annually flush the hydrants and provide a report which will not be accomplished this year. September and later in the season is not the time to start flushing hydrants. Especially when you have not replaced the damaged ones from the 2025 flush. That again, are in stock and have been in stock for a year. I do not want to sound like a broken record, but one-to-two-day job per hydrant. We do it all the time at my job. The hydrants that are not functional have been marked was the answer provided. That is true, but again, they were identified and marked over a year ago. So that is a year of no progress on something I tried to get back on track at no cost to the PSD.
The grounds are being maintained by the staff. Great, but I was never a fan of having your water operator weed wack. Especially when your system is leaking from all ends. The board member answered that previous mowing contractor stopped answering calls. That is correct because when I left the board, I did not call him anymore. That is not my job anymore. I did bring that contractor back last year so the previous operators could focus on water issues and not mowing and weed whacking. So, to say that he stopped answering calls is not a lie, but if you do not call him, he will not call back. He did not just stop calling answering calls.
The confined space issue. The PSD has a confined space policy adopted and in place but has never enforced it to the best of my knowledge. To start, no one has been properly trained, and they do not have the correct equipment to monitor gas levels in the pits, tripods, harnesses, ventilation fans, and other tools needed so the policy should never had been adopted without the tools and competent people in place. The answer of the Millstone PRV is working is not what I meant by my comments. I know it is working because I was involved with bringing in an outside contractor and assisting with the rebuild and verification of making sure it was working. That was a year ago. My issue with the PRV is what happens when it fails. Right now, legally no one can even go into the pit to shut a valve because the proper tools and personnel are not in place which would cause the system to over pressurize. The follow up answer to this will be, it is being addressed with the other water upgrades. But what about now and until the upgrades are addressed? Just because something was rebuilt and appears to be working does not mean it cannot fail. This is also an item that should be visually looked at on a regular basis but again cannot be legally because of being located in the pit.
On that note, the board member answered that OSHA has no authority over the PSD. According to the research I have done, the PSD and PSDs in WV are political subdivisions providing water and sewer services. Employees of these local governmental / quasi-governmental entities fall under the jurisdiction of the WV State OSHA Program, meaning they must adhere to adopted safety standards ( such as trenching, confined space entry and heavy equipment guidelines). Maybe the commission can chime in on this one. I am not a lawyer and do not know it all, but I disagree that OSHA has no authority over the PSD.
The number of violations. No violations since April, great. That should continue if things are being addressed as needed. My problem to the answer provided by the board member is the number of open violations still out there. Finish them. Do something about them to resolve them and complete the task so you can move on. The main thing I heard from this lengthy statement was that the PSD needs to notify the public on these violations. The board member has previously answered that to reduce expenses they send out notices in batches. The current open violations are waiting on the next batch to be sent out. Answer me why? The customers have the right to be informed on violations immediately. Why do the customers have to wait for the PSD to notify them of violations until the PSD has a pile of them to send out? Take care of these as they are reported. The customers cannot wait to send a check until they have batches of bills to save cost to them. So, the PSD fails to be in compliance and then conveniently sends the notice to the customers who pay for a product when it suits the PSD so they can save a stamp. So, your water is shit, but we aren’t going to let you know until we feel it is best because we want to save a stamp. That is one of the craziest things I have heard yet and yet another reason the PSD has lost all credibility. You screw up, you are caught, address it, fix it, let the customers know and move forward.
To clarify. I am not mad at the PSD for making interest off of the ARPA funds. My statement was taken the wrong way. I thought that the County Commission held these funds and was making the interest off of this money sitting doing nothing when it could be used like it was supposed to be. And they were holding the PSD back on using it so they could make a few more dollars. That assumption may be incorrect, but now it was mentioned that it may not be legal for anyone (PSD or Commission) to make interest off of that funding. That should be investigated now as well since the team brough it up to the public.
Three quotes for the generators. Great. Buy it and get it done. Been talking about it way to long and the funding has been there. I am glad the Philips Run pump is not strapped to the pipe and is in better shape. The answer the board member stated about the spare pump parts being right there. I ordered spare pump parts last year to rebuild them. Was that accomplished and more spare parts were ordered or are we just proud we have parts sitting there that still have not been addressed. If you remember, the Phillips Run pump was leaking a half to million gallons a year into Phillips Run. Which I also question now, if the water from town is overloaded with chlorine, should that water be going directly into the creek? Unfortunately, we add chemicals to the water we drink like chlorine but are required to dechlorinate the water before we discharge it to the water ways. So how many fish have we killed with our safe water? And how much fluoride is in the water? Some studies suggest that too much fluoride in the water is linked to lower IQ scores in children as well as other health issues. But I am sure we have those levels exactly where they should be and are keeping accurate data and monitoring them for the public’s safety. Right? Better investigate since they brought it up. Not me.
The gate at Sand Ridge was fixed. Great. Luckily before anything happened that should not have.
What about the backflow prevention on the system? I am sure that is up to state standards, right?
What about the Arnoldsburg meters? Major work needed to complete this. No money. No plan. No problem, right?
School and Minnie Haha meters completed. Great. Thank you. How about the hydrant at the school? And back to that. The hydrant black bag / tarp is a temporary bandage for a temporary outage lasting up to 14 days, The bag at the Family Dollar I put on last spring is flapping like the jaws of certain members with no sight of ending. Looks really professional. Flapping jaws does not sound very professional either. And I am sure the fire departments like seeing that and knowing that the PSD is directly violating state rule 150-7-12 which states the water utility must promptly service, repair or replace and out of service hydrant fire hydrant within 90 days unless the PSC approves the delay. I would like to see that the PSC has approved over one year of avoiding this state law.
Now the PSD is handling Pleasant Hill and Mount Zion, but cannot even really handle Mount Zion? How much of the customers money was paid to the Mount Zion employees assisting Grantsville on overtime with leaks over the years? I bet enough to purchase ink for the printer which is about out after trying to read my last invoice. Also, we did give the previous Mount Zion PSD secretary a raise while I was on the board. I heard secretary salaries were brought up. But I am not fighting that fight.
My final feelings on the answers provided by the board member are this. Though he did answer a few questions, he picked and chose which ones he did answer. Some of them he brought up were taking off track probably so they could avoid being answered. But I am not satisfied with the few answers provided and the customers should not be satisfied either. Some of the questions from July I raised answered themselves after being avoided for two months. And it is easier to answer questions when they are asked instead of dragging it out which just brings on the question of why you can’t answer them immediately. As I said before, there is an arrogance associated with the board which has driven me from wanting to help and driving me to want to dig in deeper. I apologize for not being at the meeting. I think it would have been different if I was, but my family needed me more that day and that comes second to me. I also feel that the man did not want me there or he would have put me there. And what he wants from me comes first. Right now, that is to take care of my family and speak truth. Lies have an expiration date. The truth does not. I have also had some dear friends that have gone to walk in eternity with the man over the past few weeks which have kept me from being involved more. But you know. Question everything. Trust no one and take care of each other. Get out and get something done, have a great weekend and see you on the Ridge. And Thank You Shari for keeping us in the loop. Stay well.
Thank You,
Jason Firestine
