A discussion about water clarity resulted in a more argumentative meeting than usual for the Village of Parks City Council on May 14.
Council member Harold “Kellog” Robertson said he has been receiving a high number of complaints about water quality. Robertson contended that Mayor Kevin Kately’s line flushing program is not producing the hoped-for results.
The councilman suggested that Kately should have managed to secure funding for upgrades to the system as he did to fund the new city hall, now nearing completion.
Kately took some offense to the comments and responded that any effective upgrades to the system would cost many millions of dollars.
“Firstly,” he said, “if there were grants available we would be applying for them. There are none available. And the only way we could hope to secure bond funding for the minimum $7 million needed would be to double or triple the rates customers pay.”
Robertson continued that the mayor’s reliance on the automatic flush valves is not good enough. The valves, he said, don’t move enough water through the lines and flushing at fire hydrants is not being carried out often enough.
Kately said that, with more than 160 miles of water lines in the system, it will take a while, maybe a full year, to remove the sediment built up over the past years.
The mayor contends that the automatic valves are placed in the distant and dead-end lines, where the smaller pipes pass less water than those closer to the tower and can’t be expected to help with large in-town lines.
“We depend on our customers in town to call when they are experiencing cloudy water so we can flush the lines where it will do the most good,” he said. The Village budget does not currently allow for a full-time, or even part-time employee to be hired to flush lines more regularly.
“And if we flush too much in the areas near the tower, we can have other problems,” he added. “We could lower the level in the tank too much to satisfy the demand. It’s easy for people to criticize, but I receive a lot of training on this, sediment in the pipes will clear out in time.”
Kately later told the Teche News, “Our water
tests well for absence of bacteria or anything related to safety. We can only do what we can do with what we have. I don’t want to raise rates to a degree that puts a strain on our residents.”
Council member Myra Yvonne Narcisse said the village should probably have instituted small annual rate increases long ago, to keep up with rising costs and allow for upgrades. In-town residents with low water usage pay $17 minimum per month. Customers outside the village pay a few dollars more.
