City evaluates water system
GARFIELD — Trying to assess the current financial status of the Garfield Water Department and make prudent decisions for the city, Garfield City Council members met in a special meeting Tuesday, March 28, to discuss water rates.
At the beginning of the meeting, city officials heard a presentation from William “Lee” DeLoach, a Verizon representative, concerning “smart” water meters and their potential for detecting water leaks.
“This system will detect leaks for the consumer,” alderman Jim Teeselink asked.
“Yes,” DeLoach answered, “and we can detect from meter to meter if we have water leakage in the system itself.”
No action was taken on the presentation.
Aldermen then evaluated a report by the University of North Carolina on the Garfield water system with varying options for raising water rates to meet the needs of the community.
“My goal for this special meeting,” Mayor Gary Blackburn said, “was to talk about water rates. This has been a topic we’ve talked about for nearly two years; been working with University of North Carolina for better part of a year … hoping we can come out with a proposal that we can be prepared to present to the community. I hope to have a forum just prior to next City Council meeting in April. Let’s crunch numbers and see if we can come up with a proposal for this community.”
“What did you think of UNC presentation?” Blackburn asked the council
“Alderman Teeselink and I, being up here listening to that, found it very informative,” alderman Susie Morrison said.
“I had a little bit of a disconnect,” alderman Terry Warren said. “I went back and looked at last year and it looks like we took in more revenue than expenses.”
“If you’ll recall in the survey,” Mayor Gary Blackburn said, “they bring out that financially, Garfield is in a sound position.
“We don’t have to invoke the emergency procedures … the way we’re trending so far, we’re going to be okay for a while,” Blackburn said, adding that the consideration is for a down the road study and how much the council wants to spend on infrastructure replacement.
Warren and alderman Katherine Shook both said the city needed to repair leaks to reduce water loss.
“Obviously know we have issues currently,” Teeselink said. “We need to gain revenue so we can have the funds to do that … we’ve got to look ahead … we have a lot of bad lines. I don’t think we need to not do anything; that’s key to me. We’ve got so many leaks here, we’ve got to address that.”
Blackburn said the water loss in 2015-16 was 25.22 percent.
Eddie Cooper, vice president of Benton-Washington County Water District, said: “Your water loss is just a roller coaster. When you fix a leak, it makes pressure go up in the system and another leak springs up. The older your system gets, the more frequent your leaks will be.”
Cooper also advised city officials that the old water line was made of transit — asbestos-cement — and is buried very deep (as much as 27 feet) beneath the school.
“All the old downtown line from the water tank under the school and up this road,” Cooper said, was put in in 1952 and will not be able to be repaired if it breaks.
City officials evaluated a map of the water lines and agreed to advertise for an engineer to advise about the water lines and to host a public meeting to address water rates.