| Water cost recovery opposed Utility wants to recoup crisis expenses |
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Nov 7, 2009 telegram.com By Donna Boynton TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF MILFORD — Selectmen have requested a hearing with the state Department of Public Utilities to prevent the Milford Water Co. from recovering costs associated with a two-week water contamination episode in August. The selectmen’s complaint, filed in September through town counsel Gerald M. Moody, asks the state agency to review the circumstances surrounding the water contamination crisis, which began Aug. 9, and the costs incurred to correct the problem. A boil order was issued Aug. 10 after coliform and E. coli were found in the Milford Water Co.’s water system. The boil order was lifted for the majority of the town Aug. 21, and completely lifted Aug. 24. The Milford Water Co. spent an estimated $300,000 on bottled water and $100,000 on police details, company overtime and food and facilities for the volunteers, as outlined in the town’s petition. “It’s the Board of Selectmen’s position that these costs were not prudently incurred,” Mr. Moody said yesterday. In addition, the town is asking what corrective action has taken place to prevent another such an incident. Mr. Moody said the process to determine who is responsible for those costs — the ratepayers or the company itself — will be long, and anyone affected by the August incident is asked to testify during a public hearing, scheduled for 7 p.m. Nov. 17 in Town Hall. Mr. Moody, in the complaint, wrote that the “notification given by the company was inadequate and resulted in confusion and an inordinate level of fear in the public.” Following the boil order, Milford Water Co. offered free bottled water to its customers at its Dilla Street headquarters, which Mr. Moody noted caused “chaotic traffic patterns and endangerment to public safety,” causing the town to move the free water distribution to Milford High School. For days, cars streamed into the Fountain Street school campus, snaking through the parking lot for the free water rations, until the boil order was partially lifted Aug. 21. “The boil water order not only caused significant inconvenience and disturbance in the lives of residential customers of Milford, but significant numbers of Milford businesses were adversely affected, particularly in the food service industry, with businesses having to curtail services or products and, in some instances, close for the duration of the period under which the boil water order continued, with not only loss in income for the business, but loss in pay or income for employees,” wrote Mr. Moody in the complaint. “These are costs which should not or in the future, be borne by the ratepayers of the company,” wrote Mr. Moody. |
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