A Westernport resident hit on a great suggestion at last week's meeting of the Mayor and Town Council, and town officials need to sincerely follow up on it.
Addressing the Council about persistent water-quality problems that force him to either boil water or buy bottled water, Vernon Kesner offers a partial solution to the town's water woes, by suggesting that residents be allowed to fill water jugs directly at the water treatment plant on Chestnut Street.
Kesner's suggestion may well have been prompted by two jars of water on display at the council table, put there by town officials to graphically represent for residents the difficulties the town is having in distributing clean water.
The first jar was cloudy, and dirty brown, holding the “raw water” the town is receiving from Savage River Reservoir. Usually one of the cleanest reservoirs in the state, the Savage has been completely drained for dam repair work, and the small pool from which water is being pumped is fouled by silt.
The second jar, though, was clear, the finished product after the filtration plant has done its work.
A third item on display was a section of water pipe taken during a recent repair. The 2-inch pipe was thoroughly corroded on the inside, its interior packed with hard, rusty deposits that reduced carrying capacity at least 50 percent. As a result of such pipes throughout the community, water that leaves the plant clean arrives at the faucet dirty and rusty.
Noting the two jars, and the rusty pipe, Kesner asked whether the town would allow residents to fill up directly at the plant. That way they could have good clean water for drinking and cooking, without having to buy bottled water.
Councilman Darrell Stephen welcomed not only the suggestion itself, but Kesner's offering a solution along with his criticism. Recently Westernport has abundance of the latter, and a dearth of the former.
The Council pledged to look into the matter, but water plant officials added a cautionary note, saying the Maryland Department of the Environment would have to approve any such direct distribution.
That approval may indeed prove hard to obtain, but town officials owe it to their sorely tried and increasingly frustrated residents to push for the authority. With the deteriorating, century-old water distribution system in need of wholesale replacement, and plans for the work not even on the drawing board, this is a problem that will not go away when the dam work is completed. Until all the old lines are replaced, Westernport residents are looking at years of such problems.
Kesner's solution deserves serious consideration.