Jim Young "One Man's Trash" Published July 9, 2004

County water issue has received plenty of media attention

"The (county mayor) protests too much, methinks." (Apologies to William Shakespeare, Hamlet Act 3)

I have to take issue with County Mayor Brock Hill's recent comments concerning the Chronicle's coverage of the water situation in here Cumberland County having personally written thousands and thousands of words on the subject.

There has been no grand conspiracy to keep information from the public and the full story has been reported to readers of this newspaper.

Water supplies and delivery have been one of the biggest issues facing our fast growing community and region for a long time and especially during the last six years. During that time the Chronicle has published numerous articles on the water situation, the relationship between the city and the utility districts and, yes, even the regional water authority and water studies looking at both the growing community water demands and concerns over the water supplies.

During the summer of 2000, I personally researched and wrote a multi-part series on water, the history of water delivery in Cumberland County, the issue of over-taxed water supplies and how the lack of cooperation directly affected local residents and even affected local industrial recruiting efforts.

In addition, for a number of years the Chronicle published a wrap up of the previous year's top ten news stories in January and every year, water was one of those top ten stories. As the reporter who covered most of the water related issues, I recapped the year's water related events from the lawsuit between the city and utility districts over the price of water to plans to construct new water supply lakes that never came to pass.

I have found it interesting to watch the water issues take shape here in Cumberland County, see the talk about "joining forces" to find adequate water supply and see folks join sides to support one plan or the other.

For a while it appeared that Mayor Hill's regional water authority concept might actually pull some of the very independent-minded utility districts together, but it never really seemed to take off. Both South and Catoosa had plans in the works for their own water supplies separate from the RWA. Also, the way the program was set up originally possibly doomed it to failure as the main water supplier (the city of Crossville) was at an immediate disadvantage if it had joined the authority, a concern that was never addressed.

Problems with the credibility of the utility districts have also been around for years as the boards were once essentially entirely self sustaining and become controlled by small groups of people leading to the problems that removed the management of the Crab Orchard Utility District over outrageous bonuses and pay amounts. Talk about cover-ups and soap operas!

Then "merger mania" set in and the city of Crossville began serious discussions of consolidation with South Cumberland and Catoosa. At the current time it looks like the major utility districts without their own water supplies will merge into the city water system leaving just Crab Orchard that has their own lake supply and the monopoly of selling to Fairfield Glade to keep it in cash flow (at least until the residents get tired of high rates and join forces to demand accountability to customers). The much smaller West Cumberland (Pleasant Hill) and Grandview Districts may join the mergers, but their decision mainly affects only their own customers.

One of the biggest problems I've noted over the years is the lack of participation by utility district customers in the management of the districts. While that is slowly changing, people need to realize then can impact the process.

Whatever happens concerning water, rest assured, the Chronicle will cover it and keep readers informed of the news.

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Jim Young is a Crossville Chronicle correspondent whose column is published periodically.