CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A war of words broke out Monday evening in Charleston over broken water lines.
Charleston Mayor Danny Jones said West Virginia American Water Company needs to double its efforts to restore water to more than 1,000 residents who have lost service because of widespread water line breaks over the past few days.
Jones said the wait has been entirely too long for city residents. He said it’s unacceptable to pay for water and receive nothing but delays.
“There’s been no crisis. There’s been no spillage in the river. It’s time they got their act together. The infrastructure problems are their problems,” said Jones.
WVAWC President Jeff McIntyre responded in a news release. He explained that restoring water service is nothing like restoring electric, phone, or cable service. McIntyre said the cold weather slows the restoration process down because of the time it takes to identify potential hidden problems that may hinder the process.
“Throughout our response efforts, we have provided our best time estimates for restoration given the tank levels and system trends that we monitor continuously. In some cases, restoration has not been accomplished by the estimated times provided because of new main breaks, longer than anticipated times to build system pressure, and other factors that cannot be predicted,” said McIntyre.
WVAWC spokesperson Laura Jordan said the weather is causing a significantly longer restoration process. She said once pressure is lost in an area of the system, it takes a great deal of time to build the water back up. She said the water needs to be at a specific level before pumping it to the next area.
“In this situation, there are multiple issues that are causing these system wide outages — some that our crews are fixing and some others that we anticipate are underground that we have not yet been able to identify,” said Jordan.
Customers have been asked to limit their water use to aid system recovery. Jordan said there is a possibility for more breaks with lows in the single digits Monday night and back above freezing Tuesday afternoon. Crews restored service to over 1,000 customers in South Charleston and Boone County Monday and hoped for some customers in Charleston to have service by late Monday night.
Mayor Jones said it can’t come fast enough.
“Whatever it takes for them to get the water on just get it done,” Jones said. “They won’t even communicate with these customers and when they do they give generic answers so they call us.”
The WVAWC said they appreciate patience from their customers as they continue their efforts to restore water in many areas. As of Monday morning, they worked to address outages on the Oakridge, Rutledge, Oakwood, and Canvas Creek area roads in Charleston. New areas experiencing low pressure or outages Monday included the Woodward Drive area of North Charleston and the upper elevations of Edgewood.