WELLSVILLE - There is still no agreement on the issue of an outstanding bill between Buckeye Water District and the village of Salineville. The issue was debated at both the BWD's board of trustees meeting and Salineville's village council meeting.
At the BWD's trustees meeting last Thursday, the council voted to send a letter to Salineville detailing the outstanding amount, which totals around $8,222. The letter was sent to Salineville Mayor David Berta on Monday morning, according to district manager Al DeAngelis.
"This has been a lingering issue," he said. "It's gotten to the point that the board wants some type of action on it."
Previously, BWD would read all the meters in the village and give Sailneville a copy of the readings so they could bill customers. The village could then shut off water for customers who aren't paying their sewer bill.
However, in order for the village to be able to turn off water services to customers, their shut-off valves needed to be upgraded, according to a BWD council member.
"The agreement they have is that they have to pay half of cost of this work," said DeAngelis, adding that Wellsville has a similar agreement.
The outstanding bill of $8,222 is for one half of the material, labor and equipment cost used in the replacement of the shut off valves. The agreement was created in 2007, according to DeAngelis.
The letter DeAngelis sent to Salineville explained that BWD would not furnish anymore meter readings or allow the village of Salineville to terminate any water service until this invoice is paid in full. This would make it difficult for the village to give residents their sewer bills.
Residents questioned village council at Monday nights council meeting about how they were going to handle getting customers their sewer bills. After council met in executive session about the issue Mayor Dave Berta responded that they will give estimated bills to customers for now.
"We're not paying it," council member Rick Beadle said. "If they read what I just read then we don't owe them that bill."
"They just gave us a stack of bills with no dates no times and no places," added council member Wayne Leishman.
Salineville also has an outstanding bill of around $27,000 with BWD for water usage at their sewage plant, according to DeAngelis. The water used at the plant is begin used to treat sewage. At the BWD trustee meeting, two solutions were proposed for how Salineville could handle their water bill.
"One is that they use plant effluent water for their chlorination and de-chlorination process, the other is that they change the process and use liquid for the chlorination and de-chlorination," BWD trustee Roy Dray said. "Right now they're using a gas, and that's where they're using all the water. So if they change the process and use the liquid it's a simple process and they won't need that water running up their water bill."
"In April or May we put a meter in out there, we sent them a bill," he said. "They're using about 25,000 gallons of water a day and they haven't paid the bill."
Even though the bill is unpaid, BWD is not allowed to interrupt water service at the plant because it would put the plant out of compliance with the EPA, according to DeAngelis.
The issue has been turned over to the BWD's attorney.
