Previous Story
EPA learns CUC not making progress on installing water meters
|
Posted on Aug 28 2011
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has learned that the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. has not made progress on installing water meters at locations that currently are unmetered.
In a report filed last week in the U.S. District Court for the NMI, EPA legal counsel Bradley R. O’Brien said based on CUC’s July 27, 2011 progress report on its metering program, since at least April, three unmetered government accounts remain without meters.
“Similarly, the unmetered residential and commercial accounts appear little changed during the reporting period,” O’Brien said.
He said CUC’s progress report indicates that the utilities company continues to replace existing meters, although its pace has slowed.
From May to June, 2011, CUC replaced about 107 meters, but from June to July 2011, it only replaced about 33 meters.
O’Brien encouraged CUC to complete meter installations at the unmetered accounts.
CUC had failed to meet the Jan. 31, 2011 deadline to install water meters and bill all of its customers based on consumption as required by the second joint stipulation that CUC entered with EPA.
In February 2011, CUC’s legal counsel Deborah E. Fisher informed the District Court that part of the delay has been due to the financial crisis that forced CUC to stop most of its company overtime so it could buy needed fuel to power its engines.
Fisher also disclosed that CUC has discovered that in some places, no meters at all were installed; meters were inappropriately installed; or, in some places, multiple meters feeding multiple water tanks were installed with no clear delineation of which meters were fed to what houses or apartments.
