After being pounded by questions on perennial water leaks and feeling the brunt of criticism for a proposed reverse osmosis system in hearings with lawmakers last week, the Commonwealth Utilities Corps. board directed CUC management to come up with a plan of action and scope of work immediately and suggested emergency hires to expand repair crew to fix water leaks around the island.<\/p>\n
At a board meeting Thursday, director Ignacio Perez said they were pounded by lawmakers on Wednesday and Monday who were \u201casking for specifics\u201d about the reported 67 percent in unaccounted distributed water. He said he assured they would develop a monthly report to see the decreases in these unaccounted for percentages. Presenting without answers felt like, \u201cstanding there with your zipper open,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Perez asked for an \u201cintelligence report\u201d on these leaks and water manager Richard Wasser, called to address the board, said as far as the 67 percent number, the utility has complied data for March, April, and May on the total production of water wells and the total billing numbers from the accounting department. He said even though numbers are not totally accurate because meters were \u201cnot a 100 percent yet,\u201d the estimates are \u201cclose\u201d and the monthly average for unaccounted for water was \u201c67 or 68 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI told them we would provide them a monthly activity report am I going to be a liar?\u201d said Perez.<\/p>\n
Wasser said March was the earliest data they had and \u201cnumbers will get more accurate\u2026the farther we go along with our meter replacement.\u201d He said 14 well meters were replaced this month. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs meters come together, we are going to be able to more accurately see the difference in our water balance. As we get the billing numbers, as the new meters register in billing, we should see it reflected in the accounts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The month to month average may not be the most accurate, he said, but they should see a trend and see unaccounted for water to go down.<\/p>\n
The board was criticized by a lawmaker last week for their apparent fondness for a proposed RO system to address water woes.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, the board appeared to stand by its support for RO and one director suggested that if fixing leaks failed at addressing water issues, then this would \u201canswer\u201d the lawmaker\u2019s concern about the real need of the RO system.<\/p>\n
\u201cSaipan really needs the RO system,\u201d said director Albert Taitano. \u201cI don\u2019t know why the Legislature is not supporting it but they should support it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been bombarded by leaks, leaks, leaks,\u201d said director Joe Torres, urging that manpower be boosted in areas with leaks and asking questions on how many staff were on the repair program.<\/p>\n
Wasser said they had a two-man crew working under an engineering project that found and repaired leaks, and on an operation side, they had a repair crew of about 10 staff. \u201cThey are swamped with the leaks that are visible\u201d and responding to leaks that are reported through CUC\u2019s call center, he said.<\/p>\n
Wasser also said they hired one more staff member and are set to hire three more. \u201cWe are not turning anyone away,\u201d he said, on recent hiring efforts. \u201cIt\u2019s the best we can do with the staff that we can have.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis Legislature don\u2019t want to wait,\u201d said Torres.<\/p>\n
Torres suggested \u201cemergency hires\u201d of three crews fixing leaks north, central, and to the south of Saipan daily.<\/p>\n
If this crew can go out there and \u201cattack\u201d and \u201cwe still don\u2019t have water, then I guess our answer is supplied,\u201d Torres said.<\/p>\n
He suggested emergency hires of a 10-man crew with equipment to search for leaks.<\/p>\n
Acting executive director Gary Camacho stressed that they\u2019d need to \u201coutsource\u201d the project and that it had to be \u201clarge scale\u201d with manpower and equipment and professionals and experts not only for quick identification of leaks but for development of staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t expect any debate,\u201d said director Eric San Nicolas, adding he wanted information on scope of work for the project and plan of action \u201cyesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was my biggest frustration the last two hearings,\u201d he said, adding that they needed to be proactive. \u201cIf you are getting paid a hundred grand, you better be doing more than 100 grand. I expect that from every manager\u201d and the executive director\u2019s office. \u201cIf someone is not doing it, by god, we need disciplinary action to be taken.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also went on to say they\u2019ve \u201cmoved mountains since we\u2019ve reorganized the board\u201d and urged management to maximize grant money so \u201cwe don\u2019t have to reach into the pockets of taxpayers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stressing for a \u201ctimeframe\u201d and an \u201caggressive approach\u201d on the issue, Torres also complained about how lawmakers and the local newspapers appeared to have more information than the board on issues like these and urged management to work together, after water engineer John Riegel referred to a \u201cwhite paper\u201d he wrote on water issues and said was distributed to the board but that Torres claimed he did not have.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s work as a team. If we are separated, then we have a problem. We have more info going out in the papers than us sitting us in this board,\u201d Torres said. \u201cPlease have the courtesy. I don\u2019t like to criticize. We\u2019ve been lectured last two days up there. The last time I heard a lecture was in high school.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI just want to work together\u2026let\u2019s have one road and one direction,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Riegel assured he could have a scope of work for the board by the end of this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After being pounded by questions on perennial water leaks and feeling the brunt of criticism…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[6769,49,9839,6670],"class_list":["post-231416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","tag-albert-taitano","tag-cuc","tag-ignacio-perez","tag-ro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231416\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}