A dozen customers attended the RCH WSC board meeting with a slew of comments after receiving the board letter of acknowledgment that improvements are necessary and it may be time to have a new provider since the system is now providing suburban level services. Hear what the utility customers had to say, upcoming election details, information regarding the cancellation of the elevated water tower project on Edwards and League Road and Robin Baley being tasked to finding an engineer to submit a proposal for the TxDOT relocation of water lines of S. State Hwy 205.
Thank you for reading to be informed and for taking part of the RCH WSC WATCH. I’m definitely looking forward to hearing the election results to take place at the March 29, 2023 Annual Meeting. There is no official published document, but from board director discussions it was mentioned that a third party has been hired who has experience in facilitating elections for Farmers Electric Cooperative.
In case you missed the March 1, 2023 meeting I recorded the video for you to watch at your convenience.
Customers shame board for poor management & misspelling their hometown in recent letter
Despite the March 1 Notice that had no public testimony on it approximately 6 minutes into the meeting, President Jackie Pullen offered the attendees to share any public comments. [View FIGURE 1]
Ms. Bev Stibbens addressed the RCH WSC Board of Directors not meeting the standard meeting requirements. “The time of the meetings is difficult for the working member customers,” she said. She also addressed the letter where it mentioned about a town meeting discussing the future of RCH WSC and questioned, “When and where was this meeting held and how were members notified?” Stibbens pointed out the attention to detail the board is lacking including not spelling McLendon-Chisholm correctly.
Ms. Laurie Lehmburg shared her observation that she hasn’t seen much has changed and the board should take responsibility to make efforts to avoid last summer’s incident by starting early with the drought contingency plan, “The contingency plan should be implemented–most cities have this in place. You are the board of directors of this corporation. It should be set in place as the standard. You know who the people are that are using 100,000 gallons a month. Those people should be addressed. You can get the County Law Enforcement involved to shut their water off. Words and contractural requirements have to be enforced or otherwise they will keep doing it.”
Clark Bowering reminded the board, “The demand hasn’t change, but you keep adding more connections. Your [Rockwall wholesale water] contract hasn’t changed for 7 to 8 years now.”
Chris George questioned the administration efforts, “I am only aware of the City of Heath going into a Drought Contingency Plan. How did you let this go? You say that you write letters to the City of Rockwall…I can send emails all day long, but if I don’t get a response I would typically get an attorney involved. Why didn’t RCH WSC take more substantial measures to try to get Rockwall to come to the table? If they didn’t respond then why didn’t you go to NTMWD and go direct?”
Chris George continued, “Whatever needs to happen with this acquisition or transfer of assets that both RCH WSC and McLendon-Chisholm work very diligently. At the end of the day, you see a handful of people here, but there are a lot of us here that are silent sufferers who aren’t able to come to these meetings or they resolve themselves to the fact I’m just going to have to deal with this again so please do everything you can to help us get to the next step of the process. I own an a 1.5 acre lot, but I just put in $20K in landscaping and it’s all dead. I’m not going to come here and complain about my $20K. I get all that, however, can we get this process moving forward as soon as possible.”
FREE APP: How much to water your yard?
Andy Clark shared about a FREE program of Texas A&M AgriLife Extension that partners with NTMWD to answer how much to water your yard. It uses local weather data in sponsored areas to provide free weekly watering advice. This data is collected from an extensive network of weather stations and rain gauges, and, along with research-based understanding of plant water needs, allows experts to send customized weekly water advice for your specific lawn and irrigation system. Visit WaterMyYard.org.
Time to institute water restrictions now
McLendon-Chisholm City Council Member Lorna Kipphut, “What we are saying is this summer institute the water restrictions to avoid getting in the dramatic situation like last year. We know the weather forecast. We can start out in water restrictions like most cities to limit it to two days a week. If you adhere to water my yard instruction you know what you can do. So set your text alert system in place so you can reach a lot of your customers much faster than you could a year ago. Use those communication tools that you have and get the word out as soon as you can.”
Upcoming RCH WSC Election Details
After I asked about when is RCH WSC going to officially announce the Annual Meeting date after the March 1 board meeting and as Jackie Pullen answered me, it was published on the website that it will be Wednesday, March 29, 2023 at 2pm. I also inquired, “When is RCH WSC going to let us know that you are going to have a third party entity run the lawful election?”
There is no official published document, but from board director discussions it was mentioned that a third party has been hired who has experience in facilitating Farmers Electric Cooperative elections.
Customers should be on the lookout for those ballots
At the meeting it was mentioned that the “ballot wording” was still being worked on that will determine whether the customer is for or against a transfer of RCH WSC assets and customers to the City of McLendon-Chisholm. There was no mention about the wording regarding the two applicants (David Naylor and Laurie Lehmburg) who filed for director of an unknown place on the RCH WSC board.
Customer members should expect the ballots to be received by U.S. Postal Services with instructions and deadlines how to submit the ballot so that they may be tallied at the Annual Meeting scheduled for Wednesday, March 29, 2022 at 2pm.
Elevated Water Tower Project Cancelled
In August 2022, off of Edwards Rd. and League Rd. RCH WSC had a final plat on one acre of land to create a building site for a new water tower approved by the City of McLendon-Chisholm. However after further considerations by the RCH WSC board they have decided to approve director Steve Hatfield‘s request for a letter to be sent to the Phoenix Fabricators & Erectors to cancel the contract of the elevated storage tank.
Steve Hatfield says, “There is no debt and they operate on a cash basis. We cancelled the contract for the water tower on League Road and Edwards Road. We don’t know how that will impact the plans that the City might have that will work with them becoming a direct customer with NTMWD.”
TxDOT Relocation of Water Lines of S. State Hwy 205
Do you honestly believe that an engineering firm is going to come to RCH WSC in less than a few weeks to offer a bid? Keep in mind the field goal date of DECEMBER 1, 2023 is NOT CHANGING despite the fact that RCH WSC was officially notified by TxDOT in December 2020. Meanwhile, the rest of the utilities for the last TWO YEARS have been working with the TXDOT Coordinator Walter Caraig on monthly updates in meeting their deadlines. As of February 14, 2023, TxDOT was in possession of all new ROW and are expecting all utility owners to begin their relocations immediately.
The board is expecting Robin Baley to find an engineer, but realistically a fresh engineer is going to have a very difficult time to get going in such a short time span that RCH WSC should just be upfront with the TxDOT Coordinator. There are other viable cost effective options if the assets were transferred to the City of McLendon-Chisholm.
In general, it will probably be best for RCH WSC to not get into any new major improvement agreements or loans any time soon. Although it was mentioned for Baley to send a letter to their former engineer that proposed $500K upfront to check on their contract status. Not sure if Baley is aware, but Mr. Daniel‘s firm was acquired by a DFW firm.
Maintenance Updates from March 6 – April 3, 2023
Temporary Change in Disinfection
(A.K.A. Annual Chlorine Maintenance) Each spring for about one month, NTMWD suspends the typical use of ammonia to allow the remaining chlorine to keep the water disinfected as it travels through the system. This temporary change in disinfectant helps maintain the system and high water quality year round. It’s important to do this before summer because hotter temperatures can increase the potential for bacterial growth in pipes.
Dwight Lindop the Operator/Field Tech suggested to utilize charcoal filters to help with minimizing the taste and odor. Hopefully, Lindop will contact the McLendon-Chisholm Fire Department to help move the chlorine-disinfected water through the system by flushing water from fire hydrants.
When are we going to hear about the sediment removal from the RCH WSC water tower?
When I asked this question Dwight Lindop didn’t skip a beat to answer. “The water is moving so fast through there that I don’t know how we gain sediment at all. When we are pumping 3 million and only have 1 million in storage it’s not sitting there for very long. We had an inspection on March 1 and I’ll receive a report on what the bottom of the tank looks like. We have never had any type of issue with sediment. As long as they inspect and show you pictures in the scuttle hole from the top of the water tank to the bottom and you see the color down there of the tank bottom. Then you don’t have a sediment problem.”
I followed up with, “So there is an actual dive team that goes in and takes pictures?”
Lindop responded, “No, they don’t dive unless they are going for the sediment. They take pictures of it and they recommend that there might be some sediment. As long as the pictures are showing a clean floor you are not going to spend that kind of money to do something you really don’t need. Now if you look down there and you can’t see the bottom of the floor then you got a problem. The state requires us to inspect it and they get us a report on it. Then they show us pictures of what they took. I don’t foresee it being an issue this year.”
The brief maintenance report included EPA samples were taken on March 1, no line breaks and RCH WSC is still issuing meters even though they do not have additional water agreement from the city of Rockwall to manage the peak months.
Lindop also shared, “This board has done an excellent job. They brought this water company from nothing with fifty farmers in the sixties and yeah it is now outgrown. It is hard for me to keep up with it. They have done a good job to get it to this point and you don’t owe them nothing. You got a little money in the bank. The problem is that little money will be gone just like that. You build a tower it is gone.”
“We are hesitant to spend a lot of money with moving forward with a plan and the good thing is we all agree that RCH WSC needs to be with the City. We are not trying to do things under the table.” – Steve Hatfield, RCH WSC Board Director
Hatfield also said, “We may lack a little bit on house keeping around here and for that I apologize. But we do not have a big office staff which would add to the cost of water and everything else. All we have is Robin and she is doing the best that she can. I’m not going to make any excuse for that. You are exactly right. We are poor record keepers. We are also very frugal with money that we have here. There is not a lot of debt here. We are trying to do the best that we can to take care of you our neighbors. We have done everything, but stomp on the desk and we can not get anymore water out of Rockwall. I apologize we are bad communicators. This is a very large undertaking for us.”
Let’s not re-live what happened last summer.
It’s closing time, every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end. This song is fitting because with everything that was said by the gentlemen despite the misspellings in their letter, being poor record keepers and doing what they believed was the best they could do on this huge undertaking that started as a solution for the rural community. They ultimately know they wanted the system to be transferred to the city when the time is right.
Please let me know if you plan to come to the meeting and definitely say hello if we have not met yet. If you are new to my blog consider clicking yes if asked, “Would you like to receive notifications on latest updates?” Or visit the Politics category in the menu to read all my local Rockwall County political articles.
2 comments
hope to make it to that meeting..