I told a city council member recently that the city should have allowed the water treatment plant to operate for a full year before giving out any advisories to the public. Let the system try to get established. Is this mere hindsight now? Well, I would suggest no.
There must have been a basis for thinking some issues would arise. Issues have in fact arisen. My plumbing company contact informed me that the original plan for the plant was to produce water at two to five grains of hardness. The lower the number, the better the water. As time passed, the people in charge settled on five grains. I can be quite certain of that because of a communication I received from a state scientist in January.
Now we're getting into state vs. city. Some more "hindsight" I might offer: the project should have been put forward as a State of Minnesota project, not City of Morris. The state appears to have left city-level people scrambling to explain inconsistencies or modifications. Left "holding the bag," as it were.
I have it from the state level that disagreements occurred. The state person began his submission to me in an odd way, saying "it was great to see" the blog post I had recently written (January 2021). "Great to see," I guess, that I described the treatment plant as an "embarrassment" right in the headline. But this guy name of Jeff Hill thought it was great.
The "great to see" sentence was followed by an exclamation point. He wrote "yes, there was confusion and poor communication." That would seem to be rather concerning. Again, letting the plant run for a time without any public announcement would have been prudent. Jeff Hill wrote - remember this was in January - that the water quality companies had been testing about five grains per gallon hardness. He cited the five grains as "the city's target."
He continued "the water plant is now stable. The city seems to have worked the bugs out of the new plant."
He acknowledged that the new city water is not genuinely "soft." This contradicted an early email I had received from a councilman, stating that the city would be offering "soft water" via the plant. I thought at first this might just be a quibble, the point being that Morris water would simply be better. Very truly it isn't a quibble. "Soft" water simply has to be one grain and this is not propaganda of the water quality companies.
There has been a "who do you believe?" element of the whole discussion since the inception. This is concerning: of course the water quality companies want to make money - no sin there - but we should never assume anything untoward. At present I am quite inclined to trust the water quality companies. Here's the problem: the city has its own agenda, that being to demonstrate for the state - i.e. to "show off" for the state - that chloride emissions are being reduced.
How important is this aim really? Is there a "tree hugging" factor here, i.e. overzealousness? OK let's grant that there isn't. Still the state scientist and his cohorts certainly want to be impressed, or to put a feather in their caps, about how the chloride thing is being suppressed. One can deduce that this is why City of Morris officials from early-on certainly implied that going softener-less was a legitimate option, one that any city resident might well exercise.
Fast-forward to today: my own plumber informs me that the new city water has fallen all the way to 15 grains. My plumber tells me the problem is lead pipes: you cannot let water that is too good or too pure flow through lead pipes. If this is the case, shouldn't this allowance have been made from the very start? We have scientists in charge, for crying out loud. Unless science butts up against some other agenda. Jeff Hill writes that "City Manager Blaine Hill and Morris have come a long way in our eyes," but then adds: "While we may not agree on all the characterizations, we have convinced most to be honest about the new water quality, and what needs to be done to water softeners."
That's rich: "We have convinced most to be honest."
Disagreements? Between the state and city? I'd sure like to see some elaboration of that. The city has come into our homes in effect, and had better know what it is doing. The city manager has even proclaimed that the city can get court permission to come into our homes and investigate softeners. You know what? With all that is going on now with the pandemic, why don't we just put this on the back-burner. Leave people and their softeners alone.
"We think Blaine knows that many people will want soft water and will keep their water softeners," Jeff Hill wrote.
But didn't the original letter from the city, which I cite from memory, say we might legitimately want to disconnect? A couple other options were in the letter as I recall, but the bottom line is that it was getting too complicated, I mean for busy people with complicated lives. Or, maybe the simpletons among us like yours truly. My plumbing company contact said last fall "sometimes I think we make these things too complicated."
Why would anyone in his/her busy life want to even deal with their softener, to open up the checkbook, when the softening would appear to be going just fine? I have suggested before that if the new plant was so absolutely necessary, the state might subsidize the changeover, perhaps offering vouchers to people to help. Secondly, instead of water bills going up, maybe the government could pay the difference as an entitlement.
We can expect more help from government like this if we just elect more Democrats. But there's no hope out here in outstate rural Minnesota, so wedded to the GOP, where lawn signs proliferate like "Biden, take your unity and stick it up your (blank)." That's across the street from East Side Park. How graceful and eloquent.
Of course the city had to pass a law right away about water softeners. The city manager appeared to want to distance himself from the Morris paper's front page article about this. The wording was harsh, suggesting that many of us would now "be in violation of the law." I hit up the city manager about this and he responded by saying "I don't write newspaper articles."
What was the point? Was the article inaccurate? Did the city demand a correction be published? I don't think so.
A water quality company spokesman then told me the city "can't go around like the Gestapo." Heavens, changing your water softener or discarding it is not something you can do at the spur of the moment. I wish the council had thought this out more. Or, was the council in the crosshairs of the state bureaucrats like Jeff Hill, under pressure to deliver so the bureaucrats could show off?
If true, we should toss out all the city council members. But Morris is too apathetic to do that. We wear apathy on our sleeves. And the typical reaction to this blog post would probably be "Why are you making such a big deal out of this?" I might get laughed at. Actually, saying that something "isn't a big deal" is a very Minnesota thing, as in "How to Speak Minnesotan" (the book by Howard Mohr).
Jeff Hill wrote to me "Morris (water) is at five grains." I have seen no revised information since then, and surely the government would want to keep us informed, right? Ah, government. "The water plant is now stable," Jeff Hill wrote in January. The city has "worked the bugs out."
I had a college professor who would describe a confused situation as an "abortion." The term floats back in my head now. You know, it's just like the softball complex that is just down the road from the treatment plant, along "Prairie Lane" or "boondoggle alley."
Jeff Hill went on to talk about "time clock softeners" and at this point it is all just too technical, in the weeds. To hell with it. Are the residents of Morris supposed to do one big Hail Mary over this? I was prepared for that, then I had the water quality company come back last week, and they said my current system is quite up to snuff. Knock on wood.
But I feel for the Morris residents who early-on, prodded by the city, decided to just disconnect or ditch their softeners. Watch your back, everyone.
Jeff Hill talked about how the Pomme de Terre River is now less threatened by chloride from salt. Somehow, this issue wouldn't cause me to lose any sleep. Tree huggers, you can take a flying leap. Jeff Hill wrote that "Morris is no longer in the sights of the MPCA." What was the MPCA going to do to us? City Manager Blaine Hill was quoted saying "you'll save money" by adjusting your softener. Well, I acquired a new softener for $1500 and now my water bills are higher. I didn't need this.
The bottom line: a friend of mine who is well-known in the community, a lawyer by profession, wrote to me in September of 2020: "Yea, I think the engineers sold the city a bill of goods and now Blaine has to defend his actions. Very frustrating to say the least."
What can we as individuals do? I'll again quote Alex Karras as "Mongo" from "Blazing Saddles": "Mongo just pawn in game of life."
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
No comments:
Post a Comment