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Our I-Team reporters looked into this story after an area reader called about a water line leak in the middle of the road that appeared to be gushing indefinitely. We contacted those responsible for the public water supply and looked into how other utilities communicate with the public about such concerns. If you have a question for our I-Team, call (937) 225-2251.
Every day for three weeks Don Bishop drove by a small bubbling geyser in the middle of Woodman Center Drive in Kettering that sent gallons of treated water straight into the sewer.
Bishop called the city to report the leak on Aug. 31, then called back two weeks later and was told the Montgomery County water department was aware of it.
“That’s a lot of water going down the drain,” Bishop, who lives in Springfield but drives through Kettering as a parts delivery driver for Honda, told the Dayton Daily News Thursday. “Somebody’s paying for all that water.”
Workers fixed the leaking valve Friday. County Water Supply Specialist Keith Baker said taking three weeks to fix a leak “is not normal, but it’s not out of the ordinary.”
“The public’s not necessarily aware all the time. We might have crews working on another project that has a higher priority, say safety for example,” he said. “It’s not that we’re not doing anything.”
Columbus officials took steps last winter to address this same public perception problem. Now if they can’t fix a leak right away, they put up a sign letting people know they’re aware of it and putting a hard deadline on when it’ll be fixed.
Montgomery County officials said they were unaware of Columbus’ program and would look into it.
The little fountain Bishop reported posed no safety concern, impacted few people and wasn’t causing any damage so was put on the back burner for weeks while other leaks were tended to, Baker said.
“It’s a lower priority, that one is because of the amount of water coming out of it,” he said.
The county has three small crews maintaining and repairing 2,300 miles of pipe in the county, officials said. They respond to hundreds of maintenance calls per month and have had 482 leaks so far this year — about 50 per month — which is similar to previous years.
Officials estimate they lose roughly 11 percent of the water supply to leaks and breaks, which is below the national average and has decreased over the past decade due to increased leak detection efforts.
County officials could not estimate how much water was lost to the leak Bishop reported.
Bishop wasn’t the only one concerned about how long it took to fix the Woodman Center leak.
Kettering resident Bradley Weaver also splashed his car through the Woodman Center leak every day for more than a week, growing increasingly frustrated.
“Every day I come through here and I see my water leaking,” he said Thursday feet away from where it flowed unhindered. “I look at my water bill and I’m wondering, as a resident, I’m paying this outrageous water bill myself and this water just keeps running.”
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