UPDATE: 5:02 PM. Just received my emergency phone call from the Town Manager saying all is fine with Amherst water. Hey, the system works. I'll drink to that!
UPDATE: 4:50 PM. It's all good. Drink the water! Of course now students will have to come up with another excuse for consuming only beer over the next 48 hours.
UPDATE: 4:25 PM. Still no word. This is not good. Could we maybe have offered the test lab pizza and beer if they got us the test results by noon? Everybody--Town Manager, DPW chief, water/sewer chief and a bevy of underlings are still hunkered down in the DPW office.
1:25 PM (Still no word).
Trolley Station, turned DPW, turned War Room.
Larry where is this?
ReplyDeleteThe Amherst DPW main office (about 10 feet from my house).
ReplyDeleteThey are still hunkered down (although the police black-and-white drove off about a half-hour ago)
I still do not know if I can trust his word on the water. He probably bought out Stop & Shop of bottled water for his abode and said screw the rest of us. How fair is that? Just joking about the bottled water, but the man is not fair, he is a liar.
ReplyDeleteUntil later..............
Well, we had the DPW head honchos (coming in on a Saturday), Amherst Police Department, and the DEP all looking over his shoulder (not to mention a bevy of media and this neighborhood blogger), I think in this case we are perfectly safe.
ReplyDeleteLarry, I don't think we are safe.
ReplyDeleteFirst, lab results coming in 5 hours late is significant in and of itself. It isn't like they would make it a priority and run it FIRST (or Amherst needs to hire a new lab...)
Second, did it come in totally clean, or did it come in within tolerance? (I am inclined to think the latter due to the late release.)
Third, you know you have bad water in the system -- think air in your brake lines -- unless you flush absolutely everything in an organized manner, you can safely assume that some of the bad water is still there.
Fourth, Amhest spiked the Chlorine - not a bad tactic, but what will happen when they reset it to normal?
Fifth, Gazette reports that Amherst has shut down the Market Hill Road plant for maintenance. My suspicion (from working on computers) is that whatever you most recently did is the root of the unexplained problems you are encountering.
Personally, I would be testing the water DAILY (it only costs $20 retail) and I would post the raw data on the website. And then when I walked into Town Meeting next spring saying I wanted a half dozen new pickup trucks, I could cite the cost here that I spent just to make folk feel better.....
I currently consider UMass water to be contaminated and it will be a while before my mind is changed.
Ed
> (although the police
ReplyDelete> black-and-white drove off about
> a half-hour ago)
And why, exactly, did they need an armed police officer there? There is nothing worth stealing (i.e. large amounts of cash), why did Amherst need a cop there?
Other than to intimidate those who might report on things Amherst didn't want reported, why have a cop there????
> the drinking water quality test
ReplyDelete> taken on Friday, August 29, 2008
> was negative for Total Coliform
> bacteria and E. coli bacteria.
THE test? What about the other nine?
And why is the Town Mangler the only one authorized to speak about this?
What are they trying to hide? If I were the town manager and had nothing to hide, I would give every town employee a couple dozen copies of the clean tests and ask them to give it to everyone they knew. To post it in the churches, cultural centers and bars.
Ed
Now I know where the old "Floridation is a Communist Plot" crowd went to: they're camped out on this blog.
ReplyDeleteI never said that Floridation was a Communist plot -- I only suggested that those with nothing to hide needn't fear releasing documents showing that the water is save
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, Larry, I will be brushing my teeth with beer until further notice. (It actually has a lower alcohol content than Listerine...)
Ed