Business owner sues city for $48,941 water bill
It took four hours for City of San Diego Public Utilities Department workers to respond to a water-line break at a La Jolla business in September 2014. During that four-hour window, amid numerous calls and reports that the shut-off valve at the main was stuck, 10,326 cubic square feet of water was lost.
The owner of the business,
Uriel Grezemkovsky, has since sued the City of San Diego for $48,941, the cost
of the subsequent water bill.
Long response times from the
city's water team is not a new issue. In May of last year, the San Diego County
Grand Jury investigated the practices of San Diego's public utilities
department and found the it relied on outdated maps, and emergency response
teams were not issued computers to aid in finding shut-off valves. Staffing
shortfalls and unqualified employees are among other reasons that the city
often misses its goal of shutting down water-line breaks within 30 minutes of
receiving the call.
According to the May 2014 grand
jury report:
[The San Diego Public Utilities
Department] maintains a goal of shutting down main breaks within 30 minutes of
receiving a break report. After each incident the first responder fills out a
Water Shutdown Report and the repair crew files a “Water Break/Leak/Discharge
Report.” Examination of these forms for 2013 and 2014 indicates that both of
these forms, while signed by both the individual responder and his/her
supervisor, are frequently filled out incompletely and often contain
contradictory information. For example, the Grand Jury found some reports
indicating that water had been shut off before a break had been reported. [The
utilities department] does not track actual response times, nor do they appear
to maintain sufficient documentation to allow them to accurately measure their
performance. Setting announced goals seems like good public relations but
without measuring performance against those goals is of little actual value.
From 2004 to 2012, according
to a report by online news organization iNewsource,
the City of San Diego paid over $10 million to settle claims filed by property
owners and general contractors for damages incurred as a result of water-main
breaks — as reported by the grand jury, the money to pay for damages comes from
ratepayers and not the city's general fund.
According to the lawsuit,
despite repeated calls from Grezemkovsky, members of the San Diego Fire
Department arrived before the emergency response teams and were able to break
free the main shut off valve, stopping the water.
"It is the city's fault
that the water main leaked for a minimum of [three-and-one-half] hours before
the [San Diego Fire Department] finally responded,” says the lawsuit. “The city
did not respond until nearly 4 hours after receiving actual notice of the
break."
The city is currently replacing
aging asbestos cement and cast-iron pipes, but water-quality advocacy groups
are urging the city to act faster by addressing staffing levels.
"Coastkeeper has long
advocated for not only adequate staff for emergency response, but we also
advocate for investment in continuous infrastructure repair and improvement to
minimize those emergencies," says a spokesperson for San Diego
Coastkeeper. "If water waste or neglect on either an individual scale or
systemic infrastructure scale exists, then it is critical that adequate staff
and resources are allocated to addressing these issues."
San Diego Coastkeeper is asking
local municipalities to find the money needed to increase staff — whether to
respond to emergencies or to limit over-watering by residents.
"This is a measure that
will support conservation efforts and will also help address pollution issues
that arise when the wasted water flows into our rivers and ocean via
stormdrains, picking up pollutants along the way. While we understand the city
is in the process of streamlining its enforcement practice and coordinating
between departments, we have yet to see the plans or a tangible commitment to
adequate staff to deal with the waste that is occurring throughout the
city."
May
22, 2015
San
Diego Reader
By Dorian Hargrove
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