Mellen Water District critic didn't tell all of the truth

Dear editor:

Because of the upcoming election, I have reread the letter submitted by Bart Eben for the May 13, 2009, paper and I thought I would set a few things straight.

I was asked by Bart to take over his position as president of the board at the November meeting. He says "I resigned before my term was up." As his term was up in December, why hadn't an election been scheduled for November? If these elections are so important to him, why did he fail to have one when he was in charge?

Next, when I took over I was told that we had a customer who was responsible for six dwellings and he was behind on payments. How much? His bill that month was $2,900 and some dollars. My first question was has it been turned in to the tax collector and if not why? The answer: Bart said he would take care of it. To make a long story short, the property was up for sale, so I went to talk to the realtor. He told me that he had checked all sources and he had not seen anything about the water bill being delinquent. I asked him if there was anything he could do for me. His reply was, because I had come to him and politely asked for help, he would see what he could do.

He got me one year's worth of payments, which I accepted gratefully. We lost about $1,000, but because it had not been turned in to the tax collector, we could have lost it all.

Now we come to a rumor I heard regarding the new chlorinator. I am told the story is that the only reason we got it was because I wanted it. The truth is that we had an inspection by DEQ and our chlorine room did not meet specifications. When I started getting estimates of what it would cost to bring it into compliance, the costs were staggering. There was even a question as to whether it would be possible to locate the intake louvers on the east wall. Then I was told that our system was getting old and parts were very difficult if not impossible to find. About that time I asked my well operator why the two city wells I passed almost every day did not have the "DANGER CHLORINE" signs on them like we were required to have. Simple, he said, the city uses chlorine tablets. They got rid of the chlorine gas systems years ago.

I immediately checked into it and found that while it would cost us a little more than the required modifications, we would have a modern, simple, low-maintenance system. I asked the board and they said get it. I notified DEQ when we were up and running and they cleared the write-ups.

If anyone has any questions about the system or the operation of it they are encouraged to contact me at my home any time.

Arthur C. Vagt