Water, water everywhere!
Or, at least, there should be, considering the amount of water the combined fire department, road department and banquet hall building in Brookfield is said to be using.
“We have an ongoing mystery of water usage at our banquet hall/fire department/road department,” said Trustee Dan Suttles.
The amount of water being used is staggering.
“At our high peak we’re using 55,000 gallons of water a month,” he said.
How much is that? My residential water bill is between 3,500 and 5,500 gallons of water a month.
“It’s been 44,000, it’s been 35,000,” Suttles said of other months. In December, it was 70,000 gallons.
“We’re trying to find out where this water is coming from,” Suttles said.
Officials had a new water meter installed. That didn’t solve the problem. A plumber came in and investigated the entire water system. He didn’t find anything. All the toilet tank insides were replaced. No difference.
The fire department fills its trucks from an outside, unmetered hydrant, so that’s not the issue. The fire and road departments wash their trucks using metered water, but it doesn’t take that much, officials said.
Suttles said Trumbull County Water Department provided hourly breakdowns of water usage, and there is no consistency as to times of high water usage, nor as to when any certain employee is on duty. Officials checked usage during times the hall was rented, and it did not correlate to high usage. Sometimes, high water usage occurs on a weekend, when only firefighters are in the building. When they’re on a call, there might be nobody in the building.
“One of the times, between the hours of 2 in the morning and 6 in the morning, we used 6,000 gallons of water,” Suttles said.
If there was a leak, officials said, you would see consistent high water usage, or water collecting somewhere, such as in the truck bays at the fire department or in a pool outside the building. That’s not the case.
The issue started in about June, although officials started talking about it publicly in December.
What’s all this costing? About $1,000 a month.
This can’t go on, officials said, but what can they do? Suttles said he going to contact the water department again, while Road Supt. Jaime Fredenburg said he would call in a different plumber to look things over. It might be worth it to get separate meters for the fire department, road department and banquet hall, officials said.
“I think it’s irresponsible to do nothing,” Suttles said.
“We can’t keep doing what we’re doing,” said Trustee Mark Ferrara.
