Bronson Public Works Director Curtis Stacy encourages the town council to upgrade the town’s aging water system.

By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter

            Bronson Public Works Director Curtis Stacy says the town’s aging public water system needs an upgrade.

            Stacy said he doesn’t have access to good maps showing where all the cutoff valves and water pipes are located in Bronson and that’s a problem when a leak occurs and water lines or valves along a street can’t be found.

            He said the main problem is the city has an aging water system that wasn’t always mapped properly as it was built.

            “You’re looking at 40 years of people putting stuff where it’s not supposed to be. Stuff like valves that are not marked,” Stacy said. “I got maps that don’t have cut off valves and I got pipes in places they’re not supposed to be. “It’s hard to say where the pipes are. You know our water system is bad, it’s really bad.”

            The subject of the water system surfaced at the Aug. 24 town council meeting when Stacy was discussing how the owners of Julie’s Diner couldn’t determine the source of water leaks in their kitchen wall and floor. The water is gushing out in spurts.

            Owners Julie and Charlie Stalnaker have located four city cutoff valves controlling water to the restaurant but none of the valves controls the freshwater leaking from under the floor and wall. The leaking water hasn’t raised their restaurant water bill either.

            A plumber capped one pipe but the leak continues. A second plumber is planning to use a tiny camera to take a look under the kitchen wall and floor to find the faulty pipe and the direction the water comes into the kitchen.

            Councilman Robert Partin said he can’t figure out the source of the water leak either but he said the leak is on the restaurant’s side of the meter and is the responsibility of the owners to correct. He wasn’t specific about which meter.

            “My question is, where is the water coming from; there are two things that could be happening; either we got another meter that’s unknown to us or in a worst-case scenario they have water hooked up coming from another source and that’s against the law,” Partin said. “You cannot have a well. I don’t know whether there’s one on the back of that property; I know there used to be on the old Duke property.”

            The Stalnakers are hiring plumbers to find the source of the leak. They don’t know if the leaky pipe is hooked to a city water valve they haven’t discovered yet or if the water is coming from a city pipe or a pipe installed by a previous owner they haven’t found. Julie Stalnaker said the town hasn’t been helpful.

            “They just need someone who knows what they’re doing and has the initiative to get it done,” she said.

            Partin said the town has done everything it can to cut the water off and stop the leak.

            “The problem we have is there is still pressure there,” he said. “They are talking about a lot of pressure.”

            Stacy said some of the water valves in town are 30 years old and have never been used, which is part of the problem. He said the water valves aren’t always in places where he thought they might be such as in front of a house.

            “I go to places and find meters that are off in the woods,” he said.

            He found cutoff valves on both ends of the one street that didn’t shut the water off.

             He said if the town doesn’t do something to correct the problem with valves and pipes, “we’re going to find out that they don’t work when we need them. There is a lot of that. This is not something new.”

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Town of Bronson Regular Meeting August 24, 2020; Posted August 30, 2020