BEDFORD, Ind. – Leadership changes are coming for South Lawrence Utilities, a change homeowners say was long awaited.
“I honestly wouldn’t have bought this house if I would’ve known this ahead of time. I would have not lived here,” said one Lawrence County resident at Monday night’s meeting.
“I have put up with not being able to take showers. We cannot drink our water. We have never drank that water. I don’t even feed it to the dogs,” another Lawrence County resident said.
This follows growing frustrations over the water quality in the county. Homeowners said the water quality was at its worst after a water main broke last month. Although it is not always this bad, homeowners said having discolored water is common in the county.
“If you look at my Facebook page, there is always something once a month,” said Lizzie Dixon, one of the homeowners at Monday night’s meeting. “Sometimes there are a couple, three or four, depends on the scenario, how bad the pipes are, if they have recently done a flush, it all depends, so I would say on average roughly two times a month someone is having issues.”
On Monday night, the South Lawrence Utilities board met for the annual Board of Directors meeting. There are a total of seven board members. Two were up for reelection this year but decided not to run again. That left the community with a choice to vote for two new board members. They are Joseph Byrum and Billy Zeck.
As of last year, four of the seven board members are new to South Lawrence Utilities, meaning there is a new majority when it comes to voting on policies.
“Last year, two new board members got voted in but that means it was 5 to 2. Five old members and then 2 new members, so there was not much they could do because they were always outvoted. So, with these two new [members] coming in, that makes four. It’s four [new members] to three [old members]. Now, we can hopefully make some leverage and make some changes,” Dixon said.
One of the ideas discussed at Monday night’s meeting was a $10 million dollar filtration system. If the idea moves forward, the goal is to use grant money to help support the costs.
But other ideas are still in the works and homeowners said they are looking forward to the new board members being a part of the decision-making process.
“It’s really important to get new members in there with a fresh mindset that have different points of view and people who are actually going to take action to make a difference rather than just being reactive,” she said. “We want to be proactive.”
FOX59/CSB4 tried to speak with Eric Flynn, the superintendent of South Lawrence Utilities, about the ongoing problems and he had “no comment” at the time of the meeting. Flynn said he would be interested in talking “another day.”
