The board would review and evaluate complaints from customers of Pasco utilities such as Aloha Utilities.
By MELIA BOWIE
Published February 14, 2004
State Rep. Tom Anderson wants more accountability when it comes to water quality in Pasco County.
On Friday he asked his colleagues in the Legislature to help make it happen.
Anderson, R-Dunedin, whose district includes parts of Pasco, filed a bill that would allow the Pasco County Commission chairman to establish a local board to oversee Pasco water utilities, such as Aloha Utilities Inc.
Members of the local board would report to the County Commission. The board would review and evaluate customer complaints of "black water" and rotten-egg odors coming from their water. According to the bill, such a board also could recommend that the County Commission require utilities to explore new technologies to address quality problems.
"The people of Aloha have been very reluctant to improve the situation," Anderson said Friday, noting "it's a shame that there's a situation up there where people have been trying to get quality water for 10 years."
The bill comes days after an independent auditor's report determined that "black water" coming from the taps of some Aloha Utilities customers could not be traced to Aloha's treatment systems but rather to reactions in homeowners' pipes and faucets.
The proposed legislation is an acknowledgement that statutes allowing certain utilities a monopoly "creates a class of captive customers," the bill states.
The committee would serve for one year. Its members would include the chairman of the County Commission, representatives from the utility, a county health officer and independent water experts.
Critics say trying to establish such a committee is another attempt to create special rules for Aloha.
"It's (the bill) trying to set up a regulatory process for private utilities in Pasco that no other utility in the state has to go through," Aloha attorney F. Marshall Deterding said Friday.
House Bill 0987 mirrors a similar bill sponsored last year by Aloha customer and state Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, who has long been critical of the local utility.
Fasano's bill, though, would have applied statewide and ran into difficulties, said Anderson. House Bill 0987 would affect only Pasco.
"Sen. Fasano had approached me and asked if I'd be willing to get involved," Anderson said of the bill, adding, "I'm very optimistic that it will be passed."
Deterding said the proposed legislation would add a new standard for Aloha that is subjective and based on complaints from customers.
"To me it's ridiculous," he said.
Representatives from Aloha said earlier this week that the findings reported by engineer Audrey Levine backed up what the New Port Richey utility had said all along: that its water quality is fine.
The legislative session in Tallahassee starts March 2.
