Our own water source is the key to Lake Worth's success

Comment up

The PB Post must have been talking to the Mayor again.

Whether we go with County water or our own Reverse Osmosis system has nothing to do with what costs less. Cost is not the key…either way is expensive and years into the future we will wonder why the small difference in capital expense was such an issue. What motivated the decision to go with our own Reverse Osmosis system was to be an independent supplier, to have the best quality water imaginable and to have control. We have already said that we will pay more for our own water supply that will be the best investment ever made for our city, for our residents a few decades down the pike. But the main thing here is, we have not had a new cost estimate on a reverse osmosis system. We continue to play with yesterday’s numbers and in this case, the estimated costs have gone down, not up per testimony of Mock Roos.

For me, I don’t understand why Mayor Clemens does not want to go in the direction of reverse osmosis. He must have been the one who told the Post that Retha Lowe was also against it when in fact she admitted at a public meeting that they made a mistake when they voted for the County deal. Ms. Lowe should have stopped right there but continued on, in the reasoning that we all expect from her by saying, “well, we signed a contract so we need to go forward.”

They never should have gotten us into this mess and a 40 year contract with PB County and set a match to the multi-millions of dollars already spent on a reverse osmosis system. That is about the most irresponsible decision ever made by sitting commissioners. It is far worse than saying “I don’t like the taste of West Palm Beach water” for the reason to spend a few million on an interconnect with PB County instead of turning on the valve from WPB and getting our emergency water for free while we build our own reverse osmosis.

Now it will be up to Susan Stanton to try and negotiate our way out of this mess without spending millions more of taxpayer money on a contract that was ill advised, not negotiated, coerced by Brian Shields and the County with misinformation that was fed to us and the commission at that time by the County. Our elected “leaders” fell for it so that PB County could take over our wells and make up for a County budget short-fall thus putting our poor little city out of the water business forever.

There are a few people who are always kidding me about “conspiracy” theories. In this case, I do not understand how two people could make the decisions they do without something else going on here. Also, to even consider going forward on anything less than 4.5 mgd is dumber than dumb. We must rest a well field. We need to look at the long term need and nothing will be as cheap to build as it is right now.

I ask you, do you want to be in control of your own water supply that is the most essential resource for every form of life or be dependent upon someone else who has already said that the water rate they will charge us will go up every year for 40 years?

Having our own water source will be the key that will open the lock for a healthy and thriving city in the future, our own reverse osmosis system.