To the Editor:
The day-to-day task of managing any successful business, including the Edgartown Wastewater Treatment Facility (WWTF) requires great focus and lots of time overseeing the multi-faceted tasks of septage inflow, outgoing sludge, employees, sewer bills, plant maintenance, DEP-required testing, and laboratory work, to name a few.
It should come as no surprise that possible fraud has taken place at the Edgartown WWTF, knowing that Edgartown wastewater commissioners have granted permission to the Edgartown facilities management to manage two multi-million-dollar WWTFs: Edgartown and Oak Bluffs.
Guess what? It’s not working and never has since its inception in 2002. Edgartown taxpayers are footing the bills and paying a price for this mistake.
The loosey-goosey billing and accounting of septage flow into the WWTF is the same for sewer fills where the number of “outlets to drain” is still the method of billing.
Has the WWTF manager checked all houses to verify the reported number of “outlets to drain” in each house that is billed or is this the honor system again?
If two homes each have seven outlets to drain, but one home with a family of 6 has three times the flow of the home with two people, they are currently billed the same amount. This system promotes fraud and waste instead of water conservation. We should have had metered bills 10 years ago.
Do the WWTF manager and staff punch a time clock? If not, who is monitoring this?
In regards to plant maintenance, drive by and see for yourself: our odor-control silos have been rusting away for years.
Why is the Edgartown WWTF manager’s truck seen parked in Oak Bluffs all hours of the day throughout the workweek?
We need to ask wastewater commissioner James Carter, who owns and operates the Clarion Hotel, would he let his hotel manager manage the Harbor View as well as his?
The answer is obvious, so why are Edgartown residents subjected to this nonsense?
Taxpayers and town government should not allow this WWTF to continue to be mismanaged, poorly managed, or in this case, not managed at all.
Jay A. Guest
Edgartown
