The things people are complaining about, he said, are mostly due to the MRWA improving the water system.
DEP steps in, water authority must submit ‘corrective action plan’ The state DEP has been keeping a close watch over the MRWA since the events of January 2018 that Yost calls a “critical condition.” At that time, the system was experiencing water outages due to extremely low water supply and the water was not safe to drink, so MRWA issued a boil water advisory.
During the weeks of Oct. 15 and Oct. 22, MRWA was installing pressure reducing valves and meter pits in different locations within the water system.
Mountaintop residents: water is ‘not in any condition to drink’ Though MRWA is required by law to notify its customers before doing work on the system, Melanie Hockenberry said she never got such alerts.
Dana Tumbleson, who works for and is a resident of Snow Shoe Township, said he and his family “buy bottled water for our own sake.” They don’t allow their animals to drink the water from the system, instead opting to give them water from mountain springs in the area.
Tumbleson, too, said he knows the water authority is doing all it can to fix the leaks in the system and get the water level higher.
Authority acknowledges problems with communication The Mountaintop water authority alerts its customers of any work being done on the system through an emergency notification and alert system called SwiftReach, said Yost.
But while the authority has tried to make sure it has updated phone numbers for its customers, Yost said it is missing new contact information for many people.
Typically, said Yost, if the water authority knows ahead of time when and where maintenance crews would be doing work on the system, they will notify customers who are shown to live in that area where work is happening.
But sometimes, there is an emergency leak and no time to notify all the customers that work is being done, said Yost.