Monterey Town Council Attorney Melissa Dowd Presents Draft Cross Connection Control Plan To Protect Town Water Supply

Monterey, Va – The Monterey Town Council has now received a draft Cross Connection Control Program from Town Attorney Melissa Dowd. She says she has looked at different versions of a similar program in several other communities and relied heavily on the one for the City of Harrisonburg’s adopted program.

“What I did was pick out what I think are the salient points from the model program and blended it with the pieces I like from other programs and came up with something that is considerably less cumbersome and hopefully pretty straitforward” says Dowd.

The purpose of this program, which is mandated by the State of Virginia, is to protect the town’s water supply from contamination through connections to businesses and private residences. This involves installation of backflow prevention devices.

Property owners will only be required to install such devices if the Town determines that a risk of backflow contamination is present on their property. However, the devices will be required for new construction.

Mayor Janice Warner will send the program draft to Virginia Department of Health staff member Michelle Caruthers in Lexington for review. If it meets the state requirements, the Council will hold a public hearing on the proposed program at its April meeting. The Mayor was pleased to report the results of the January water testing. She says the report is the first one to have no violations since she became Mayor and Mike Isles starting working for the town.

There is a problem with one of the sludge pumps at the new waste water treatment plant. Mack Industries is currently studying the matter to find a solution and they will take care of it as soon as possible. Mike Isles should complete his training and certification for the water testing procedures by next week.

The Mayor asked Council members to restate their support for the Monterey sidewalk project. This project has been in the planning stages since 2006 and the county finally has all the easements and hopes to break ground this spring. A resolution of support was passed by the Council.

After receiving an unusually high electric bill last month, Town Clerk Sandy Massey called Shenandoah Valley Electric Cooperative. Massey spoke with Jon Sisler, Accounts Manager for the Coop.

“He said there was no reason for them to estimate any of the Town’s bills [and] he would put a stop to that” says Massey. “He would check into that and see why they were estimating them. He did email me back. He said there’s not an excuse, they just didn’t read them. And he said that will not happen again; I made sure that they will read all the meters that belong to the town.”

The next meeting of the Monterey Town Council is scheduled for Thursday, April 7, at 7:30 PM in the Highland Public Library.