Wastewater Pretreatment: Big Money
Local Opinion

Week of April 29, 1999

Today's lead story should cause concern for local citizens for more reasons than one. Obviously, we need to be aware of any situation which may be a threat to the purity and beauty of our natural environment. But we also should view the matter in light of the city's ambitions to overtake the privately-owned water company here. Consider the difficulties the city has encountered and instigated regarding handling the sewer, the wastewater plant and the wastewater pretreatment plant. This same public works department now wants to run one of the area's largest utilities.

Mayor Kinsey is fond of talking about the water company in terms of busting up a monopoly. (Although the city would also have a monopoly.) However, when we interviewed an objective national expert on wastewater pretreatment, he informed us that wastewater management "is one of the last great monopolies left." The mayor might do well to forget about the water company and focus on the wastewater debacle that's already controlled by the city.

The expert we interviewed, John Kiertscher of Envirotech Company in Columbus, Ohio, provided us with information that might help us understand why the HydroVac matter is so complicated and so hard to get to the bottom of.
"This is big money," he said. "It's highly profitable."