Utility Board officials discuss water with watch group

ALBANY — Officials with the Albany Utility Board discussed water concerns with members of the Sherwood Acres Neighborhood Watch group during that group’s monthly meeting on Monday.

Utilities Supervisor Jimmy Norman and Water Quality Supervisors Kurt Anthony and Jim Stolze addressed concerns about water contamination and answered a number of questions from neighborhood watch members.

“We’re one of the only businesses around that sells you our product and then asks you not to waste it,” Anthony told the group. “Yes, we are responsible for supplying water to our customers, but we are water conservationists, too. We try to account for every drop of water that comes out of the ground.”

The utilities officials assured members of the neighborhood watch group that they are monitoring the city’s water supply closely to assure customers that water contamination like that in Flint, Mich., does not occur here.

“We were ahead of the game in taking precautionary action,” Norman said. “We did away with potentially corrosive fixtures several years ago. That’s one of the primary reasons it is so unlikely we’ll have the kind of contamination problems that they’ve had in Michigan and other places.”

One audience member expressed concern over the Sabal Trail natural gas pipeline that will come through a part of south Dougherty County in close proximity to the Utility Board’s well field.

“That pipeline is not going to affect our water at all,” Stolze said.

Ward III Albany City Commissioner B.J. Fletcher said Anthony, Stolze and Norman will talk to another of her ward’s watch groups, the District 3 Neighborhood Watch group, when that group meets Monday at 6 p.m. The District 3 group meets in the conference room of the downtown Law Enforcement Center.