Water Main Update

Today I spoke to Mike Mylette the Director of the Utilities Department. He was quite aware of the issues here in Kensington Park.

For those of you who are not aware, there have now been 15 water main breaks. The lines that are breaking are in units 1, 2 and 3. Those units were the very first to be built in Kensington Park with the infrastructure put in place in the early 1950's. It has not been updated since. The other issue is since Sarasota County purchased the water system from Aqua Utilities in 2013 they have added more users to our water system. The Habitat for Humanity community, Hammock Place, which will have 40 homes in total has been added to our water system. The new addition to the Winds mobile home park has also been added to our water system. That addition is expected to have 40 new homes. In addition to that the Winds is also proposing an additional 50 new mobile homes on the corner of Martin Luther King Blvd and Lockwood Ridge Rd which would be next to the existing development. This will also be on our water system.

I spoke with Mike about all of these issues and the fact that Kensington Park didn't have main breaks unit they started adding additional users.

This is Mike's response – The utilities department already has engineers working on a solution to fix the issues. He is aware of each and every break. He stated that he needed to get it done and done properly so it would last another 100 years as the community grows. I asked if budget was a deciding factor? Mike said it is not. From his point of view and budget it far cheaper to find the proper solution and do it correctly than to pay massive overtime to crews on a regular basis. He also made mention that he realized that residents did not enjoy having their yards and streets flooded along with not having water. We did talk about who needs to boil water. Here is the rule. If you get a boil water tag on your door you will need to boil water. They will also hang a tag when the boil water notice is no longer in effect. If you simply have low pressure or have lost your water and don't get a boil water notice you do not have to boil water.

Unfortunately, Mike was not able to give a timeline for when the repairs would begin or what they would be doing to resolve the issues as the engineers are still determining the best solution. Mike did however, promise to update me when they have a more definite plan.

I will keep you updated when I know more!