Water service looks to be on its way to Lisletown residents, but the particulars are still unclear.
The Winchester Municipal Utilities Commission discussed servicing the customers there at the board’s regular meeting Thursday. Residents on Lisletown Lane and Lisletown Court live in the service area of the Kentucky American Water Company (KAWC), but that group has no plans to serve the area.
WMU General Manager Mike Flynn said he couldn’t speak to the exact reasons why KAWC was unwilling or unable to provide service to Lisletown, but KAWC was also not willing to cede the area to WMU completely.
“With the conversations I have had to date, cession of the territory is not necessarily the way they want to go,” Flynn said.
Instead, KAWC would prefer residents sign a waiver letter giving permission to serve to WMU for each residence. That would be approximately 11 or 12 letters for all of Lisletown.
WMU counsel John¿Rompf advised the commission to obtain letters for all the residents before running a line there, which could also have the added benefit of convincing KAWC to simply concede the area to WMU.
“If we tell them our intention is to get 12 letters before we proceed, then they might see it as being easier to go on (and give up the area),” he said. “When it’s only one, it makes sense for them to do it this way. It doesn’t make sense for us to run a water line to serve one customer.”
Mayor Ed Burtner said he would contact the general manager at KAWC¿to start a conversation and “say we’d like to see a different approach.”
WMU Commissioner Jimmy Powell cautioned that the customers at Lisletown should understand the potential personal cost of running a line to the area.
“We need to make sure they understand what it takes to get water to their place,” Powell said. “It’s not that we’re running it right up to your house and you’re going to tap in ... . We’re talking $10-15,000 to get water into their house.”
Flynn said the effort to run a line to Lisletown would be less about expanding the customer-base and more about providing water to residents there.
“Our drive is not to provide water to them to gain customers,” he said. “Our intent is to provide them potable water services, not necessarily to try to gain revenue from it. It’s so they would have that water.”
Flynn also said he would contact residents of Lisletown to update them on the conversation between WMU and KAWC.
In other business, the board also:
— Approved pay requests for the Lower Howard’s Creek waste water treatment plant and influent pump station, Cherry Street storage tank rehabilitation and Bel-Air Sanitary Sewer improvements.
— Approved the final adjustment to the Lower Howard’s Creek sanitary sewer improvements 24-inch force main.
— Heard a presentation from the Central Kentucky Float Flyers group.
