CUMBERLAND — It’s been more than four months since residents of the Bel Air, Pinto, Glen Oaks and Highland Estates areas asked to meet with officials including local, state and federal representatives to discuss their high water bills.
To date, no such gathering had been scheduled.
The residents, customers of Maryland Water Service — a Texas- based Nexus Water Group company, say they pay some of the highest rates in the country with some monthly water and sewer bills reaching has high as $900 per month.
On Thursday at a commissioners meeting, Allegany County Administrator Jason Bennett said he and T. Lee Beeman, the county’s attorney, recently met with Maryland Public Service Commission representatives.
The meeting was “to learn a little bit about the process” of better understanding how the sale of Maryland Water Service will work, he said.
In a May press release, American Water Service stated the business had agreed with Nexus Regulated Utilities LLC, a subsidiary of Nexus Water Group Inc., to purchase multiple water and wastewater systems located in eight states for roughly $315 million.
The acquisition would add nearly 47,000 customer connections within American Water’s existing footprint in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Virginia, the release stated.
“There’s been no filing as of yet for this transfer of ownership,” Bennett said. “But the PSC gave us a little bit of homework that we need to do over the next couple of weeks to research potential next steps.”
He said he also plans to meet next week with American Water.
Meanwhile, “we’re still working toward scheduling that meeting,” Bennett said of the gathering the residents requested earlier this year.
Post-flood workBennett updated commissioners on the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s refusal of an application for assistance to repair damages in areas of the county including Westernport that were devastated in a May flood.
“As you guys know, we were denied on the first pass,” Bennett said. “The state, with the help of (the Maryland Department of Emergency Management), is helping us appeal that.”
He anticipates the appeal will be submitted next week.
“FEMA has validated more expenses for us to count to our total,” Bennett said. “We were at $15.8 million. We’re gonna be well in excess of that now.”
Meanwhile, the commissioners authorized more contracted post-flood work.
The emergency procurements ranged in price from $5,000 for asphalt millings distribution on roads, to roughly $345,000 for emergency sewer repairs in the Braddock Run area.
This was the county’s fifth batch of flood-related projects since the May event.
“Up until this past group we had about $840,000 worth of emergency work put out in response directly to the flood,” county engineer Dan DeWitt said.
“In the past two weeks here we’ve paid out another $1,122,000 so it puts us just under $2 million to date and we have … a good bit more here over the next probably 30 days or so,” he said.
DeWitt said the work includes “road reconstruction, stream cleanup, bridge replacement (and) a lot of things trying to make sure that if we get another event like this that we’re not gonna have a similar amount of damage.”