Newton Grove officials say they have identified the source of recent water and sewer main breaks that prompted emergency repairs and a special budget meeting last month.
According to town officials, the damage was caused by contractors working for Brightspeed, an internet service provider installing new high-speed fiber lines throughout the town.
“Obviously, we’ve got a lot of water main breaks by contractors in town,” Mayor Craig Warren told those in attendance during Monday night’s board meeting. “None of it, fortunately, was our doing; the majority of it was Brightspeed. They’re putting in these high-speed lines, and it’s all new work. It’s not replacement work, so we’ve been dealing with that. The largest one we had was up at the Brightspeed building, where we lost a lot of water in our water tank. Timm Williams and I were up there for hours that day, and Commissioner Cody Smith was up there as well. We had to really get on top of it to get it done. We had to get a private contractor here because that line was a pressure line and we couldn’t cut it off.”
The town experienced three major utility line breaks between June 8 and June 27 — two involving water mains and one involving a sewer main. The first occurred June 8 between Johnston Highway and West Barefoot Road. A second break happened about a week later when contractors struck a water main near Herring Hardware at the town circle. The most recent incident occurred June 27 on Church Street. According to town officials, all three utility lines were struck by three different contractors.
Warren said the town has filed an insurance claim in an effort to recover the cost of the repairs.
“I filed a claim with Sedgwick, an insurance provider that Brightspeed uses,” Warren said during a follow-up interview after the meeting. “When I called Brightspeed, they told me, ‘There’s another avenue where you can actually file a claim outside of the vendor that was doing the work,’ so that’s what I did. They (Sedgwick) gave me a claim number; they asked me for a statement and pictures, and I copied the invoice from our contractor, Cox-Edwards in Goldsboro, that had to fix it. I sent them all that, and we’re waiting to see what the outcome is going to be.”
Part of the reason the lines have been struck repeatedly, Warren said, is because much of the town’s underground utility mapping dates back to the 1970s.
“The water system was put in during the seventies,” Warren said. “There are service lines in this town that we don’t know where they’re at. It was around 1974 or 1975, around that time. Naturally, the mapping back then wasn’t as good. In one of the water main breaks, the contractor happened to hit a two-inch pressure line right next to a light pole that Duke Energy had just put in. It ran so much water that it caused the pole to become unstable because of the washout, and Duke had to come stabilize it because they were afraid the major power line on top of it was going to fall. We managed to stop all that and secure the pole, but these contractors are just aggressive; they want to get it done.”
Contractors are required to contact the national 811 utility notification service before digging so underground utility lines can be located. The service helps prevent damage to gas, water, sewer, telecommunications and electric lines that can result in service outages, property damage or safety hazards.
At least one resident experienced an interruption in utility service during the recent incidents. The damage also led town officials to hold an emergency meeting June 30 to approve budget amendments for the repairs.
The town approved budget amendments totaling $55,500 for the Water and Sewer Fund, moving $26,000, $9,500 and $20,000 into the appropriate line items to cover the emergency expenses.
During Monday’s meeting, resident Lela Beasley questioned why the amount previously reported by The Sampson Independent differed from the total amount reflected in the town’s budget amendments.
“In July, The Sampson Independent published our amendments that were made on the last day (June 30 for the past fiscal year),” Beasley told the board. “The total they gave us was $55,500 in the newspaper. But the actual amendments were $65,100. I know Amanda talked to NC Local Government Commission’s Mrs. Melonie Bryan. Maybe there’s a simple reason as to why there’s a difference. If it’s transparent and it’s in the newspaper, why wouldn’t the numbers match?”
The additional $9,600 Beasley referenced involved three separate General Fund appropriations. Those amendments were separate from the $55,500 in Water and Sewer Fund amendments previously reported by The Sampson Independent, according to official town budget documents obtained by the newspaper.
“The increases and the decreases have to match,” Town Clerk Amanda Baggett explained. “They cancel each other out. When you do a budget amendment, you have to have an increase in a revenue line and an increase in an expense line, or you can have a decrease in one expense and an increase in another expense, as long as they equal out to be the same within the same fund.”
Town officials said they will continue working with Brightspeed and its insurance carrier as the reimbursement process moves forward.
The Newton Grove Board of Commissioners will hold its next regular meeting Monday, Aug. 10, at 6:30 p.m.