You Paid For It: Water main repairs, testing

ST. GEORGE, S.C. (WCSC) - People who live in St. George were told three times last month they needed to boil their water before drinking or cooking with it.

The advisories came after water main breaks related to contractors hitting pipes and causing leaks.

Such breaks can cause contamination and safety concerns in the water, so the St. George Water System issued boil-water advisories to people who lived in the immediate area while the pipes were inspected and fixed.

The town told us the supplies and cost of labor to fix everything plus testing the water added up to $4,272.

Technically, the taxpayers – those water customers - have already paid for these incidents before they even happened.

“Taking in consideration the age of our system and the inaccuracies of existing maps, problems like this are planned for when comprising the budget for the fiscal year,” St. George Water Supervisor Dion Straub said.

Other towns across the country have struggled with just this sort of issue: old maps not being accurate.

It’s often cheaper to fix the problems when they come up instead of paying for a new mapping effort.

The boil water advisories were posted on the town’s Facebook page. All three boil advisories were quickly lifted as soon as water quality tests revealed no danger.

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