As local politicians begin to question the cause of last week’s massive water main break and locals file a class-action lawsuit against Tennessee American Water, the company at the center of the controversy is maintaining its streak of silence.
Former city planner, public works commissioner and mayor of Chattanooga Ron Littlefield was extremely critical of the water company Tuesday, saying that its negligence is responsible for the leak that left 35,000 connections with little or no water for up to three days.
“Over the years, [the company] has been consistently difficult to work with,” Littlefield, who championed a failed plan in 2010 to interconnect East Side, Hixson and Tennessee American water infrastructure, said. “They told us, when the plan came up about a decade ago, ‘Oh, don’t worry. We’ve got it,’ and yet, this weekend, they proved that they never had it under control.”
Councilwoman Carol Berz, who was new to the council at the time of the interconnectivity plan, addressed at Tuesday’s council planning meeting a study done on the water system, but was unable to get further details.
Ron Littlefield“I just think we need to know what came of this study,” Berz said. “Someone called it outdated, but I don’t believe any of this kind of research can really be outdated. … it might help us figure out where to go from here or what happened last week.”