Borrowing the kettle

Sept. 27, 2012

Richmond, Iowa

To the Editor:

There?s an old story about a lawsuit between two neighbors. A man was accused of borrowing a copper kettle, burning a hole in it, and returning it in damaged condition. The accused offered a defense consisting of three convincing parts. The first was, ?I never borrowed the kettle.? The second was, ?It already had a hole in it when I borrowed it.? And the third was, ?It was in perfect condition when I returned it.?

I mention this story because some of our county supervisors are using similar logic.

At a supervisors meeting in February 2011, supervisor Adam Mangold said, ?Some of the citizens of Richmond continue to insist that they can handle their own problems but if this is the case why has it not happened over the last 10 years?? Supervisor Jim Miksch added that ?These citizens have not been serious about finding a solution.?

This was 19 days after a public hearing, during which a Richmond resident told all five supervisors how a county official had prevented contractors from even inspecting her septic system.

At a recent supervisors meeting I attended, supervisor Wes Rich defended decisions to prevent residents from upgrading septic systems by saying that the official simply didn?t want people to waste money on septic systems when a lagoon system was planned.

Finally, at a subsequent meeting I heard supervisor Jim Miksch deny that people had been prevented from renovating septic systems when he told a resident who said she had been prevented from doing so that he did not believe her ? essentially calling her a liar.

I have known these neighbors for many years, and I can tell supervisor Miksch that they are most certainly not liars!

So, which is it? Are these citizens ?serious about finding a solution? or not? I know that they are!

This is important because recent tests by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) have shown evidence of sanitary problems on the periphery of Richmond. Although, while responding to an anonymous complaint, DNR agents were unable to find anything worth sampling within the village itself, Richmond residents take this very seriously and want to correct these problems.

For years Richmond residents have not been allowed to keep up their septic systems properly, and more recently have even been told not to pump them out, which is part of routine maintenance. Therefore, it would be a miracle like the parting of the Red Sea if after 15 years of severely restricted sanitary enforcement such problems had not developed!

The DNR stands by what it has always said: The choice of a lagoon system was made by the Washington County supervisors and proper on-site systems are perfectly acceptable to them.

A hilly community like Richmond is ill-suited for a central sewer system, and there is no legitimate reason for a multimillion-dollar project like this, which is unnecessary and wasteful.

Bill Knutson