By KEVIN NEVERS

Here’s a sobering figure: of the Chesterton Utility’s 5,638 customers, 696—or more than 12 percent—were mailed initial shutoff notices for the last bimonthly billing period.

Of those 696, 136 were placed on a final shutoff list. And of those 136, 54 actually had their sanitary sewer and water service disconnected. The remaining 82 on the final shutoff list were released after the Utility received a cash payment.

So Superintendent Steve Yagelski reported at Monday’s meeting of the Utility Service Board. Much to the Service Board’s surprise, Yagelski added that something like 12 percent of the Utility’s customers—not necessarily the same ones— receive shutoff notices. That percentage, he said, in a strong economy or even in the current weak one, does not change substantially from one billing period to the next.

Customers whose service is disconnected by Indiana-American Water Company must pay, in addition to the outstanding balance, a $43 reconnection fee plus a penalty of 10 percent of the unpaid amount. All, Yagelski emphasized, in cash.

“Some customers are objecting to our restriction of cash payments only once they have been sent to final shutoff,” Yagelski noted. “Others have tried to pay with credit or debit cards, which are not accepted at any time. Consistent with the (Service) Board’s longstanding policy, once a customer is placed on the final shutoff list, only a cash payment is accepted to release the customer from shutoff action by Indiana-American Water.”

Customers who receive an initial shutoff notice may arrange a payment plan with the Billing Department, Yagelski said. But they must do so immediately on receiving the notice—not at the time of actual shutoff—and they must regularly and completely fulfill the terms of that payment plan. Call the Billing Department at 926-1572.

“Unfortunately, that turns us into a collection service,” Member Andy Michel remarked. “Which isn’t really our business.”

Yagelski observed that customers continue to complain about the cash-only policy, in effect since 1998, and that he always urges them to bring those complaints to the Service Board. No one has in years.

Michel did ask customers with complaints to treat the employees of the Billing Department with respect and politeness. “If you don’t like the message,” he said, “don’t shoot the messenger.”

Approximately half of the customers whose service is disconnected are typically renters, Yagelski said, and confusion tends to result when an apartment vacated by renters whose service has been disconnected for non-payment is leased to new renters by a landlord who does not know that the service has been disconnected. The Service Board indicated its willingness to explore solutions to that problem.

Work in June

In addition to routine work in June, the Operations, Lab, Plant Maintenance, and Field Maintenance employees completed the following: the weirs on two of three final clarifiers were cleaned with sodium hypochlorite; emergency life rescue rings were installed; repairs were made to the step screen; 16 pretreatment inspections were conducted; more than 11,000 feet of gravity lines were jet-cleaned; and 149 locates and 13 inspections were performed, all in addition to the emergency replacement of the Dickinson Road lift station force main beneath Porter Ave.

June in Review

In June Chesterton used 47.40 percent of its 3,794,000 gallon per day (gpd) allotment of the wastewater treatment plant; Porter, 55.75 percent of its 725,000 gpd allotment; the Indian Boundary Conservancy District, 69.14 percent of its 81,000 gpd allotment; and the plant as a whole, 50.39 percent of its capacity. No bypasses were recorded last month. In June the Utility ran a surplus of $13,378 and in the year-to-date is running a surplus of $56,049.

Posted 7/23/2008