Three years ago. You read correctly, three years ago. Our county was under a "no burn" directive. No rain for months. Later in the fall, I raked the yard leaves up into the driveway ditch to burn on some early a.m. with little wind. I struck one match and threw it on top of the leaves, immediately they started to burn.
I went about other work in the yard and a few minutes later checked on the burning. No flames, no smoke? I raked up the burned area and saw water puddles underneath. Curious, I went to my city water meter – lifted the iron lid off and there was about 12-14 inches of water inside. I called the city to inform them and they sent someone up the next day. After seeing the situation, they called for a sump pump to be brought up. After getting the water out, they could see a trickle of water coming into it from the city side of the meter. Yes, they said, it's on the city side (three years ago).
Update: three or four months ago, water was seeping down my driveway onto my carport. I dug trenches across my driveway to divert as much as possible. The mayor has been up, city water guys has been up, an alderman has been up.
They then began digging across my pavement. Found the leak coming down, so they dug up two or three other places on Birdsnest Road back toward town finding still more leaks. A specialist with high tech sensors tracked from my house up to the road to the old city dump. No more digging.
Decision was made that the entire main line would have to be replaced. I was told it probably would be June 2026.
Today, April 13, 2026, out of curiosity, I did a very crude test with my walking stick, stopping every so often raking leaves back and found water in the ditch heading downhill on Birdsnest Road all the way to the ditch across from the last red fire hydrant. Three years of 24/7 the city has lost water – wasted three years of paying extra electric bills to keep our city water towers full.
No one enjoys paying taxes, but we all realize they are needed. It seems those in charge of the situation think as long as it's not on an individual's meter but on the city side, no rush.
Well, I totally disagree. Every drop of that leak for three years are tax payer dollars.
City officials are not much different than any elected offices – they're not going to please everybody. I appreciate all of them, but you couldn't pay me enough to do those jobs. But three years really frustrates me.
Jim Barksdale
Steelville
