Published: February 05, 2009 09:06 am      

A Reader's View: Conservancy district must treat Waltonville fairly

Editor:

As a former Rend Lake Conservancy District board member who served during the early 1990’s and as a resident of Waltonville, I can speak from a special perspective about the problems of the conservancy district. I understand what it is like to be only one member of a board of seven trying to get something done.

As a board member of that earlier day, I saw some of the abuses taking place and registered my complaints, but could not get much public scrutiny about any problems. I challenged management on several occasions and even threatened to work toward removing Waltonville from the district. My reward: I was not reappointed to the board by Richard Englund, the Jefferson County Board chairman at that time. I was told that there were some tradeoffs between Mr. Englund, the management of the district and other politicians that got me removed from the board. Whether or not it’s true, I have no idea, but I do know that I was not reappointed.

As a resident of Waltonville, I also see first hand the results of a water policy dictated by RLCD and Mt. Vernon that treats some areas of the district in an unfair and underhanded way. Such policy should be challenged and cannot be allowed to stand.

As a resident, I see that something is wrong when the district would allow Waltonville to be treated differently from any other community and hide behind the bogus argument that the present problem is between our village and Mt. Vernon and has nothing to do with RLCD. To buy that argument, one must suspend logic. The only reason that Waltonville must deal with Mt. Vernon is because the district has given Mt. Vernon another long-term contract that specifically excludes our village from buying water directly from the district.

I see there is something wrong when Zeigler, Sesser, Royalton, Akin, West City, Valier, Buckner, Hill City, Macedonia, Mulkeytown and several other communities of Franklin County can buy Rend Lake water directly from the district at a much lower cost than Waltonville can purchase the same water, simply because our village is included in a contract provision between the district and Mt. Vernon that excludes us from buying water directly from Rend Lake. I ask why our village should be treated differently than others.

I see there is something wrong when Dahlgren, McLeansboro, Herrin, Johnston City, Carterville, Crainville, Cambria, Culp, Galatia, Du Quoin, Washington County and other communities outside the district who pay no taxes to the district can purchase water from Rend lake for considerably less than our community who is a part of the district and pays taxes to it. Again, I ask why our village and, for that matter, why any other village of Jefferson County should be treated differently.

I see there is something wrong when the conservancy district can spend millions of dollars to construct pipelines throughout Franklin and Williamson counties t serve those communities, but require our community to construct and maintain our own 10-mile water line to Mt. Vernon. The requirement is even more absurd by the fact that two conservancy district water lines run very close to Waltonville and could be used to supply water to our village if allowed.

I see there is something wrong when our community, a part of the conservancy district, must underwrite the construction of a sewer system for Whittington, a little community located in Franklin County. Yet, the district did not help us build our sewer system. We built our own. For that matter, Ina, Bonnie and Woodlawn also built their sewer system without help from the district, and those communities are a part of the district and pay taxes to it.

To conclude, I want to state that the conservancy district must treat Waltonville fairly in all matters of the district, or we want out! If the district insists it has a valid contract with Mt. Vernon, it is then obligated to reimburse our village for the additional coast that we incur from buying water from Mt. Vernon.

Jim Laird

Waltonville