Swimming In my Sink!?

     Welcome to the world of Francis Says its So! Why a Blog Francis? Well, there has been a lot of buzz around town lately and there doesn't seem to be an outlet. The television just wants to talk about Vermont and the local paper... well let's just leave those statements for a future blog. Suffice to say they would rather waste trees glorifying a vindictive bully pretending to care about joe taxpayer (more like as long as your home is worth more than $200k taxpayer) and to readers who want to complain about church bells and BYOB parties. When a person writes to them about important things like the city barely passing its water testing this past summer, pockets of dirty bacteria laced water in the mains and the obscenely high amount of chlorine in the current tap water, they don't want to do anything about it....hmmmmm. Could it be because its too close to election time for their favorite leader of the good old boys club?
     Lets look at the timeline, a very general liberal timeline I will confess, but a timeline none the less. First off, I digress, we need mention the City of Plattsburghs water system. Wonderfully repaired, on a regular basis, by the hard working people of the DPW. So Francis, you will ask, How is that a PROBLEM??? Well, I digress again to the 'bully'  as mentioned before. I will also refer to him sometimes as the 'I ran into the ground multiple businesses being bottom-line oriented so I'll do it to the City ,too' guy.  Well since his tenure began he has used his 'Slash and Burn' style of management to cut jobs of the men and women who maintain our precious water and ignored department heads who asked for upgrades to the deteriorated lines (some over 100yrs old) via capital projects all to protect the 'outrageous' amount of money people have to pay in taxes. I mean do you realize the difference between what someone pays in taxes who has ONLY one $100k property compared to someone who owns a dozen $200k+ rental properties???? How are they going to be able to buy fuel oil to heat their beautiful house on the lake this winter while they are in Florida! OOOPS.... I've digressed too far. The timeline, right.
     Sometime this summer tests were done on the water and 'slight' levels of bacteria were found and adjustments were made to the water treatment. Since it 'passed' inspection what need would there be for a follow up test to ensure the safety of the public. I mean it 'passed', do you have any idea of what it costs to do a full spectrum test on the water? No, seriously do you, I hear its thousands of dollars since a bulk of it is biological and chemical which makes it complex. I mean if it is thousands of dollars that's just too much to consider the safety of the elderly and children, c'mon we passed! Let's just kick an extra gallon of bleach in there since another test would be like, ummmm, a half gallon of fuel oil cost for that previous mentioned example. So, next up in the timeline, pockets of mysterious brown water appearing in households throughout the city. Complaints made, nothing done or was there??? Another gallon of bleach (by the way this is fiction, the city doesn't use bleach, I hope, to treat water). Next step, have the favorite department of Mr. Pennypincher, the Fire Department, go around and run fire hydrants to clear these devious disgusting evasive pockets of water from our precious taxpayers water supply. Why not dump thousands of gallons of treated clean water down the drain, that should fix the problem, right.... Well I had the privilege to observe one of these hydrants being opened while walking my dog in the Center City and watched the water go from orange brown, to white and back to a mud brown to orange. One of the drains in the street was backed up with leaves so this dark pool was forming before me and suddenly my mind was brought back to summer growing up and having to wait alongside the pool for the recently added chemicals to dilute before swimming. I can tell you one thing, I'm sure it wasn't what who must've been the new fireman was thinking as he got sent with a shovel to clear the drain before someone saw the large lake of brown water in the road. He must've been hoping the water he had to walk through didn't stain or bleach his clothes! The water ran for over 7 minutes before it was adequate.
      Adequate.... interesting word. A good description for the 'passing' grade the city received for it's water. Not even close to a word I would use for the Grand PooBah of Plattsburgh. Adequate is a word I will use for the water... water I can use to fill my pool and not have to use chlorine but then since I don't have a pool I guess I can fill my sink......