Recommending a “public flogging” for the people he says contaminated he and his wife’s drinking water supply, a Fillmore resident was supported by a Fillmore councilman in blaming workers.
Resident Paul Adams told the Fillmore city council Sept. 18 about the incident and was joined in his claim of the cause by Fillmore City Councilman Dennis Alldredge.
Workers put a fast-food cup into the supply through the ground Aug. 30, Adams said, remarking that they “shouldn’t be allowed to work on water in our society” while calling for a flogging.
“It couldn’t have been coincidental that these things just fell into an eight-inch pipe seven feet down,” Adams told the Millard County Chronicle Progress. “It’s way down there.”
As construction in the city was occurring the prior year, Adams saw that such holes were “really quite deep,” he said after changing the distance to “five to seven feet.”
“This could not have been an accident,” Alldredge said in the meeting.
The workers are contractors hired by the city, said Sunrise Engineering Project Engineer Robert Worley, who oversaw the Fillmore City Culinary Water Improvements Project, which Sunrise CEO Mark Huntsman described as “upgrading and replacing a bunch of water lines” and “increasing fire protection.”
“The city hires the contractors,” Worley told the Chronicle Progress. “The city hires the contractors direct and we work for the city also.”
Fillmore Mayor Mike Holt said that when he found out about the situation, he “called everyone and let them know (the council) would make changes to this.”
“I take this very seriously,” he said.
A “company” Alldredge referred to in the council meeting has “some kind of supervision,” Holt said.
Alldredge then asked if the council should “punish” the company.
“I will look into it,” Holt said.
Huntsman said he didn’t know what the reference to “company” would mean.
“I don’t know what (Alldredge) would mean,” Huntsman said. “There is not much you can do to punish (a company) … There is not some sort of civil thing.”
Saying that water is crucial, Alldredge said “without killing anybody, there needs to be a strong response to this.”
“There needs to be a stronger response,” he added.
Adams said that the legal consequence for contaminating water supply is a federal penalty. That includes up to 20 years in prison, with the penalty for a threat being up to a $100,000 fine. However, Adams said he is “not proposing any civil or criminal action to anybody.”
He also said while talking with the Chronicle Progress that he did not blame anyone, though he did not say that in the council meeting and made several references then and in an interview Sunday to blame.
Adams got the legal information he got from his civil-engineer son, who said that “monkeying with the municipal water supply is a very serious thing.”
The penalties (there are others besides those listed here) are as relatively strict as they are because they were made as a response to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Adams said.
The issue “resides with three culprits,” Adams said in the meeting: Fillmore City, the contracting engineers and the “idiots” who were the workers. Adams said Sunday they displayed “negligence.”
After Mitchell’s crew searched for garbage in the water supply, Adams saw that they had a shovel “with debris on it” – and that included a cup that said “pioneers of the Great American Burger.”
“Then we saw that those are cups that are available at Carl’s Jr.,” Adams told the council.
The fast-food chain has the slogan “pioneers of the Great American Burger.”
A red drinking straw was also among the debris, Adams also said.
Adams saw a worker receive a Carl’s Jr. cup, he said in the meeting.
Adams said the garbage in the water supply was discovered a day after Adams’ wife, Myrna Adams, was hospitalized. She woke up and couldn’t get up, Adams said.
“She may have had a stroke,” Adams said.
“Something like this has never happened in her whole life,” Adams said.
There “may have been some coincidence,” but Myrna Adams has lived 28,000 days, Adams said.
Huntsman said the Adams’ are his neighbors.
“I spend an hour a Sunday with (Paul Adams’) wife,” Huntsman said. “She is at her peak.”
“I was with her last Sunday; not last Sunday, the Sunday before,” Huntsman said.
Myrna Adams was “playing the piano in our Primary program, tickling the ivories.”
Adams was complimentary of Mitchell and his team for isolating the problem when it occurred, saying they did it in a “methodical and professional manner.”
“His crew did a magnificent job,” Adams said.
Worley said that Holt called him after Public Works Director John Mitchell’s crew started addressing the issue.
In the meeting, Mitchell made a comment to which Alldredge responded “it comes back on those workers, then.”
“Our workers did not install the pipe,” Worley said. “It’s not the engineers who installed the pipe.”
The engineers did “design” and “oversight,” Worley said.
The project started construction in the spring of 2017, Worley said.
Alldredge’s council assignments include water. He did not return a request for additional comments as of press time.
The original construction to the water-improvements project was finished in “the fall.” The second piece is “the repairs that happened right prior to … Paul Adams’ situation,” Huntsman said.
“I think they are focusing on the repair,” Huntsman said. “Not a major part of the whole construction, but a repair itself.”
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