(Spirit Lake)– The future of water service and who’s going to provide it in an area recently annexed into Spirit Lake was the topic of a public hearing Wednesday evening that drew a standing room only crowd to the Dickinson county courthouse.
The session dealt mainly with a request from Clay Regional Water for the board of supervisors to rescind previous action to detach several of those properties from its service area. Clay Regional Water claims it didn’t receive proper notification of the meeting when that took place. The county says it followed proper procedure.
Clay Regional Water also contends it has the right to serve that area. The city of Spirit Lake feels otherwise and is questioning the method the company used to bring customers into its service area when it was founded in the 1970’s and early 80’s. Clay Regional Water says it followed proper procedure and that they have the paperwork to prove it. Those documents are to be filed with the Dickinson County Attorney’s office by Friday.
The issue has some people…especially those in eastern Dickinson county…concerned they’re going to be left high and dry. The U-S-D-A Farmer’s Home Administration is withholding all funding for any projects in Dickinson county until the mess is straightened out. Richard Drahota of the U-S-D-A says they want to make sure the revenue is going to be there to pay off the loans.
Lawsuits over the issues have been filed in both state and federal court. And neither side has no idea how long it could take to get things straightened out. There was a push by some Wednesday night for the two sides (CRW and Spirit Lake) to sit down and remediate their dispute.
The supervisors took no action on the request to rescind their previous action. Instead, they voted to continue the hearing to February 12th. Even then, Supervisor Chair June Goldman admits there probably isn’t much the supervisors can do to ease the situation…saying it’s probably going to have to play itself out in court.
Goldman says the supervisors will review the documents to be filed by Clay Regional Water prior to the hearing continuing.
The hearing will resume at 7:30 p.m. next Tuesday at a site to be determined. Goldman says they’re going to move it to a larger location.
