The City of Towanda announced in early 2024 that a large leak had been found in the city with suspicions of leaching water since June 2022. During a City Council meeting in February, the council disclosed that the leak was losing 50,000 gallons of water per day, every day since its inception, which is unclear. The City Administrator/City Clerk Andy Newbrey estimated that nearly 20 million gallons of water have been lost to date, totaling $114,000. The question many residents have raised is why wasn’t the leak caught sooner? “As far as my perspective goes, I don’t have experience with what the water bill should be,” said Newbrey. “I was the city treasurer full time before that, but we were occupied with revamping our accounting system and multiple things, and I didn’t look at water costs.” These things coupled with high turnover is why the city says they didn’t catch the leak. It wasn’t until they ran the state mandated water report that it was found. “Basically, we’re on our second maintenance staff since I’ve been here,” said Newbrey. “So, we’ve had quite a rotation.” The City of Towanda currently employs three full time and two part time city maintenance staff and are looking into hiring a fourth full time member in 2025 if budgeting allows. As far as fixing the leak goes, they may not know if it’s fixed until Monday. Maintenance staff have been working around the clock between other various calls to locate and correct the leak, so far repairing two major areas they’ve been able to identify.
Source: Andover American
