All’s well that ends well

Three residents told us that construction near their homes had caused their wells to dry up. The municipally-owned corporation responsible for water services gave them temporary water tanks, but informed them that the tanks would be removed. The residents felt that their well water remained unsafe. Our Office reached out to the utility provider, which agreed to leave the temporary water tanks on the residents’ properties. As a result of our intervention, the utility provider also hosted a town hall meeting for residents and sent them the results of safety tests on their well water. Some whose water was deemed safe had their supply reconnected to their wells. The utility provider also installed monitoring devices to ensure the water levels in these wells remained consistent. In case any new issues arose, we facilitated contact between residents and a project manager at the utility provider.

Read about how we helped other people in our Selected cases.