Water main breaks close 1,200 eateries

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Montgomery officials closed an estimated 1,200 restaurants Monday to prevent outbreaks of illness that could be caused by three major water main breaks in the county as residents skipped showers and boiled their own water.

Prince George’s County and Montgomery County officials were repeatedly warned over the past year by the top management of the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, the water utility that serves both counties, of just such a failure, unless the region took immediate action to pour money into replacing of aging pipes.

Leaders of the two counties, however, have been unable to agree on how to pay for replacing the pipes.

Meanwhile, Montgomery public information officers said county health officials had made phone calls all day to restaurants in affected areas — most of the northern half of the county — telling them to shut down until state and local officials give the OK.

Uncle Julio’s Rio Grande Cafe, a popular Gaithersburg restaurant, was open for business, however, when contacted by The Examiner at 7:30 p.m. Monday.

Assistant General Manager Yuri Waller said staff had “taken a lot of precautions.”

“We’ve been boiling water for cooking, only serving bottled water and purchasing ice,” Waller said. “Anything we can do to protect our customers, we’ve done.”

At the Baja Fresh Mexican Grill in Rockville, Assistant Manager Lily Rivas was like many in the restaurant business around the county on Monday night: uncertain.

“We didn’t use water — we stopped using the soda machine,” Rivas said, adding the restaurant sold bottled water and stopped serving ice.

“We’re just waiting for the Health Department to call us — my boss was calling them. We’re just waiting for the Health Department to tell us when we can use it again because I don’t want anybody to get sick.”

When asked if she knew when the Health Department would get back to them, she said, “I don’t know.”

The breakdown came not long after the outgoing head of the water authority, Andy Brunhart, warned of worsening problems if the two counties didn’t approve a new fee for customers to finance massive improvements. While Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett backed the plan, Prince George’s County Executive Jack Johnson opposed it.

Montgomery Council Member Nancy Floreen, who chairs the Montgomery Council Committee, which oversees water service, expressed concerns earlier Monday about how much money businesses were losing and said the issue of pipe replacement fees was “back on the agenda.”

“This is a real reminder of one of our most basic obligations to our residents, which is to provide them with drinking water,” Floreen said. “If we can’t do this, we’re not much of a government at all, are we?”

Prince George’s County leaders backed a proposal of their own that would have used a formula based on home value to determine water fees for individual customers. That plan was blasted by an official from the Maryland Attorney General’s Office.

During February budget debates, WSSC commissioners deadlocked on how to address the problem and eventually scrapped the idea of a fee altogether, instead approving an 8 percent rate increase, an annual raise of about $44 for residents of both counties.

Brunhart said not backing a fee conveyed the message that “decaying infrastructure is acceptable.”

Lacefield said Leggett would discuss the pipe replacement impasse at a previously scheduled meeting with Johnson later this week.

Examiner Staff Writer David Sherfinski contributed to this story.

kmiller@dcexaminer.com

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