Suburban Maryland leaders are vowing to find funds to replace aging water pipes, after a broken four-foot water main had thousands boiling their drinking water — but some residents question whether more money will solve anything.

The 48-inch water main that burst on the evening of June 15 was 38 years old — not ancient by any standard. According to Kylah Hedding, spokeswoman for American Water Works Association, the typical life span of a water pipe is 60 to 100 years.

Officials with the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, the water utility that serves Prince George’s and Montgomery

counties, said Friday evening they suspect a snapped wire inside

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the pipe could have led to the break.

WSSC leaders urged Montgomery and Prince George’s leaders to back a plan to charge every household a $20 monthly fee to replace pipes twice as quickly.

Prince George’s commissioners, under the guidance of County Executive Jack Johnson, challenged the fee, saying it would unfairly slam poor residents.

They also said the WSSC was already behind on its own schedule for pipe replacement. For the past two years it has had the budget to replace 27 miles of water main a year, but it replaced only 16 miles of pipe in fiscal 2007 and is expected to fix 25 miles of pipe in fiscal 2008.

“They have the resources to make repairs that they haven’t made,” said Johnson’s spokesman, Jim Keary.

Commission spokeswoman Lyn Riggins said the commission missed goals while trying to ramp up its replacement process and has made changes to prevent future logjams.

Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett backed the idea of the monthly fee, but representatives of his county have tangled with the WSSC as well this year.

Montgomery Inspector General Tom Dagley unsuccessfully requested access to the water utility’s books this spring, wanting to examine $2.3 billion in spending over the past three years.

“The Montgomery County inspector general lacks the authority to conduct an audit of WSSC,” Riggins wrote Friday in an e-mail to The Examiner.

Leggett’s spokesman, Patrick Lacefield, said Leggett has considered requesting access to the books themselves.

“We want things with the WSSC to be as transparent as possible,” Lacefield said. “If the WSSC wanted to share the information, they could.”

Wayne Goldstein, past president of the Montgomery County Civic Federation, said the WSSC’s reluctance to share its books has made him “very suspicious” of the water utility.

“What are they trying to hide?” Goldstein asked.

kmiller@dcexaminer.com