City owes us the good water we are paying for

As long-time residents of Bonners Ferry and life-long residents of Boundary County, we want to know why the city of Bonners Ferry installed a water well on our system with no notifications whatsoever. We don't know of any entity that has ever done this without proper notification of its members. Without notice, residents have experienced dirty water coming from their faucets, calcium clouded water and scale in appliances and cookware, foul taste and odor, hair that won't come clean, diarrhea, etc. Not until residents started talking amongst one another did we start questioning the city.

We have the best water available from Myrtle Creek and have enjoyed it for decades and we pay good rates for the water. Their reasons for the well was it was the most cost-effective way of supplying the growing area with water from the Myrtle Creek water system with disregards to the people it affects. The DEQ says it is safe to drink even though it makes one sick.

The shallow well is close to the river, barely downstream from an old sawmill and a lagoon, other old mills upstream and every cow pasture and roadway with deicer that drains into the Kootenai - it is an arterial carrying pollutants and they want us to drink it.

The city has raised our taxes significantly and proposes to have another tax hike and are actively promoting the city on the internet, but say they don't have enough money to expand the current water system. A class action suit may prove otherwise. We demand good water that we pay for.

TIM WEST

Bonners Ferry