TALLADEGA Following allegations that Water and Sewer Board general manager Bill Goheen gave fraudulent figures on the loss of a substantial portion of the city's water production, Goheen presented a revised set of figures Wednesday.Initially, Goheen said all but 21 percent of the drinking water produced by the city in the month of April had been accounted for. That figure was later revised to 23 percent, which still represented a significant decrease over the last four months, with losses of 38 percent, 45 percent, 44 percent and 41 percent.
In a called meeting Wednesday morning, Goheen offered figures he said corrected three errors on a report he gave to the board Monday night.
According to Goheen's Monday report, since October 2000, the board has been generating, on average, 25 percent more water than it sells. During that period, a total of 1.25 billion gallons could not be accounted for.
The problem has been nearing crisis proportions since December, when 38 percent of all water generated was not accounted for. By January, the figure was up to 45 percent. In February and March, the percentage dropped to 44 percent and 41 percent, respectively.
For the month of April, Goheen showed water production of 125,770,000 gallons over sales of 86,752,400, which would normally represent a loss of just more than 31 percent. However, Goheen's report showed that he was able to account for 12.2 million gallons of unmetered water, bringing the amount unaccounted for down to 21 percent.
Goheen traced back just less than 2.5 million gallons of the accounted for unmetered water to the surface treatment plant.
The revised figures presented Wednesday reflect 23 percent loss for the month, with the difference accounted for at the plant. But while some of the figures were moved into a different category, the numbers themselves did not change.
Assistant general manager James Brasher and at least one water plant operator conducted a survey of their own, however, and came up with strikingly different results.
Brasher contacted board members Dan Waites and Charles Pope Tuesday afternoon. The board members confronted Goheen with the discrepancies at the plant Tuesday, with Pope going as far as characterizing Goheen's findings as "fraudulent."
By The Numbers
Raw water flowing into the plant is metered, but water leaving the plant and being pumped into the system is not. Goheen said Monday that there would be a meter in place within the next 30 days, but until then, the amount of water actually produced at the plant is difficult to track.
Goheen's initial report showed the surface scour wash as the single greatest source of lost water at the plant, at a rate of 50 gallons per minute or 1.2 million gallons for the month. In the revised figures submitted Monday, this number drops to 24,000 gallons, correcting a typographical error in the initial report.
The units listed in the initial report were listed as "gallons per minute," but Goheen conceded Tuesday the correct numbers are based on gallons per hour.
The chlorine booster pump showed 720 gallons per minute for a total of 518,400 gallons for the month unaccounted for.
The lime slurry mixer and caustic slurry mixer are shown using 360 gallons per minute each, for a monthly total of 259,200 gallons each, according to Goheen's report.
Differing views
These numbers are wrong across the board, according to Brasher. Water from all of the sources Goheen listed is not lost, it is pumped back into the system, he said.
Goheen's revised report took the chlorine booster pump and both slurry mixers out of the total for unaccounted loss at the plant, but left the surface scour wash figures in.
The surface scour wash may have represented a loss at one time, but was repaired in February, according to Brasher.
The slurry mixers, he added, have a capacity of 7 gallons per minute rather than 360, as Goheen reported to the board.
Brasher disputed Goheen's other figures as well.
Where Goheen showed the raw water sampler losing 12 gallons per minute, Brasher said the results of tests he ran showed flows of 37 ounces per minute. The mixed water and finished water samplers, Goheen said, represent losses of 84 gallons and 42 gallons, respectively. Brasher's tests gave figures of 1 gallon, 12 ounces per minute and 74.5 ounces per minute.
All of Goheen's measurements were converted to gallons per hour in the revised report.
Both reports showed losses of 66 gallons per minute (later per hour) from the chlorine analyzer, which drains through a small tube of no more than one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter. Brasher estimated this particular item had a maximum capacity of less than one ounce per minute.
Goheen's report also showed losses through the turbidity monitors at 77 gallons per minute, for each of eight monitors.
Brasher pointed out that no more than four of these monitors are run at a time, for a total of 72 ounces per minute.
Lastly, Goheen's report showed 15 gallons per minute or 10,800 gallons per month for "employee usage."
"We have a commode, a water fountain and sink we use for making coffee," Brasher said. At the most, according to his estimate, this usage should come out to less than 4 gallons per minute.
Goheen responded that his figure also included usages "for cleaning up and hosing things down at the end of a shift."
The other amendment made for Wednesday's report was the addition of a line item for "rewash to waste," which Goheen showed accounting for 42,000 gallons per month.
All of the figures he gave were based on samples taken by a certified plant operator, he added.
Confrontation
After examining Goheen's figures, Brasher contacted Waites and Pope. "This just makes the employees look bad," Brasher said. "We're just trying to do our jobs here."
Pope agreed. "These fraudulent numbers reflect badly on the staff," he said at the impromptu meeting Tuesday. "These people are accountable, and they need to have their jobs reported accurately. I want to make sure that everybody in Talladega knows the numbers Goheen reported Monday are not correct."
Waites concurred. "I am concerned about the information given to the board by the manager versus what's really going on. Goheen's report is a threat to all board employees trying to do their jobs. This is just a throwback to the way previous boards did business."
Goheen defended the document, saying, "I got the information from (plant manager) Ricky Maddox and a Grade 4 certified operator. I have confidence in them. If an operator doesn't know how to take a sample, then he needs to be re-educated.
"I was assured," Goheen continued, "that samples were taken from all the taps and reported to me. What was collected was reported. All of these taps can be adjusted to whatever level the operator wants, anyway. I let the staff handle it, and I took the information from them and generated this report from their data."
PAST PROBLEMS
Waites called Goheen's statements "full of bull crap. Isn't it true that this board has been under scrutiny for some time because they have been in constant need of correction?"
"This board has made some excellent decisions since January," Goheen responded. "That's when (former general manager) George Montgomery retired, and I was put in as interim manager. I've implemented some ideas to go forward. I have no idea why this was not done previously.
"I agree there have been problems implementing things with past boards," Goheen added. "I don't know if that was due to expenses or what. I agree we've got a lot to do, and it's not getting done fast enough for me, either. But at least we're going forward, in the right direction."
Goheen also agreed that some of the board's expenses were too high. "I'm concerned about the high cost of attorney fees, too, but the board that got into those situations is no longer in existence.
"We're dealing with cover-ups every day," Waites responded. "We need true and accurate information from you, and I want you to make that happen, not just talk about it. This board put you where you are, and we can take you out. This information is just not accurate, and we have no way to gauge the problem here."
"And it's not just the board," Pope added. "The public has been getting inaccurate information as well. That's always been a problem with this board."
Goheen assured Waites and Pope that once the new meters were in place, "the report will be corrected based on the data provided. I will not submit another report to the board until that happens."
NUMBERS REVISITED
Discussion of the revised numbers at Wednesday's meeting, where Waites was not present, stirred significantly less controversy, although Brasher pointed out they were still not accurate.
Board chairman Wayne Kearley, who was not present Monday, said Wednesday that "it is impossible to account for all water correctly. Everything is going to be an estimate. It disturbs me that so much time and energy has been going into the why, instead of just making deductions. We're wasting time on information that's suspect to start with," because there is no meter on the plant outflow.
Goheen apologized to the board members present for "the incorrect information. The April loss was 23 percent, not 21 percent, but that's still in our target range."
According to Alabama Department of Environmental Management spokesman Scott Hughes, to be fiscally sound, a water system's unaccounted for water should not exceed 15 percent on average.
