It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever does” Margaret Mead

     Some of you that live in the middle Tennessee area or know me personally are aware of our water problems in Bell Buckle, for those of you that don't I will enlighten you. 

     First off I am not on Bell Buckle water, even though we live over the hill from my parents we are on Bedford Utilities, but my parents are. As their only child I feel like it's my job and joy to take care of them, even though they don't need it, so if I feel like someone is mistreating them or doing them wrong you bet your sweet ass I'm on it. Their problem, along with many other people in our town, started a while back when their water became so dirty they couldn't use it for anything. It was muddy and had a bad smell. You couldn't drink it, cook with it, or wash your clothes in it. We weren't sure how many other people were having these problems but we knew that the other ten families that lived on their road had the same problems. I wrote up a petition and got everyone to sign it, and we took it to the next town meeting. All it said was that their water had been unusable for about twenty five days out of the month, and we asked for the town to waive that one water bill. The town makes it a policy to waive one bill per customer per year for a problem that is out of their control, for example a leak. The town refused to waive the bill, but they did say they would ask MTAS, the municipal advisory board at the University of Tennessee, if it was permissible for them to do that.

     At the next month's meeting they gave us a three page letter giving explanations of why they could not legally waive our bill even though the water was unusable and unsanitary. When we left that meeting I have no problem telling you that we were all very upset.  We decided to start a petition for everyone that had a problem with their water. In just a matter of days we had over two hundred names of people that had the same issues. As this got bigger and bigger I started researching all their "reasons" and I got on the MTAS website to see what I could find.  I had no idea that what ever you needed to know about a town was on their website, they did write them and ask their opinion on how it should be handled. MTAS also keep a copy of all the responses they send out, and the letter that was sent to the board and mayor had no similarities. MTAS simply said that it was up to the town how they wanted to handle it, it was not three pages just one and there were no references to court trials saying it was illegal to waive a bill. The court trials that were actually referenced in Bell Buckle's letter didn't even pertain to our issue, I guess whoever wrote it didn't figure we would fact check them. 

     We had a few other complaints that had been let go, but since they treated us with zero respect we brought them up. Bell Buckle is a very small town, there are about two hundred water and sewer customers on the inside of the city limits and five hundred on the outside. Mama and daddy live on the outside, the outside people are not on sewer they have septic systems. The customers on the outside pay double what the people on the inside pay for water. Basically the inside gets water and sewer for the price of an outside persons water bill. The town says they combine sewer and water funds, and they have been showing a loss. They decided to come in and raise the outside customers bill 27% because they were losing money and because it costs more to get the water to us than to the inside customers. And let me just add this, the people on the outside can not run or vote for a town office, and these are the people that decide the water rates and all the restrictions that are imposed on the people outside of town.  Now almost every water line that services the five hundred customers was put in by the customers and then donated to the town, so they had NO cost in the water line.  We are paying more than double the inside and we had to pay for the construction of the line, my parents are responsible for two pretty considerable long water lines to. So not only were we lied to by the people that set the regulations and rates, but they also refused to help us in our time of need.  The water costs about $3.00 per thousand for the town to buy, and they are selling it at a minimum of $37 to the outside customers, most bills average around $50 to $60.  The water system is in need of updates, but at the rates that are being paid they should be able to keep up with at least some of them.  It's no secret that hundreds of thousands of our water money is spent on the sewer plant, most of that is our money and we receive no benefit from it.  Since most of the customers aren't on sewer you would think they would have the money separate,  but if they did that they couldn't show a loss on the water and raise our bill and the water money couldn't be spent on the sewer plant.  The funny thing is I found the town's audit online, because it's public record of course, and it showed the water and sewer separated. The water actually made $60,000 last year and the sewer lost $100,000, the figures were not the same in the break down of water and sewer but when I brought this up they said it was simply a typo by the auditor of the Tennessee comptrollers audit office. Pretty sure he wouldn't appreciate that, but then I found where the town  had asked if it was ok to spend the town's funds on adding a septic system or rehabilitating the sewer system to a very prominent private school in town.  MTAS said that it was illegal to do this but the y proceeded on with the job anyway. They couldn't waive one bill for us when the water was unusable but they could spend OUR money on a job for a private school when they are very able to pay for it their self.

      The third problem with our water is the pressure. The state of Tennessee has a legal set limit on water pressure and it's 21 lbs. My parents have lived in the same house for 48 years and they have never had good pressure, but as you've picked up on you can't get much help in this town. During all this the town water superintendent got a water pressure gauge that kept up with the pressure 24 hours a day for up to five days. In those five days there were only a handful of times when the pressure got above 30 lbs, but there were several times when the pressure dropped below 0.  The state not only says that the pressure has to be at 21 lbs but it has to maintain that pressure and not fluctuate, which it does. 90% of the time the water wasn't above or even equal to 21lbs, it's been months and this problem still goes on.

     So as of now we have a class action lawsuit against the town of Bell Buckle for lack of pressure, being over charged for our water, and the low quality of water being sold to the customers.  It has taken a lot of long hours, hard work, and major frustration to get to the point where we could file a lawsuit but we made it.  If it wasn't for the great people on the oustide making donations and showing support we would have never made it. We still have the expense of the lawsuit and donations are hard to find, but there always seems to be a person making one when you need it the most. Two sayings are the first to come to mind every time I think about this first "bitches get stuff done" and second "it's not the size of the dog in the fight it's the size of the fight in the dog". We have one hell of a fight in us to...