To the editor:

On Saturday, thanks to our good neighbors, we reported a link to public works. They were on the scene by 8 a.m., but we were told it wouldn’t get fixed until Monday, as it was not an emergency.

A three-man team showed up to dig three feet into the ground and repair what turned out to be an old pipe that had come apart underground.

If you assume that approximately two gallons of water were wasted per minute that the leak continued, you’ll conclude that the delay until Monday morning cost the city more than 6,000 gallons of water. Thank God the leak was on the city side of the meter, because if these thousands of gallons were leaking out of our side of the water meter, I can assure you it would have been an emergency then!

It’s amazing how Suffolk pays Portsmouth for the water we use, and yet the city of Suffolk can so easily overlook thousands of gallons of clean drinking water just flowing down the gutter and into the storm drain.

I suppose the yearly price increases the citizens of Suffolk so readily accept are enough to offset these many thousands of gallons lost to leaks.

Janet Gurwell
Suffolk