Latest count of faulty hydrants: 140

By Borys Krawczeniuk and Lynne Slack Shedlock TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS

The number seems to have changed almost daily this week.

A list Fire Chief Harvey Applegate submitted to the City Council on Tuesday had 214 faulty hydrants on it. The list was compiled last May by the Pennsylvania American Water Co. The chief said some had been fixed, but he didnt know how many.

Later the same day, Mr. Connors said the number of faulty hydrants was down to 100 and the rest would be fixed in a month. He got that number from Assistant Fire Chief Terry Osborne, Mr. Connors said.

On Wednesday, The Tribune counted 210 on the councils list and the same day Chief Applegate said 70 had been fixed, leaving 140 apparently unrepaired.

But it turned out two pages were missing. The faulty hydrants on the two pages Thursday raised the number to 239.

So whats the real number?

The latest one Wednesday came out of a closed-door meeting Thursday between the Scranton Fire Department and Pennsylvania-American Water Co. officials. It matched Chief Applegates figure on Wednesday.

Weve concluded that there are approximately 140 hydrants that are in need of some kind of attention, David Guskey, water company operations manager, said.

Of those, about 80 must be replaced and 60 need maintenance, Mr. Guskey and Deputy Fire Chief Terry Osborne said.

They came to that conclusion by reviewing a list compiled by the water company last May and figuring what hydrants have been replaced and repaired since then, city officials said.

Many of the 60 need only minor repairs, Deputy Chief Osborne said. For example, some hydrants are only hard to turn on, but they work, he said.

The latest number of faulty hydrants directly contradicts the number Mr. Connors used all week when speaking with reporters and at neighborhood association meetings.

On Thursday, the mayor disputed that city officials really dont have a handle on how many hydrants are faulty.

As of that day, they thought it was 100, Mr. Connors said of his Tuesday estimate. I said that because that was the best available information we had at the time.

Mr. Connors also said he thought the work could be done in a month. If there are 100 faulty hydrants and four or five a day the rate of work in recent weeks it stands to reason a month is long enough, he said.

That contradicted what Mr. Guskey said Thursday after meeting with Deputy Chief Osborne.

The goal is to get everything in by the end of the year, he said, noting that the city will prioritize its replacement list.

Mr. Guskey said the water company, which is not responsible for the hydrant itself but does do replacements for the cost of labor and materials, will make no commitment to replacing a certain number weekly or monthly because of unknowns such as weather. The city handles repairs.

Deputy Chief Osborne also acknowledged a few hydrants might not be replaced until summertime because they will be part of water company plans to replace entire water mains.

Even finishing by the end of 1999 is not quick enough for councilman Brian Reap, chairman of the council public safety committee, who still wants to hire a contractor to help with the hydrant replacements.

This is only February, he said. That is not acceptable. Youre dealing with human life here. This still remains a public safety crisis.

Mr. Connors did not attend the meeting with Mr. Guskey, allowing Assistant Chief Osborne to do that.

Because I was on the phone with Bob Ross in Reading, Mr. Connors said.

Mr. Ross is the water company president. Mr. Connors said he was urging Mr. Ross to take over all hydrant maintenance the way the company does in other communities.

I believe its a matter of time in my opinion and hopefully this will happen soon, Mr. Connors said. Mr. Guskey would only say the negotiations are continuing.

Fire department and water company officials said there actually never can be a definitive count of faulty hydrants because new problems could crop up daily. Damage may or may not be reported, so a broken hydrant could remain broken until firefighters try to use it.

Thats how the entire hydrant crisis came to light. Union firefighter officials believe the destruction of four homes in a West Scranton fire two weeks ago was due partly to time lost hooking up to dead hydrants.

But while it is true that the list of out-of-service hydrants can change daily, it is also true the citys records of repaired or replaced hydrants have been incomplete.

Earlier Thursday, Deputy Chief Osborne said the list of repaired and replaced hydrants kept by former hydrant inspector Edward Joyce was missing. By the end of the day, the deputy chief said he had reconstructed that list as best as possible. He said the number of repaired or replaced hydrants is 68, leaving him confident 140 or 142 left unrepaired or unreplaced is an accurate number.

We have a pretty good solid list now, he said.

Chief Applegate already has blamed Mr. Joyce as the main reason so many hydrants werent working, saying the former inspector wasnt doing his job.

On Thursday, Chief Applegate, who has taken the rap for the failure of Mr. Joyce to do his job, shifted the blamed to Deputy Chief Osborne, saying the former hydrant inspector actually reported to the deputy chief.

In reality, its his ball of wax, not me, the chief said. Both of us were (supervising). Him more than I was.

Deputy Chief Osborne flatly denied he was in charge of Mr. Joyce: The hydrant inspector in the chain of command comes to the (chiefs) office. He comes underneath the chief.

Mr. Joyce, who has not returned many phone calls to comment on the matter, could not be reached for comment again Thursday.

But anything Mr. Joyce didnt do after he was hired in the spring of 1997 only added to what didnt get done to the two years before that.

Deputy Chief Osborne and Mr. Connors said the city went almost two years before Mr. Joyce was hired without a hydrant inspector.

Deputy Chief Osborne said the last inspector retired at the end of 1995 and was out sick for sometime before that. The citys financial recovery plan called for eliminating the job after the last inspector retired and turning maintenance over to the water company after that, Mr. Connors said.

Negotiations to let the water company take over began in 1996, but have dragged on because water company officials were reluctant, Mr. Connors said.

In 1997, the city hired Mr. Joyce and started buying hydrants because nothing was happening, Mr. Connors said.

There also still is no clear answer to the question of how many hydrants exist in the city.

Chief Applegate, who earlier gave a number of 1,400, said that a water company list of all city hydrants tested in the spring indicates there are 1,245 which is the last hydrant number on the list. The list obtained by The Tribune the water company list submitted to the council has 1,169.

Chief Applegate said he knows there are more than 1,245 because the list does not include hydrants in housing projects and other new hydrants the city installed. Mr. Guskey said there are 1,162, the number of hydrants for which the city is billed by the utility for water. He said there may be other private hydrants in the city that were included in the test and that could account for the higher number.