January 2009

U.S. Water News Online

NORRISTOWN, Pa. — Planners updating waterline maps in a Philadelphia-area county have run into a hitch. Citing homeland security, two water companies are refusing to provide line locations.

Montgomery County Planning Commission member Charles Tornetta says that's a problem because, “How can you plan when you don't know where the lines are.''

All but two companies complied with a request for information to update the county's decade-old water supply facilities report. Planner Drew Shaw says Aqua Pennsylvania Water Co. and Pennsylvania American Water Co. declined. They cite a 2006 federal law on public utility information disclosure intended to guard against sabotage.

Shaw says this may hurt the usefulness of the report to the public and developers. But he says the commission has some in-house information on water lines the planners can use.