Clean water is a necessity of life, not something we can choose to refuse. We the People of this country have worked hard together to make sure we have clean water to drink, and we are blessed in most parts of this country to have lots of fresh water.

So when residents of two streets in Celeron (Butler and Seventh) say they have not had clean water for eight years, something should have been done eight years ago. They used to have clean water from their wells, but changes to the roads and “commercial development” meant water runoff has polluted their water supply.

This is not to be tolerated by any neighbor or citizen of this area. Immediate action should be taken without debate. The BPU has $12 million in an account, maybe not for water infrastructure, but it has the money. Use that money (there may be rules but the BPU wrote those rules so the board can change those rules) to supply those residents with a water line down their streets and connect each house to that water line at no cost to them. Their only cost will be the same as all BPU customers whose rate will increase to pay back the BPU for the money used to supply clean water to our neighbors on Butler and Seventh. The idea that only Celeron residents should pay for this is small-minded. Even worse is the spoken attitude of “why should we pay for their clean water?” Good grief, no one who gets clean water from the BPU has paid for the infrastructure to collect water, to purify it so it is good to drink. No one person has paid to build the water treatment plant that cleans our dirty water. We pay for it together. That is how we do things. If one person is in trouble, has no clean water, we all work together to make sure they have clean water, and immediately.

If the BPU, because of state laws, cannot use the $12 million to provide clean water, then surely that money can be used as collateral for the BPU to take out a loan from a bank to pay for the water line and for connecting to each home at no cost to the homeowners.

If that does not work, have a local credit union open an account for water, and every person who has money in any bank in the area will put their money in that account, use it to pay for the water lines, and then get paid back with interest from all BPU customers, thus keeping all profit, if any is really needed, in the hands of the credit union customers, not in the hands of some national bank.

Knowing that there are ways to pay for clean water for our neighbors, Mr. Leathers should order his employees to start the installation of the water lines tomorrow and not wait.

This is for our neighbors to have clean water. A week of bad water is too long. Ten years is criminal. Just put in the water line and the lines to each house. The work could be done in a week. Act.

Timothy Hoyer is a Jamestown resident.