By Nicole Norfleet
The Star Tribune
ST. PAUL, Minn. — West St. Paul officials don’t think the project is worth the money, and they worry it won’t benefit those paying for it.
A new initiative to make fighting fires a little bit faster is being criticized as money down the drain by some local officials.
Last week, St. Paul Regional Water Services (SPRWS), which provides water services to several Dakota County cities, decided that all of its 9,700 fire hydrants will eventually be fitted with connection nozzles that are believed to reduce the amount of time needed for firefighters to get water.
But the $4 million upgrade will take money away from other projects, said West St. Paul Mayor and SPRWS Board of Water Commissioners Vice President John Zanmiller.
“They shoved it down our throats,” Zanmiller said about the change.
The SPRWS provides services including billing and infrastructure maintenance to St. Paul, Maplewood, West St. Paul, Mendota Heights and other cities. It also provides water directly to small numbers of residents in Lilydale, Mendota, South St. Paul, Sunfish Lake and Newport.
The system is governed by the Board of Water Commissioners, which consists of three members of the St. Paul City Council, two St. Paul residents and two representatives of the suburbs served by the utility.
Maplewood recently asked the board to make a change and fit all fire hydrants with a new 4-inch connector that the fire department believes would save a few seconds by making attaching hoses simpler, said Steve Schneider, general manager of SPRWS.
To Zanmiller, it’s not worth it.
“The benefit for the cost is not there. While there may be seconds saved in hooking up the hose at the hydrant, the cost of retrofitting all 9,700 hydrants in the SPRWS system simply cannot be justified in this financial environment,” Zanmiller said in a letter to other mayors.
The money for the connectors will come from capital funds that can be used for other needed upgrades, such as replacing century-old water mains, Zanmiller said.
South Metro Fire Board President and West St. Paul Council Member Jim Englin agreed, questioning the fairness of asking for the entire SPRWS to pay for an upgrade that only one community requested.
“It would be far better to handle these types of upgrades by addressing them within the community that asks for them rather than assess the cost to communities who have no desire to make the switch,” he said in an e-mail before the board’s meeting.
For West St. Paul, the hydrant connectors create another problem. West St. Paul and South St. Paul are both served by the South Metro Fire Department. Even if West St. Paul changes its fire hydrants, South St. Paul would still have the old hydrants.
“It creates an operational step backwards if we opt in ...What’s the sense of losing the standardization?” Zanmiller said.
The board voted 3-2 to approve the change. Zanmiller and the other suburban representative opposed and another member abstained.
The hydrants will start getting the new connectors next year, Schneider said, with a small fraction of them replaced each year for as long as 50 years.
Water rates will not increase because of the change, he said.
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