Water meter advertisement causes confusion

Talk about it

A letter sent to Two Harbors residents last week from a Duluth plumbing and heating company instructing them to call for a required water meter installation has left some homeowners with the impression that doing business with the company is mandated by the city.

But homeowners may hire any qualified company they want to do the work, City Attorney Steve Overom told the News-Chronicle. Overom said he is looking into the language of the letter and will bring it up at the Two Harbors City Council meeting on March 12.

The mailing, an advertisement in the form of a letter, reads in part: “Home owners must contact Bluewater Services no later than March 31, 2012, to schedule the water meter install and receive this service at no cost.” It arrived in residents’ mailboxes as the city prepares to install water meters at all homes and businesses.

Overom said it should not be mistaken for an official edict from the city.

“We take this stuff seriously when you have somebody who’s holding themselves out to be an agent of the city,” he said. “That’s not something we want to have happen at all.”

All Minnesota licensed, bonded, and insured plumbing contractors can perform the water meter installations, Overom said.

In its advertisement, Bluewater Services reprinted Section 10.3 of Two Harbors ordinance No. 65, which outlines the city’s and the residents’ responsibilities for installation of water meters, followed by directions on how to arrange for the work to be done by its company.

In its mailing, Bluewater Services said its goal “was to inform homeowners of the ordinance, its requirement that water meters were to be installed in homes, the possibility that homeowners may incur some costs, the consequences of not having a meter installed, and how Bluewater could help them address this need.”

But Two Harbors resident Catherine Rose did not make that distinction, saying she wished she had known she had a choice of hiring any contractor before she called Bluewater. Rose said she called Bluewater after receiving the mailing.

“When I read it, I thought it was from Two Harbors,” she said. “A friend of mine said she found out she could just call her plumber and I didn’t know that. If I had known that, I would have just called a local plumber.”

Rose said she probably would arrange to switch plumbers.

“I’d just as soon put our local plumbers to work,” she said.

In response to a request for comment from the News-Chronicle, Bluewater issued a statement that said its goal “was to inform homeowners of the ordinance, its requirement that water meters were to be installed in homes, the possibility that homeowners may incur some costs, the consequences of not having a meter installed, and how Bluewater could help them address this need.”

In response to residents’ inquiries about the company’s mailing, the city of Two Harbors issued a news release on Monday saying it had not authorized Bluewater Services’ notice and that property owners can select a licensed plumber of their choice to install their water meter.

Though the city listed Bluewater Services among plumbing contractors who had offered to install the water meters on an early draft of a different notice sent to the public earlier this week, the company is no longer on the updated list. Two Harbors administrative secretary Patty Nordean said the city removed Bluewater Services from the list, which lists plumbers who attended an informational meeting regarding the water meters.

Tags: two harbors, news