Appealing for assistance
Jerry and Roberta Pochiba use three storage tanks around their home on Linden Creek Road in North Strabane Township to hold rainwater for their use after their well collapsed.
Michelle Zirngibl shows the location of the pump for the well behind her home on Linden Creek Road in North Strabane Township. The contaminated water isn’t suitable for drinking, so the family uses bottled water for drinking and cooking.
For Michelle Zirngibl, water is a luxury – not a leisurely indulgence, but a luxury that is rationed, drop by drop, in order to make it last.
With no public water and undrinkable, undersupplied well water, Zirngibl and her husband, parents of two young daughters, make do with bottled water, strict shower schedules and regular trips to the local coin laundry.
After years of living under these conditions, Zirngibl is appealing to North Strabane Township to extend the public water line to her home and seven others on Linden Creek Road.
“If there was ever a fire at our house, it would take two tanker trucks to hook up their hoses in order to reach our house to put a fire out,” Zirngibl, 38, said in a public comment period at a North Strabane supervisors meeting June 18. “I just worry about the hazards of fire, especially with two young kids.”
When Zirngibl and her husband, Rege, moved into their home in 2001, they became “violently sick” after drinking the well water, Zirngibl said.
She also wonders if her 2-year-old daughter’s recurring urinary tract infections were caused by bathing in the water, because the infections stopped once her children switched to showers.
While safety and health concerns are her main motivation for wanting city water, Zirngibl also craves the convenience.
Her well only supplies enough water for eight showers a week, or two per person. Sometimes, it runs dry mid-shower.
“It’s an issue when I get stuck in the shower three times, crusted with soap,” Zirngibl said.
Summer droughts and winter blizzards also cause water shortages. In the past, Zirngibl has tried to thaw her water lines using a hair dryer.
Zirngibl’s next-door neighbor, Bobbie Pochiba, melts snow on the stovetop and uses it to flush her toilet in the winter.
Pochiba, 62, also uses rain water that she collects in three storage tanks outside her house. She used to have a well, but it collapsed several years ago, something she suspects was caused by seismic testing for Marcellus Shale drilling.
Like Zirngibl, she also hopes the township can provide some assistance.
“The fact is we pay taxes like everybody else,” Pochiba said. “This is crazy that we can’t even have water.”
Zirngibl had her water tested when she moved into her home, but she is unable to find the results, which she said indicated her well water was contaminated and should not be consumed.
If Zirngibl and her neighbors can prove water contamination, it may be easier to receive state and federal grants to fund the project, according to township manager Frank Siffrinn.
Zirngibl has scheduled a second water test for a $250 fee, yet she is embarrassed to ask her neighbors to spend their money to test “for something we already know.”
Siffrinn said 2011 estimates provided by Pennsylvania American Water Co. show a waterline extension to Linden Creek Road would rack up a “totally unrealistic” cost of $55,875 per household.
Instead, he said it would be more viable if the project expanded to include 15 households without water on Cheslock Road, which intersects with Linden Creek, although it would be more difficult for the water line to navigate around the creek. That project would cost $29,600 per household.
“We will go out and ask the water company to take another look at the project, remeasure it and see what they’re eligible to put into the project,” Siffrinn said. “The idea is to try to get those assessments down to a point where they’re reasonable and people can essentially afford to pay for it. I don’t know if that’s possible.”
Siffrinn also said it might be beneficial to contact the Department of Abandoned Mine Lands, a federal program, because mining might have caused water contamination in the area.
Kim Livingston, one of the owners of Fuzzy Paws on Cheslock Road, said she has not had problems with her well water. Yet because there is not enough water to provide for the dogs she cares for, the holding tank must be refilled once a week each summer.
Livingston said she might consider the possibility of getting public water, depending on the cost and other factors.
“We just go with the flow. It would be nice to have city water up here, but you kind of get used to what you have,” she said.
While Zirngibl has not yet secured funding for the water line extension, she plans to keep attending township meetings to share her story.
“The classic line when I was little was, ‘Get water, it’s free,'” she said. “Well, I’m thinking, ‘Water’s not free here.'”