Water district chief made waves with $3 million filtration system > Newport Superintendent Don Brawn steps down after 20 years

NEWPORT — “I’m going fishing,” announced Don Brawn earlier this week. It’s pretty appropriate that a man who has dedicated his life to supplying, moving, purifying, applying and testing water will now sit on top of it and relax.

Brawn retired recently after 20 years as superintendent of the Newport Water District. In the past he also served for more than 20 years as Newport’s fire chief.

The crowning achievement of his tenure with the water district, said Brawn, was the completion of a $3 million filtration system to purify the water coming from Nokomis Pond that serves Newport’s 625 customers.

The slow-sand filtration plant was constructed on the shore of Nokomis Pond, off Williams Road, and was funded nearly 50 percent through federal grants. Three separate grants were used — $650,000, $155,000, and $740,000 — to construct the plant and lay nearly 15,000 feet of new piping.

Such sophisticated improvements are a far cry from the system Brawn found in 1975. “When I first came here, 188 people never paid a bill. They’d never even been billed. I can tell you, I was pretty famous there for a while, collecting those debts,” said Brawn with a laugh.

He said there were too many memories to pick out one special story, but was pleased he could participate in a process during which the district went from replacing antique wooden pipelines to one with a state-of-the-art filtration plant.

But don’t think that Brawn is fading from the picture. “He’s left us a list of priorities,” chuckled NWD Trustee Richard Banton.

Taking over where Brawn has left off is Tom Todd. “I’ve been too busy to even open some of the files,” since coming on board three weeks ago.

“Right now we’re in the process of putting in new water meters and have been dealing with a couple of water main breaks,” said Todd.

Todd has a bachelor’s degree in biology and a Grade II water license. For 19 years he supervised waste-water treatment facilities in Corinna and Hartland.

“This district has accomplished a lot in the past few years,” said Todd. “Currently, we are installing electronic meters at 90 percent of customer locations. We are not addressing larger metered customers at this point. We already have a good handle on these. Some of the home meters haven’t worked for a long time and usage has been estimated. Now everyone is on an even playing field. Installation should be completed by April 1.”