Brewer man repaid for sewer damage

BREWER – The Brewer Water District has reimbursed the local homeowner who paid more than $8,000 last year to repair sewer line damage caused by a water district contractor.

Andrew Landry, chairman of the water district’s five-member board of trustees, said last Tuesday that the district directed its legal counsel to draft a subrogation agreement. The agreement essentially enabled the district to reimburse the $8,127 that Brewer resident Greg Mullins paid for sewer-related repairs as a settlement of Mullins’ claim.

Mullins said late last week that he received a check from the district after signing the subrogation agreement.

The damage to Mullins’ line apparently occurred during the summer of 2000 while the water district was working on water lines in the Penobscot Street area. Mullins said earlier that the sewer line problem became apparent last November, when plumbing problems arose, including a sewage backup into the basement.

An engineer from the firm Camp Dresser & McKee Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., determined that the damage to Mullins’ sewer line resulted from drilling and blasting the water district did to remove ledge.

After the reimbursement Mullins was promised last December failed to materialize in March, Mullins contacted the PUC’s Consumer Assistance Division, which looked into the matter. On April 2, a PUC consumer assistance specialist wrote Brewer Water District Superintendent Gerald Carstensen a letter directing him to “reimburse the full amount immediately.”

A PUC spokesman said last week that the commission’s role in the Mullins matter was to help facilitate the reimbursement.

“The reason we’re in the middle of this is to try to mediate a quicker response,” said Phil Lindley of the PUC. He noted, however, that the matter was outside of the commission’s purview because it did not involve the actual providing of Mullins’ utility service.

“Our authority is pretty limited,” Lindley acknowledged. In regard to the Brewer matter, he said, “We stepped in at the customer’s request.” He said Mullins’ only recourse was to take the district to court.