After one of the best Christmas seasons in Middleburg since the onset of the great recession, Town Staff began the new year by reporting further significant, and arguably outstanding progress on two fronts: 1) an ancient, elusive, and massive water leak, and 2) longstanding issues with the Town's police rules, regulations and standing orders.

The 300,000-Gallons Leak

With the help of the Virginia Rural Water Association the town appears to have found and fixed a massive and elusive leak in the town's water distribution system that, according to first estimates, may well have dumped as much as 300,000 gallons of treated water per month into the town's sewers.

The leak, which had mystified engineers and plagued the town's financial auditors for years had escaped detection, officials said, because they were both singularly tidy and very very quiet.

According to Kenny Reynolds, a 30-year veteran of the Salem Virginia water department and now a "circuit rider" with VRWA, water was pouring from an ancient galvanized pipe, buried under 12 feet or more of fill dirt, off Blue Ridge Avenue, near the rear access to the Middleburg Volunteer Fire Department. Purified water, Reynolds said, poured from the leak and instead of bubbling to the surface, ran directly into a sewer line, accessible only from a twelve-foot deep brick-lined "manhole."

From there the water ran downhill to a pumping station, which moved it to the town's long-beleaguered waste-water treatment system. There is was purified for a second time and dumped back into the environment, presumably to feed wells, and start the process all over again.

There was no evidence of the leak at or near the ground near the fire station at all.

Closer investigation of the ground near a creek, well below the Windy Hill complex adjacent to the Fire House, revealed that some of the lost water may have wound up there. No one had apparently suspected that the marshy ground near the creek was the result of anything other than natural processes.

The 300,000-Gallon Cost

The primary direct cost of the leak, estimated at 300,000 gallons a month, 900,000 gallons a quarter, or 3.6 million gallons a year, has been, of course, the cost of purifying the water for consumption before it leaked and then purifying again, for release into the environment.

To that should be added the cost, mechanical, financial and environmental, of constantly pumping and throwing away millions of gallons of well water.

Water rates in Middleburg are currently $42.36 for the first 2,000 gallons; $14.94 for each 1,000 gallons thereafter.

As for most small, rural communities with their own systems, Middleburg's rates are predictably higher than for larger communities due, among other things, to the town's smaller customer base over which to spread operating costs. Rates are also affected by water leaks, aging water meters that tend to slow down over time, and billing accuracy, all problems exacerbated in a town with infrastructure as old as Middleburg, with a population barely approaching 700 people.

Middleburg according to Town Administrator Semmes, has made it a priority this year to address the unaccounted for water loss problem in earnest and in a systematic comprehensive way, including the water leak detection study by VRWA, initiating a meter replacement program, and updating the town's utility billing software.

In Middleburgh user fees, as a rule, pay for running and maintaining the water distribution and waste water treatment systems and debt service. Capital improvements, on the other hand, are generally funded by availability and connection fees, proffers by developers (like Salamander), grants and loans. Fixing the great leak should, at the very least, reduce processing costs which, by some estimates may have accounted for as much as 15% of the well water treated by the town.

Council member Mark Snyder, Council's chief liaison with the Utilities staff, noted that the Town had been worried about the condition of the Town's water systems for years, but all too often had neither the data, nor the money to do much about them.

The town had little choice, he noted but to approach problems piecemeal, by addressing emergencies, and making such other improvements as grants, fees, and other funding made possible.

As data collection and reporting moved beyond Snyder's first DOS-based spreadsheets, concerns rose.

The Town's auditors began reporting significant differences between the amount of water pumped and purified, and the amount of water billed to the town's citizens and businesses.

To address the billing side of that equation, the Town, this year, is at last replacing its old DOS-based billing software with updated Windows-based software.

Leaks also appear to have multiplied or become worse over time. As many were fixed as the town could find and afford to fix. Water mains on Liberty and Hamilton Streets, for example, were replaced in 2005 and on W. Marshall and N. Madison Streets in 2010.

VRWA's Reynolds used high tech listening devices to eventually discover the great 300,000 gallon leak, moving from valve to valve and pipe to pipe along the system.

Even then, he said, it would have been difficult if not impossible to pinpoint the loss without the help of Town staff, especially Maintenance Supervisor Marvin Simms and Charlie Triplett of Loudoun Water

The Virginia Rural Water Association is a private, non-profit organization "whose voting members are small municipal and rural water and wastewater systems across the state."

Town Administrator Semmes and the Council are pleased with the progress made so far this year on the unaccounted for water issue. According to Semmes, they are "committed to continuing to address the issue from all angles with whatever resources they can muster with the hope of making the utility system as efficient as possible to minimize costs to its customers."

New Rules for Middleburg's Police Force

Town Administrator Martha Semmes told the Eccentric on January 19 that a first draft of the long-awaited re-write of the Middleburg Police Department's Rules, Regulations and Standing Orders would be presented to Town Council at its last Thursday work session in January. Copies could not made available to the Eccentric before press time, Semmes noted, because she was loathe to release them to the public before members of Council had had an opportunity to read and review them.

The new rules were reportedly drafted by Middleburg's new Police Chief, Bill Klugh with the assistance of the Town Administrator, who had already collected and distributed a small collection of comparable documents from small-town Police departments across the state. Chief Klugh is well known, within the state and nationally, as an expert on community policing.

Pressure to review, revise, and in some cases adopt for the first time, rules and regulations governing how policemen in Middleburg interact with citizens and visitors arose immediately after the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Middleburg Eccentric was, deliberately lured into a well-planned, very public, well-publicized and humiliating arrest on November 30, 2010.

Falsely charged with fraud, in an amount totaling less than $9,000, the Eccentric Editor, a 67-year old grandmother and community leader, was lured to her daughter's restaurant under false pretences at the height of the 2010 Christmas session and once there, surprised, arrested, handcuffed, and paraded down Federal Street in a cold misting rain by a contingent of no less than five well-armed policemen, including the former Middleburg Chief of Police.

Pictures of the arrest appeared the next day on the front page of the Loudoun Times Mirror, which paid $200 for pictures taken by a photographer who had been alerted to the date, place and time of the arrest.

Court testimony and his own emails later revealed Middleburg's former Chief of Police had played a major role in the set up and execution of the arrest and had himself leaked the time, date and place of the pending arrest, contrary to State Police guidelines.

At December, 2010, regular meeting of Middleburg Town Council the Publisher of the Eccentric publicly submitted a formal complaint and a series of questions about the Town's guidelines (or lack of them) governing police conduct in such cases.

Subsequent investigation by the Eccentric revealed significant inconsistencies in the rules governing the Middleburg Police Department, including serious flaws in the department's chain of command. (No one, for example, really knew to whom the Police Chief reported)

On March 11, 2011, the Town announced that its former Police Chief, Steve Webber, would resign, effective June 28.

Just over two weeks later, at it's March 24, 2011 work session, Council requested that Town Administrator Semmes, Vice Mayor Darlene Kirk, Council Member Bundles Murdock, and the Police Chief at the time, Steve Webber, "develop recommendations to clarify and expand the existing policies regarding the supervision of the Police Chief position and other police officers."

After nearly a year the department's chain of command has been clarified (the Chief reports directly to the Town Administrator) and a new Chief has been hired.

The draft guidelines presented on January 26, 2012, will, however, represent the Town's first formal reply to the questions lodged by the Eccentric in December, 2010.

According to Town officials the draft general orders and special orders will cover three key topics: Arrest Procedures, Use of Force, and Prisoner Care-Transport.

At the January regular session of Council Chief Klugh did not mention his forthcoming guidelines, but reported that "December was "a good month", with "crime numbers being consistent with the past – meaning they were low."

He further advised Council that his officers have "completed their annual fire arms qualification and use-of-force training," presumably consistent with the draft guidelines scheduled for presentation on January 26.

Other News

At its January meeting Council unanimously approved a resolution of appreciation for the work of all those involved in the Town's 2011 "Christmas inMiddleburg" celebrations.

Mayor Davis announced that the Middleburg Library Advisory Board would now be sending written reports, unless there was something special upon which they wanted to report.

Stacy Sheets, Marketing Communication Manager for Visit Loudoun, appeared before Council to present their latest video, featuring the Mosby Heritage Area Association's Director of Education, Rich Gillespie. Visit Loudoun, she noted, "has produced over forty videos showcasing Loudoun County, one of which earned an Emmy Award."

Janet Clarke, the newly elected Blue Ridge District representative to the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors appeared before Council and expressed her pleasure and honor at being elected. She was, she said, "elected to serve the people"; that she was looking forward to working with Council, and that it should consider her "at its disposal."

Town Administrator Semmes announced that she is already deep into the annual budgeting process and would have "something for Council's review" during its February work session.

Middleburg's Economic Development Coordinator, Cindy Pearson announced a new event: a Winter Sale to be held throughout the town on February 18 & 19. It would be similar to the Summer Sidewalk Sale, she said, except "merchandise would not be displayed on the sidewalks." Participating businesses will identify themselves on the day of sale by displaying blue and white balloons.