Posted: 2:41 p.m. Tuesday, June 5, 2012
WEST PALM BEACH — Palm Beach County won't cut a longtime chemical monitoring program designed to protect residents' drinking water supply, even if other local utilities won't help pay for it.
County commissioners agreed Tuesday to spend $355,379 to keep the program going, after efforts to sway a handful of local utilities to help cover the cost failed.
"We just bit the bullet," Commission Chairwoman Shelley Vana said after the unanimous decision.
Under the two-decade-old program, the county issues permits to and inspects businesses that store, handle, use or produce large amounts of chemicals that could contaminate the county's 44 well fields.
Last year, with a $50 million budget gap looming, commissioners agreed to shift much of the program's costs to 14 county utilities.
But several of those utilities said they would create their own monitoring programs instead of paying the county to run it. Others, including West Palm Beach, said they planned to go without a monitoring program altogether.
On Tuesday, commissioners said that protecting the county's drinking water from contamination was too important to let the program lapse in areas where a utility wouldn't pay.
"The water supply is one of the most important things that we have to take care of in this county," Commissioner Burt Aaronson said. "I would love to fight this out, but water is not something to fight over."