WASTING WATER?: Tulsa man says city drinking water is dumping into storm drain
Jan 07, 2025
Shortly moving to the Florence Park South neighborhood, Brett Long heard neighbors at his homeowner's association meeting complain about drinking water gushing into a storm drain on Florence Place.One day while out on a walk he heard the sound of gushing water pouring into the storm drain from a side pipe."I took a look at the volume of water going into that storm drain," he said. "It was shocking to me." So, he started contacting the city trying to get the problem fixed because neighbors believed for years it was drinking water. He says they gave up trying to get the city to acknowledge the problem and fix it."I've been working on this since last February so I kinda understand why previous people gave up on it."Some responses he got from the city are: "They told me it's water running down the street into that drain and I said you couldn't have looked at that because it's obviously coming from inside that storm drain. It is not coming from the street." "They told me there was not a problem, they had looked at it before, that was not city water." Because the city disputed it was drinking water, he paid Accurate Environmental Laboratories about $150 to have it tested to see if it was runoff or treated city water."They tested for chloramine," which long said was found. He added, "which what the city uses to chlorinate the water."On Jan. 5, 2 News asked the City about Long's concerns. It's first response: A new valve was purchased and replaced over the summer at this address, which at the time fixed the problem. Leak detection came by after the fix was made and confirmed there was no leak on the main line.On Jan. 7, Long pulled the storm drain grate back to show 2 News water is still gushing into the storm drain. After we let the city know what we saw, the city spokesman emailed to say: Leak detection is investigating and we will provide updates when more information is available.We will update this story when we get that information.If you see a water leak in the City of Tulsa you can report it 311.Contact the Problem Solvers: 918-748-1502 [email protected] in touch with us anytime, anywhere -- Download our free app for Apple, Android and Kindle devices. Sign up for daily newsletters emailed to you Like us on Facebook Follow us on Instagram Follow us on Twitter