PSC Commissioner Demands Hiring of Hearing Examiner to Verify WAPA's Water Testing

At the end of an update from representatives of the Water and Power Authority on the state of play following last year’s scare over findings of elevated levels of lead and copper in the water supply on St. Croix, Public Services Commission member David Hughes had a pointed question for the PSC’s own staff. “Where’s our hearing examiner?” he asked, a question he also posed during the PSC’s meeting in February.

According to a Request for Qualifications posted on the PSC website in 2023, a hearing examiner “reviews and interprets public utilities' local and federal regulations, conducts hearings, and renders recommendations of an appropriate order or decision by the PSC.” In this case, as Mr. Hughes put it in February, the prospective hearing examiner would focus on “working with the utility to understand…more fully our interests as a commission.”

During Tuesday’s meeting, Mr. Hughes noted that the PSC “should be involved, or at least be taking the steps to assure ourselves that the utility has a regular testing program that we’re comfortable with on behalf of the consumer.”

Unsatisfied with PSC Executive Director Sandra Setorie’s response that “we’re working on it,” Mr. Hughes argued that “we as a Commission are not doing what we’re supposed to do” when it comes to ensuring that water emergencies such as the one St. Croix endured last year are avoided. “WAPA should never have had to do 65 samples due to complaints on brown water to find out that there was some latent lead, they should have a regular testing program in place that would have uncovered this on a regular basis,” Mr. Hughes argued.