COHUNA residents were happily surprised on Friday to see a major water leak in King Edward Street repaired after being seemingly ignored for more than seven weeks.
The Gannawarra Times reported on Friday that Coliban Water was refusing to fix the major leak adjacent to the Cohuna fire staion, arguing that it was the Country Fire Authority’s responsibility.
The CFA accused Coliban Water of “a lack of good faith” and said the water leak was the corporation’s responsibility because the broken pipe supplied domestic water to the station, not just water for fire-fighting.
In a statement yesterday morning, Coliban Water’s manager of corporate strategy and governance, Roslyn Wai said the corporation still didn’t acknowledge responsibility for the leak, but decided to act to stop water being wasted.
“Our investigations including excavation works confirmed the leak was on the fire service and we advised the CFA of its responsibility to repair [but] we saw reported in the Gannawarra Times last Friday that the CFA was not intending to repair the leak,” she said.
“Given the importance to the community and to Coliban Water for water not to continue to be wasted we decided to repair the leak and then to follow up with the CFA on responsibility.”
Ms Wai said a cracked valve had been replaced and a contractor would be organised to repair the road surface.
CFA District 20 Operations Manager Peter Taylor was surprised to hear that the leak had been fixed, but welcomed the news.
“I’m really pleased that common-sense has prevailed and Coliban has fixed the problem,” he said.
