‘Stonewalled’: Co-op members say Marbury Water blocked board-removal petition

MARBURY, Ala. (WSFA) — A petition to remove the Marbury Water System’s board members has been blocked by the board.

The water system co-op put stringent water restrictions on its members in late May, prompting members to ask questions about the management of the water system.

The emergency water restrictions impact about 3,000 Marbury Water System customers in parts of Autauga, Elmore and Chilton counties. The Marbury Water System cites supplier tank maintenance, cutting available supply roughly in half (which started during drought conditions) as the reason for the restrictions. Officials estimate the restrictions could last into early October. Outdoor watering, pool filling and pressure washing are largely banned with steep fines.

Restrictions have since been lifted during weekdays, but they remain in effect during weekends.

Members of the co-operative say mismanagement and poor communication prompted them to look further into the water board.

“When I came to the first public meeting, I came because we were upset at the verbiage of the message that came out to us about the water conservancy,” Steven Thomas, a Marbury Water member, said. “And we wanted to find out some details, get some reassurances that there were plans in place for all of this and that it wasn’t really as big a deal as we felt like it was. During the course of that meeting, we found out it is as big a deal as we thought it was.”

Upon further investigation, Thomas learned Marbury Water sells mostly water purchased from Five Star Water without formal contracts, relying on a “gentleman’s agreement,” so supplier systems could cut them off during conservation.

“I was also distressed to learn that they don’t seem to have a plan in place for when they want to have infrastructure upgraded, filtration systems upgraded, all of the various leaks that are occurring in the system fixed, and there have been years and years of operation under the current management,” Thomas said.

Members of the co-op created a petition to remove the board, gaining much more than the number of signatures required by the co-op’s bylaws. The bylaws require 10% of members to sign a petition to hold a special session that allows members to vote to remove the current board members. That equals roughly 300 signatures. The petition garnered more than 400 signatures.

“We didn’t meet any resistance,” Thomas said. “There’s one person in our neighborhood who said that they would not sign because they knew someone on the board and they didn’t want to sign, but we really were not met with any resistance to the idea of signing.”

The co-op denied their petition.

“It basically got stonewalled, got told that I needed to contact their attorney and I needed to contact the committee that we didn’t get the number of signatures that we needed,” Lynn Popwell, a Marbury Water member, said. “And I’m like, yes, we did, and she’s like, well, there’s a couple of signature problems, and I said, there’s two signature problems. There’s duplicate signatures that can be removed, and there’s still enough signatures to have the meeting, so when are we having our meeting? And it basically shut down after that.”

The Marbury Water System’s next meeting is scheduled for July 20, but there’s a catch.

The Water System said, via Facebook, the meeting will be capped at 20 pre-registered members who must call by July 16 to verify membership and submit questions for first-come participation, with the open-floor streamed on Facebook Live, no recordings allowed, two hours allotted for invited professionals and petition-related comments, and law enforcement present.

“I would say that it’s just, it seems a little shady to know that you have this much dissent among the owners of Marbury Water System and more of an effort is not being made to listen to what the general public says,” Thomas said.

Popwell says the members have a right to answers.

“We own the water, we own the water system,” she said. “We are the owners, and they owe us the answers that we’re asking for.”

WSFA is expecting a statement from Marbury Water soon.

WSFA continues to track updates with the Marbury Water System and we will bring them to you as they are available.

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