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Board grants Roxbury Park a $22,293 sewer bill credit after debate over undocumented leaks
Summary
The Goshen Board of Public Works and Safety approved a partial $22,293 sewer-credit request for Roxbury Park for 2025 after utilities staff said proper leak-notification procedures were not followed and the city could not determine how much water entered the sanitary sewer.
The Goshen Board of Public Works and Safety voted Jan. 29 to approve a $22,293 partial sewer-billing credit for Roxbury Park for the 2025 billing year following sustained discussion about where leaked water went and how much the city could reasonably credit.
Roxbury Park's representative told the board the park had documented multiple leaks and repairs during 2025 and asked for relief on sewer charges tied to those leaks. "We provided a lot of documentation to support our claim ... 75,000 is actually a very conservative request," the representative said, arguing the park incurred significant costs to locate and fix leaks.
Kelly from the utility department told the board staff believed leaks likely occurred but said the utility had not been notified promptly in several cases and therefore could not verify where the water discharged. "We weren't notified of that leak for quite some months," Kelly said, adding that staff take pictures and plumbing receipts when possible to determine whether water entered the sanitary sewer and to support a sewer relief credit.
Marv, a utilities investigator, told the board field inspections and photos could not determine the precise share of leaked water that entered the sewer system. "There's absolutely no way for us to calculate how much went into the sewer and how much went into the ground," he said.
Board member Michael Landis said he had run usage and meter-data calculations and proposed a partial credit of $22,293 based on measured changes in consumption tied to leak repairs. "If I take that amount of water off of the total ... I came up around $22,200," Landis said as he described his methodology and said he would credit usage above the estimated leak amount but not the portion clearly attributable to the large underground leak.
The board voted to approve the partial credit as a one-time adjustment for 2025 and directed the applicant and staff to continue exchanging documentation with the city's attorney. The motion carried unanimously.
The decision resolves Roxbury Park's immediate request for relief but does not change the utility's documented leak-notification procedures; utility staff said those procedures remain the basis for future credits.
