ANDERSON TWP., Ohio — At the top of the street near Amanda Oney’s home, there’s a red sign. It alerts the fire department that there won't be anywhere to get water in 1,000 feet.
Oney knows this better than most. Her family collects rainwater and pays companies to bring water to her home. But when she bought their house in Anderson Township, there were about 10 companies that would service their neighborhood.
Now, there’s only two, Oney said.
In January, one company’s truck was out of service. The other had 150 people who called before her. There had been a major snowstorm, and Oney had just given birth to her second child, Ben.
She tells me this standing in her neighbor's driveway while Ben starts crying.
“Most people don’t have to worry about running out of water when they bring a newborn baby home,” Oney said. “There’s not a lot of houses out here, but we’re still residents of Anderson Township. It's easy for the township to forget we exist."
WATCH: Neighbors turn to WCPO in fight for water
I met Oney and her newborn because her neighbors went to WCPO 9’s "Let’s Talk" event at Anderson Tap House. Each person there was given a paper to fill out. It asked about why they came and if there were any issues in the community they’d like to discuss with us.
After I finished talking to one person about traffic concerns on the Interstate, I noticed Carrie Mayne had filled up her entire page. She even drew an arrow to help me follow it. When I asked what she wanted to talk about, her answer was short.
“Water,” Mayne said.
Although their property is in Hamilton County, the water services there are overseen by Clermont County. And adding water lines to this neighborhood could cost millions of dollars, according to Steve Sievers, Anderson Township's assistant administrator.
“We always love to see public utilities extended, but there’s a cost to doing that,” Sievers said. “We can’t force an entity to make a decision or force them to spend money.”
At their home, located down off a long gravel driveway, Tom Mayne shows me the contraption he made to show when they're out of water. Underneath the concrete in his underground cistern is a milk jug. Above ground, a rope from that jug is tied to a metal flag.
When it’s empty, the weight of the jug pulls the flag up into the air.
“On average, we need water every 10 days,” Mayne said. “They won’t come down here when it’s snowy or icy, but we’d sure like it. We would sure like it.”
The assistant township administrator told me officials organized meetings in previous years to get residents together with water companies to better understand the issue. Anderson Township Trustee Tom Hodges called it complicated, but pledged to look into it again.
“My goal as a trustee is not to shy away from complex issues,” Hodges said. “I’m not promising success, but I’m promising our best efforts.”
