Today’s N&R lead editorial addresses the current situation with the Randleman Dam pump station. Apparently, the Piedmont Triad Regional Water Authority and the City of Greensboro just couldn’t get together on the project, even after the City Council signed off on it:

Greensboro quit trying to pump up a regional water project when council members concluded last week that the city’s help wasn’t wanted.

“In other words they just skipped the whole step of having the PTWA turn us down again,” City Manager Mitchell Johnson wrote in an e-mail to High Point officials Monday.

…..”We could go back and forth on it for a long time,” he said Wednesday. “We didn’t sense there was really an interest on their part to do it.”

“The water authority would never let High Point and Greensboro do it,” Greensboro City Councilwoman Trudy Wade said. “I didn’t want to be responsible for any more delay than we already have.”

PTRWA member Tom Phillips takes John Hammer’s view that the City of High Point responsible for mistrust and miscommunication between PTRWA and the cities. That said, Greensboro is not totally blameless:

“There are some members of the water authority that would not trust anything that High Point says,” he said. “And High Point isn’t alone on that,” he added, alluding to Greensboro. “This thing’s gone on a long time.”

Phillips doesn’t elaborate, and it would be very interesting to know exactly what he meant, considering the fact that, according to Hammer, Greensboro’s City Council was led by the nose into this deal by Mitchell Johnson. So just who is creating the atmosphere of mistrust in Greensboro?

As for Hammer’s version of this week’s events, he still holds High Point responsible for throwing the wrench into the works in today’s (unposted) edition.

Financing is the major issue:

The main problem with the agreement for Greensboro to build the pump station for High Point, Greensboro and Jamestown was that it would have forced the PTRWA to go back and redesign the pump station and change and change the financing. Banks don’t like projects that have big changes at the last minute, especially where all the details have not been worked out…….

I find it interesting that Hammer seems to have more faith that PTRWA will get this project done than the cities. But should the general public? We’ve been waiting for the water to flow from the Randleman Dam for a long time now. High Point Mayor Becky Smothers also had an interesting comment in the N&R editorial, saying PTRWA would build the pump station “and they’ll send us a bill. Cost-containment is not an issue for them.”

This deal’s messed up, man. No telling when the water’s going to flow.