LAUREN WOOD | THE NATCHEZ DEMOCRAT — Charles Sanders, president of the Broadmoor Water Works, pushes dirt with a backhoe to a fill a hole where a water leak occurred on Wisteria Street. Sanders and his crew had repaired the leak before Hurricane Isaac, but waited until after the storm to fill up the hole.

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The Dart: Broadmoor leader finishing work from before Tropical storm Isaac

Published 12:04am Monday, September 10, 2012

NATCHEZ — Charles Sanders was busy on his backhoe when The Dart landed on Wisteria Street Friday.

Prior to Tropical Storm Isaac moving through the area, the president of Broadmoor Utilities had to fix a water leak on the street. With the threat of rain, Sanders opted not to fill the hole after the leak was fixed until a week after the storm moved through.

LAUREN WOOD | THE NATCHEZ DEMOCRAT — Charles Sanders, president of the Broadmoor Water Works, pushes dirt with a backhoe to a fill a hole where a water leak occurred on Wisteria Street. Sanders and his crew had repaired the leak before Hurricane Isaac, but waited until after the storm to fill up the hole.

“You don’t want to push (the dirt) back in because of the mud,” Sanders said. “You want to wait for it to dry out.”

Sanders said although the storm didn’t do as much damage as expected, it still caused residents in the Broadmoor area to lose power due to two motors going out.

“We have three legs, and one of them went out,” Sanders said. “When that happens, the motor will still run, but not with enough electricity. Sometimes the breaker will kick it off, but it didn’t do that, and there was a surge.”

The standby motor also surged when they put it in, but power was eventually restored the Thursday evening after the storm came through.

Sanders said he’s been the president of Broadmoor Utilities since it was founded in the 1970s, and he actually used to live on Wisteria Street in the late ’60s through the mid ’70s. Sanders currently resides on Steam Plant Road.

“We have everything Natchez has, except on a smaller scale,” Sanders said of the utility company.

“When they developed this subdivision, they had a lot of applicants for homes, and the ground would absorb the water from the septic tanks, and they had water standing on the ground.”

Because of that, Sanders said he applied for funds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help get the company started.

“We set some pretty good standards to keep it as orderly as we can,” he said. “It’s a nice little development out here.”

And standing water was no longer a problem once the sewage system was streamlined.

“Every house in this subdivision has water going into the treatment plant,” Sanders said. “When it comes out, it’s clear water, where cattle can drink it and fish can live in it.”

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  • http://profile.yahoo.com/HPD7KITHOY2E6HKQAK7S2G6BHU Robert

    Since when has a backhoe became a bulldozer?

  • Anonymous

    The water in Broadmoor is HORRIBLE!!!  Residents shouldn’t drink it nor cook with it!  Notice Sanders says cattle can drink and fish can live in, but never does he say that humans can drink it!!  Why is that?  There are constant problems with the water from Broadmoor Utilities and Mr. Sanders is never of any assistance.  It seems that he and his staff “patch” pipes instead of repairing, that’s just my opinion.

  • Anonymous

    Robert,  Thank you for pointing out the backhoe/bulldozer mistake.  Additionally, I seriously doubt that two motors going out caused the residents to lose power!!   I suspect that the correct report should have been that Broadmoor never fully lost their water pressure though when one leg of the 3-phase electrical service was knocked out it caused two pump motors to not run correctly and produce full power thereby failing to properly pump water to replenish the tank allowing pressure to drop.

  • Anonymous

    I live in Broadmoor.. and on my street alone, there are 5 leaks. When he patches one leak.. it causes the other leak down the street to leak again. Then if the leak is in your drive way.. he removes a slab of your driveway and don’t fix it, saying he’s waiting on funds from whom ever the hell!!! Cause I’m still waiting going on 3years.. the water is cut off for hours without any notice, for it to be turn back on looking dirtier than the Miss. River.Never no boil water notices or anything. It’s no telling what’s growing in our water, but I will be contacting the Department of Health, because something needs to be done. But if something is found, I’m sure everyone in Broadmoor is immune to it.

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