With the whitewater project looming, we can’t afford to be wasting water.

That may be why Concerned Reader Titus Payne wrote to tell me about a wanton waste of water on Manchester Expressway near River Road.

"I have tried for a long time to get something done about a broken water pipe that is wasting thousands of gallons of water," he wrote. "It has been wasting water for many months and a swamp has sprung up around it."

The leak, I discovered, is next to a Metra bus stop a couple of hundred feet west of the intersection on the north side of Manchester. Sure enough, there's a seriously swampy area next to the bus stop and water is flowing apparently out of a water meter cover into the ground, over the curb and down the hill to a rain drain.

Above Average Readers will remember last year there was a similar situation on Wynnton Road, where water was seeping out of the ground near the top of Wynn Hill and flowing down to a drain. Well, the Water Works tested the water for chlorine and found none, which means it's a natural spring, so nothing could be done about that.

But if this is another naturally occurring spring, God put a meter on it. No, what we obviously have here is a busted pipe.

So I called my Water Works friend Cliff Arnett, senior vice president for water resource operations, who said he would send someone out to investigate. He said from the description and location, it sounded to him like it was a sprinkler meter.

Could be, because that's some seriously well-watered grass there. And a pretty well-watered street, too.

Anyway, the Water Works has been really good about responding to leaks in the past, so I'd expect it to be patched up quickly.

Unless it's a spring.

Or a federally protected wetland.

Update

Even Casual Readers should recall last week's unusual Inquirer, pointing out a three-foot section of an old utility pole dangling among the various wires about 20-25 feet above a school bus stop on Bridgewater Road in Windsor Park.

My Georgia Power connection, Robert Watkins, said it was their pole, but not their wires hooked up to it. So Monday morning, I was planning to start calling other utilities to see whose responsibility it was … when my phone rang.

An Alert Reader was calling to report that a Mediacom Cable truck was already on the scene and fixing things up.

It's good to know that even the people who work for a company that deals in television get their news from the newspaper.

Seen something that needs a fix? Unless it's a junkie, contact me at 706-571-8570 or mowen@ledger-enquirer.com.