As the Mahoning Valley Sanitary District launches a marketing campaign, it might want to consider the following slogan: Water, water everywhere, but not enough customers to drink.

The MVSD, which has been providing drinking water to its member cities of Youngstown and Niles for the past 75 years, is in the enviable position - compared with drought-ridden regions in the southwestern part of the country - of having a lot more product than is being used.

During the summer, the purification plant in Mineral Ridge can produce 60 million gallons of water a day, but the demand currently is for only 27 million. Three hundred thousand customers are served by the cities of Youngstown and Niles and the village of McDonald.

Chief Engineer Tom Holloway, whose great-uncle was superintendent from 1904 to 1954, says the MVSD has the ability to double the number of users. Of course, the reality of the Mahoning Valley is such that there is no conceivable way 300,000 more customers will be signed up in this region. (The emphasis on those three words will become clear shortly).

In addition to the overall decline in population, the MVSD faces competition from Aqua Ohio and also must find a way of winning over residents of Campbell, which has its own filtration plant, and Cortland, which utilizes well water

But those aren't the only hurdles to expanding the customer base.

Youngstown vs. the burbs The current flap over water involving the city of Youngstown and the suburban townships of Austintown, Boardman and now Liberty threatens to become a geyser.

Full Story: http://www.vindy.com/news/2008/aug/24/a-bridge-over-troubled-waters/