By Mar-Vic Cagurangan
Variety News Staff

HOUSEHOLDS that have installed shutoff valves may be able to seek reimbursements for the cost of the system installation under a bill seeking to compel the Guam Waterworks Authority to refund customers who complied with the requirement that was eventually recalled.
Several customers rushed to have shutoff valves installed following GWA’s threat to disconnect water services to households that didn’t have the required water control system.
Protests from most customers, however, had prompted GWA to recall the requirement and withdrew the disconnection threat.
But just the same, Sen. Adolpho Palacios, D-Ordot/Chalan Pago, author of Bill 101, noted that a number of GWA customers have incurred expenses as a result of the “faulty requirement.”
Bill 99 requires that the residences be “compensated for their losses and sufferings by mutual arrangement” between the water agency and the customer.
“The value of such losses and suffering may be rebated to the customer in the form of credit to future charges,” the bill states.
Sen. Jesse A. Lujan, R-Tamuning, last week said he would fight any lobby attempt by GWA to press for the repeal of an amendment that would clip the water agency’s power to enforce regulations that have not been legally adopted.
Lujan said GWA’s John Benavente is lobbying for votes to overturn the amendment to Bill 74, the revised budget measure, which the senator said prompted the water agency to recall its policy requiring customers to install shutoff valves.