This is my response to the executive director of the Bradford Sanitary Authority’s remarks in the Nov. 22 edition of The Bradford Era in an article about the legal issues between BSA and Bob Cummins Construction. Steve Disney, who collects nearly $92,000 in salary plus thousands of dollars of benefits yearly as BSA executive director, with no prior experience in the field, has done nothing to solve the alleged nine-year-old problem except to bar us from adjusting the system for $0.00 cost — even to this very day.

Mr. Disney says BSA “does not consider Cummins to be a responsible or trustworthy contractor.” However, for 47 years, Cummins Construction was responsible enough and trustworthy enough to perform hundreds of public works projects including lots of emergency work on many sewer systems. We have worked on almost every sewage treatment plant within 60 miles, including in New York state.

How responsible is Mr. Disney to stop Cummins Construction from making minor, reversible adjustments at $0.00 cost for years, while paying lawyers millions? Mr. Disney’s job description includes “Develop and facilitate positive relations with local governments, regulatory agencies, businesses, customers and the media.” He has failed.

BSA’s budget for lawyers for this case will be hundreds of thousands of dollars just for 2025. The authority’s budget comes out this month.

Cummins’ local employees and subcontractors built a $17 million, state-of-the-art treatment plant that has been in operation since 2015 with no fines or violations and excellent water quality. The alleged problem is caused by a backup in the system engineered and selected by Gannet Flemming, the engineer of record for the project.

Interestingly, BSA has sued its engineer after it lost the first trial because the authority knows where the fault lies.

Bob Cummins, Bradford