A fire hydrant in Bend was leaking for weeks.

Water quality suffered and customers were put under a boil water notice. A small, private water utility called Sun Country Water that served about 100 residential customers even failed to make a case to the state for setting its rates. Water customers didn’t know when they would be billed.

This utility “was not providing adequate service to customers, was not responsive to multiple commission orders, was not completing repairs, was not billing properly,” Nolan Moser, executive director of the Oregon Public Utility Commission, told legislators on Monday.

The PUC tried a number of things to get Sun Country to comply. It even appointed another company to run the system.

Nothing worked. Nobody could compel the owner to act — unless Sun Country no longer owned the system. The PUC ended up using its own budget to pay for repairs to the system, though that money was eventually recovered. PUC staff made calls themselves to customers to let them know their water would be shut down so repairs could be made.

Finally, in May 2024, the PUC authorized the sale of Sun Country to Avion Water.

Moser told legislators he did not want such a mess to happen again. The result is Senate Bill 845.

It would authorize the PUC to be able to order the acquisition of a water utility if it cannot provide safe and adequate service to customers. It basically would enable the PUC to take action to force a sale, when alternative means of getting a utility to operate properly were failing. The intent would be that a forced sale would be a last resort.

What happened with Sun Country could happen elsewhere. Access to clean water for residents must be protected.