SILEX – No water — no words any community wants to hear.

Yet, it was those exact words that caused inconvenience and headaches for over 100 Silex residents last week. And assistance from Troy’s mayor appears to have helped further a divide between him and some members of the board of aldermen.

Silex officials are blaming out-ofdate infrastructure for a water leak that primarily impacted residents and some businesses on Duncan Mansion, a road located in old Silex, which is served by a different water tower than the newer portion of town.

According to Gary Phillips, a Silex maintenance employee, a resident contacted a city staffer Sunday, Dec. 1, reporting no water pressure. Upon that notification, Phillips went and checked on it and contacted Flynn Drilling.

A short time later, a back flow issue was diagnosed.

The next day, the repair was completed and double checked to make sure there was sufficient flow in the water tower.

“We brought in water to pump up the system,” Phillips said. “When we all thought it was fixed and when I turned the booster on to boost the pressure to everybody, we blew a pipe and nobody knew that.”

Following another call about low water pressure, Phillips went looking for a leak which eventually located at Duncan Mansion Road in the Royal Oaks area.

To add injury to insult, after the lines were repaired and Troy agreed to donate 20,000 gallons of water to start refilling the tower, the tower sprung a leak, wasting all that water. After the leak was fixed, Troy provided an additional 32,000 gallons of water and service was restored Thursday night and into Friday morning.

“We did the best we could to get service restored but nothing happens instantly,” said Mayor Lynne Luckett.

The impact For Cayla Hardin, who lives in old town Silex next to the water tower, her family had no water beginning Sunday, Dec. 1.

A few days later, on Thursday, Dec. 5, Hardin says the water was back on while a boil order remains in place until further notice.

Hardin says she is annoyed not only with the most recent water issue but the city’s slow response to the old piping and infrastructure that has been problematic for too long. She says she has been experiencing water problems since they moved into their home in 2020.

“It’s extremely frustrating when we go without water,” she said. “There’s no doing dishes or laundry. A few days in, we couldn’t even cook because we had no clean dishes. So we went out to eat for every meal and that gets expensive for a family of 5. Our pastor and his wife had us over so we could shower. When you have lived with the luxury of running water for so long you definitely take it for granted.”

But it was not just residents that experienced water issues. A spokesperson for the Silex Community Care Center confirms their water was off and on. In addition, the spokesperson noted the water came back on at the end of last week and credits the city for acting quickly and doing a “good” job.

Additionally, the Silex Residential Center only experienced low water pressure, according to Scott Price, owner.

Baragiola Hardware had no water for just a few hours and its owner Laura Baragiola took it all in stride. “It makes you realize how blessed you are when it is back on and that you don’t deal with it regularly,” she said.

But for Knight Owls Cafe, they couldn’t sell fountain soda and were forced to close for a day.

“It was a definite impact,” said the cafe’s Will Southerland. “It’s frustrating but that is the situation you are in. There is not much you can do about it. It’s not really something they can predict.”

The school district also canceled classes Thursday and Friday in response to the crisis.

The fix and the frustration Getting the water problem fixed was not something that could be done immediately. “There are a lot of moving parts in a situation like that,” Luckett explains. One of the big components was actually getting water. Luckett contacted Sconce for help. He said the city could give her 20,0000 gallons of water if they could haul it.

Troy waived the hydrant permit fee of $35 allowing them to hook on to get the water. After fixing the leaky tower that cost them the first 20,000 gallons, Luckett was back calling on Thursday. Sconce agreed to give them 32,000 gallons more water.

By week’s end, Silex’s water problem was calming down but the ire between Sconce and some board of alderman was only starting to heat up.

The frustration appears to stem from Sconce agreeing to give water to Silex without consulting and getting approval in advance from the Troy’s board of alderman, some of whom questioned whether Sconce has the authority to make a decision about the city’s water supply without permission of the board.

“She had a dire need and was in a panic,” Sconce said. “She couldn’t wait 24 hours for me to consult a board. She has nursing homes up there that had no water. She needed an answer right away.”

David Norman and Rachel Dunard, who are both Troy board of alderman, said they found out about the city’s assistance to Silex on social media. Norman says that he had “no clue” prior to the Facebook post and is “bummed out” he found out that way and not from the mayor himself.

“I’m not against helping the community,” Norman said. “We should not have to find out through social media. At least communicate and let us know what is going on. At least give us that much respect.”

Norman says he has still not heard from Sconce. It’s possible, Norman says, that for any similar situations in the future, the board may want to discuss what procedures or protocols there should be in place if any at all.

“I’m the elected executive of the city. If you can’t make a judgment call with the advice of your department heads, why are you here at all?” Sconce said.

Silex’s future Since the summer of 2023, the city has been on bottled water after Silex declared a state of emergency to deal with the radionuclides in the city’s ground water source.

Luckett previously told the Lincoln County Journal that she hopes to have the water issue solved by mid-2025, but it’s not definitive.

In the spring, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources granted approval for a Pike County water connection that would provide clean water to the city.

When all is finished, there will be a pipe that runs down Highway 61 from Eolia to Auburn junction then down Highway E, connecting to the city’s system to provide clean drinking water.

Once the city’s water woes are fixed, Luckett says there will be no old town and new Silex, as the piping and water tower will be the same for the community.