Billet family claims city responsible for damage

Nick Ianniello

Mineral Indepdendent

A Superior family is moving out of a home they say is damaged beyond repair due to the alleged negligence of town employees while Superior’s mayor claims that the town did everything they could for the family.

“There’s close to a hundred million gallons of water under our house,” said Corey Billet, local business owner and father of two about the damage caused by a leaky service line leading to his house.

Billet lives in a house on the south side of the railroad in Superior directly uphill from a coffee shop he and his wife Robin own.

According to Billet, the town’s inability or unwillingness to shut off the waterline leading to his home caused the ground to become saturated with water. He says that his home is now sliding downhill along with his yard and the damage to his house is beyond repair.

“Our yard is coming downhill and our house is moving downhill,” Billet said.

Billet claims that he asked town officials to shut off the water to his house, but Superior Mayor Mike Wood said that Billet made no real request for the line to be shut down.

“They claimed that they asked us to shut it off but there were five of us in the office and none of us heard them ask us to shut it off. I thought that I was listening very, very carefully to this man,” Wood said.

Wood acknowledged that Billet had said that shutting his water off might be an option to work out issues with the line, but said that at their first meeting together Billet did not ask town officials to shut off water to his home.

“That’s a whole lot different than saying ‘Shut my water off.’ If you shut someone’s water off that means they’re living in a house with no water. We don’t take that lightly and we never heard those words come out of his mouth,” Wood said.

Wood went on to say that when Billet asked the town to shut the water line down it was off within two weeks.

Billet, who has filed a lawsuit against the town, said that he asked for his water to be shut off, but even though the line has been shut down, the damage to his home that started with a leaky line in 2007 will force him to move his family into a new house.

“The whole yard is moving and that’s why the house hasn’t fallen apart. It’s scary, it’s really scary to be there,” Billet said.

Billet said it took more than a year for the line to be shut down.

“I’m exhausted because this would have been so easy to fix if they would have just shut the valve off,”Billet said.

Wood said that fixing the Billet’s service line is still not the town’s responsibility. Service lines that come off the main water line in Superior are supposed to be fixed by the owner.

“We don’t fix service lines and if we start fixing service lines then everyone will want us to fix their service line. We think that’s the owner’s responsibility,” Wood said.

For months the Billets had to take their two children, Alex, 12, and Abigail, 11, to friend’s houses for showers and to wash clothes.

The family is now moving into a rental home while they figure out what to do with their dilapidated house.

“It’s something. At least it has running water,” said Robin Billet.

Corey Billet said he is frustrated and does not want to have to leave Superior to find a new home.

“I want my kids to go to school here and we have two businesses here. It would be a real bad time to try to move somewhere and start over,” Billet said.

Wood said that he wants the Billets to stay in Superior.

“We want to keep people in Superior, we’re not trying to drive them out,” Wood said. “It’s like we’re just talking two different languages.”