Currently, eight Hertford County homeowners sit in the proverbial no man’s land.

For years, those homes were served by the Hertford County Southern Rural Water District. That service will soon come to an end at no fault of their own.

Earlier this week, the Hertford County Board of Commissioners sold a portion of its Southern Rural Water District to the Town of Ahoskie. That purchase will allow the town to tie in its water system to serve four recently annexed areas – NC 561 East, NC 42 West, the Ahoskie-Cofield Road area and Colonial Acres (NC 561 West).

That town-supplied water will soon become available to Ahoskie’s newest residents.

However, for eight homeowners whose parcels of land are respectively located just outside Ahoskie’s newly expanded borders, they find themselves cut off from the county’s water supply and will be forced to purchase the life-giving liquid from Ahoskie.

Those properties – four on Holloman Lane (off NC 561 East), three on NC 42 West and one along NC 561 East – are currently served by the water line just sold by the county to Ahoskie. There’s no alternative to send water in their direction except through the town’s service.

To make matters worse, because they are not located inside the town’s corporate limits, Ahoskie officials, following their water service guidelines, will charge those eight homeowners double the normal rate due to the fact that they will require out-of-town water service.

Talk about your double whammy – these homeowners will see their monthly water bills increase dramatically….and they did nothing to cause their impending financial grief.

We encourage these homeowners to appeal their plight to the Ahoskie Town Council and we urge the Council to do the right thing….bill them at the county’s water rate.

– The Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald