When most residents of Chapel Hill, Tennessee, turn on their faucets, they probably don’t think about how fast, reliable internet service helps ensure the safety of their drinking water.
But if there’s one resident who’s thinking about that connection, it’s the town’s administrator, Danny Bingham. But, to be fair, the regular testing and reporting of water quality to state agencies is one of the many responsibilities under his management.
Stringent water quality standards set by the EPA and managed by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation require municipalities to test for 80 different types of possible contaminants, including lead, bacteria, agricultural runoff, and even pharmaceuticals.
Before Danny started in his current role just over two years ago, slow internet service created a bottleneck that delayed the timely transmission of online data. Danny called someone he knew at United Communications and asked them to come up with a solution, which was quickly implemented.
“Whether we’re dealing with our wastewater treatment plant or water treatment plant, we were getting bogged down with waiting on the internet,” explained Bingham. “Today, the performance and reliability of our systems have improved greatly and also just the efficiency of work being done.”
“Whereas it used to take us several hours to send a report, now we can quickly enter the data, send it up to the state, and get a response back…and that helps us out a great deal,” he added.
Ensuring water quality is one of several challenges that United has helped the town address as it continues to grow. Despite a population of just 1,800 residents, Danny and his colleagues in Chapel Hill are still required to meet the same regulatory requirements that much larger cities can address with the resources of a significantly larger tax base.
“The Internet and having access to the technology it affords is very vital, especially to a small municipality like us,” said Bingham. “We’re coming of age, if you will, as a small town, and more and more requirements are placed upon us. Whether it’s water and sewer requirements, public works, police, and fire—all those things have to be coordinated. Through the use of the internet, those services are made better.”
Aside from the inner workings of local government, Danny depends on United’s internet service to create a vital link between the township and its residents.
“Just reaching out to citizens and communicating through various channels—whether it’s our website or through Facebook or some other social media—we try to utilize those tools,” he said. “So, to have a very good provider of internet services—speedy internet services—is very important to us.”
On the town of Chapel Hill’s website, residents have comprehensive digital access to essential services and can easily pay utility bills, view the town calendar, sign up for emergency alerts, and view water quality reports.
“I feel very good about where our services are at this time and where we’re going to go,” Bingham said. “We’re getting better because of the service that we get from United. And I think that helps our town employees to feel a whole lot better about the job they do. And as long as they’re happy, then I’m happy—and our citizens are happy.”