The Leesburg Town Council voted 5-2 Tuesday night not to extend a pipeline to sell water to the community of Raspberry Falls.

Mayor Kristen Umstattd, Vice Mayor Kevin Wright and council members Kelly Burk, Katie Hammler and Fernando “Marty” Martinez voted against the pipeline, and council members Thomas Dunn and David Butler voted for it.

Loudoun Water, which manages the wells in Raspberry Falls, had approached the town about extending a pipeline to the town limits in order to provide water to the community. Five years ago, bacteria was discovered in the Raspberry Falls water system, and in November 2010 a community well was found to be contaminated by ground water. While Loudoun Water has maintained that the drinking water it provides has always met the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Virginia Department of Health water quality standards, 250 residents of Raspberry Falls and several construction companies sued the company in February, alleging that the water was heavily chlorinated and harmful to health.

Loudoun Water had asked the council to come to a decision by the end of May, but debate had stalled the resolution until July 10.

Since Leesburg will not be providing water to the community, Loudoun Water issued a statement July 13 that confirmed it will proceed to install a membrane filtration system. Council members used this alternative to argue against selling water to the community.

“In my mind there is no other benefit to the town… other than to resolve as a good neighbor a health, safety and welfare issue,” Wright said. “Loudoun Water does not have a health, safety or welfare issue they cannot resolve in Raspberry Falls without our help.”

Butler argued that while a membrane filtration system would solve the problem in the short term, Leesburg needed to provide water to prevent long-term problems: “It’s virtually inevitable that all of those wells will sooner or later become contaminated with surface water.”

Both Butler and Dunn said that installing the pipeline would bring over $75,000 positive revenue to the town, since Loudoun Water agreed to cover the costs, but other members said the town would at best break even.

“We simply are looking at an enormous amount of risks for a solution that has already been found,” Hammler said.

“Since when do we have to have people in dire straights to make them customers to our utility department?” Dunn asked. He called the council’s current utility policy “unsustainable.”

“We have to come up with new customers, or charge our current customers more money,” Dunn said. “I really wish we had put aside our previous considerations or feelings about this and actually looked at the facts.”