Although disappointed that the City Manager seems to control the Aiken government, who choose to keep breaking our water mains to endanger our lives and health, I continue my work to improve public health and stop water main break taxes. Aiken officials will be some of the villains in my forthcoming book, titled "Industrial Murder for Profit in the Water, Gas, Oil and Nuclear Industries".

::::::::

Once again, I accuse the Aiken government of harming the people of Aiken. False information from Aiken results in an ongoing plan of destruction for the Aiken water supply with associated costs and health hazards. In my opinion, the Aiken City Manager bullied the Aiken Mayor and City Council members into an extremely bad decision that endangers the people of Aiken. I cannot change the Aiken officials who follow this toxic plan, but I can enlighten this harmful plan to others.

A Request for Response to Accusations

I sent the following letter to the Mayor and City Manager of Aiken, S.C., concerning their choice to keep breaking our water mains and endangering our health and lives. Given their customary lack of comment to factual and serious accusations, I did not expect Aiken responses to this letter, and responses were not received. I also received no response from the Governor of South Carolina after I texted a letter to investigate an Aiken water main break coverup (see 'An Investigation Request' below). Aiken officials and the South Carolina Governor had no objections or comment to any of my serious accusations against Aiken government and their coverup of deadly health hazards.

Aiken Breaks Our Water Supply, Harms Our Health, and Taxes Us Without Need, 5/30/2025

Although disappointed that the City Manager seems to have controlled Aiken government, who choose to keep breaking our water mains, I continue my work to improve public health and stop water main break taxes. I plan to run the advertisement below next year, expecting that coverups - like the coverup in Aiken - are not taking place everywhere. This add will run after I finish writing and publishing my latest two contracted books. One book will include a section on all of the science to date to explain how to stop water main breaks ("Fluid Transients, The Water Hammer and Gas Hammer Disaster"), [where this book is based on peer reviewed scientific research]. One section of a second parallel book will discuss the coverups and refusals to accept science by governments ("Industrial Murder for Profit in the Water, Gas, Oil and Nuclear Industries"), [where this book is based on a series of 56 OpEd News articles and many other publications].

Aiken officials will be the villains (those who are blamed for a particular evil or difficulty) in that second book section, which will be based on 4 OpEd News articles read by up to 2,100 national readers, and 8 Letters to the Editor of the Aiken Standard. These articles were previously provided to Aiken officials, are listed below, and comments are welcome on these articles by June, 4, 2025. These Letters to the Editor and OpEd News articles concerning Aiken will be published in full, or in part, in this new "Industrial Murder..." book. This book will be technically founded upon "The Fluid Transient Disaster..." book, which will be based on peer reviewed engineering publications and non-peer reviewed publications written since 2015.

[Stop Water Main Breaks!]
(Image by Leishear Engineering, LLC)   Details   DMCA

REFERENCES (Part of 55+ piping failure and water main break publications [by R. A. Leishear].)

OpEdNews, Science Op Eds

A One-Man-Fight Against Small Town and U.S. Water Main Breaks [2025]

Aiken Coverups and New Scientific Advances in Water Main Breaks [2025]

Money is Gone in My Home Town of Aiken, and the Water Main Breaks Keep on Coming [2025]

Never give an inch - When will we stop U.S. water main breaks? [2025]

Aiken Standard, Letters to the Editor

Letter: Water main breaks will continue in Aiken [2025]

Letter: Workshop aims to stop water main breaks [2024]

Letter: Water main breaks can be prevented [2023]

Letter: No reason for water mains to break [2023]

Letter: City must address water main breaks [2022]

Letter: City work to stop water main breaks [2021]

Letter: Water main breaks can be stopped [2019]

Letter: Bureaucracy solves no problems [2019]

Aiken City Council Workshop Presentations

Aiken Water Main Breaks Can Be Stopped, Click Here [2025]

Aiken Water Main Breaks Can Be Stopped, Part II (Censored when this presentation was prevented by Mayor Milner, Click Here

Some Supporting Peer Reviewed Publications for "The Fluid Transient Disaster, Water Hammers and Gas Hammers"

"The Piping Handbook, Chapter - Industrial Water Hammers", Mc Graw Hill, Eskridge, Leishear, et al. (in publication).

"Fluid Mechanics, Water Hammer, Dynamic Stresses, and Piping Design", R. A. Leishear, 2013, ASME Press textbook.

"Our Water Mains Contaminate Us with E. Coli, Lead and Copper - Illness and Death Follow", R. A. Leishear, 2021, Science Publishing Group.

"Water Hammer Causes Water Main Breaks", 2019, R. A. Leishear, ASME Journal of Pressure Vessel Technology.

"We Can Stop Nearly $1.7 Trillion in Water Main Breaks", R. A. Leishear, 2020, NACE, Materials Performance Magazine.

"Water System Operators Can Stop Water Main Breaks", OpShow 2022, America Water Works Association.

"Water Main Failures, Water Hammer, Corrosion and Fatigue Failures", R. A. Leishear, 2018, American Water Works Association.

Thank you.

Robert A. Leishear, PhD, PE, PMP

ASME Fellow

Doctor of Mechanical Engineering, U of S Carolina (Water Hammer and Explosion Failure Analysis)

Master of Engineering in Nuclear Engineering, U. of S. Carolina (Explosions in Piping and Nuclear Reactor Systems)

Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering, U of S Carolina (Fluid and Piping System Failure Analysis)

Expert in Numerical Analysis with Ansys, Technological University of Madrid

Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University

Combustion Institute, Princeton University

Nuclear Reactor Design, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

International Radiological Protection, NEA, U. of Stockholm

International Nuclear Law, NEA, U. of Singapore

NACE Senior Corrosion Technologist

NACE Senior Internal (Piping) Corrosion Technologist

NACE Cathodic Protection Tester

AMPP Certified Coatings Inspector

NACE Corrosion Under Insulation

Shift Technical Engineer

Metrologist / instrumentation Engineer

Structural Steel Fitter and Welder

Instrumentation / HVAC / Electronics Technician

Journeyman Sheet Metal Mechanic

Who's Who in America, Top Engineers

Mensa, Copper Black Award for Creative Achievement

Leishear Engineering, LLC

Engineering Consulting and Research

205 Longleaf Court, Aiken, SC, 29803

Website - leishearengineeringllc.com

An Investigation Request

Requesting an investigation of the Aiken water main break coverup, I wrote a letter to the Governor of South Carolina, which is available in full as a comment to an Op Ed (click here). Parts of that letter follow.

'Aiken Water Main Break Coverup, Unnecessary Taxes and Health Hazards, 4/25/2025.

I firmly believe that the Aiken City government is involved in a coverup of Aiken water main breaks that increases taxes and endangers health, and a coverup investigation is warranted.''

'I have the right to fight against water main breaks, using freedom of speech. This right of freedom of speech was crushed by Aiken government.'

'The right to fight against illness and death due to' 'E. coli, Legionella, and Listeria illness and death' 'through water main leaks.

'The right to fight against lead poisoning from water main breaks.'

'The right to fight against water main break taxes.'

'The Aiken mayor turned down free money from a foremost expert to stop the breaks, and crushed my rights, censored my opinions to the City Council, and continues Aiken water main breaks. Our government has endangered, and continues to endanger, our health by destroying our water mains.'

Someone should stand against the Aiken government to protect us from them, and I guess that I am one of those people. The Aiken Mayor, City Manager, City Council members received a link to this article with the following letter after this Op Ed was published. Governor McMaster has removed email contact information from his website, which effectively prevents recorded written contacts with his office.

Op Ed - Aiken, S.C. Officials Destroy Our Water System and Endanger Our Lives and Health

I published an Op Ed, titled "Aiken, S.C. Officials Destroy Our Water System and Endanger Our Lives and Health". If you believe that I have made any errors in this Op Ed, please explain, and I will address your comments. This coverup that affects public health should be investigated.

Conflict of Interest Statement: With respect to any potential conflict of interest, I must note that I have voluntarily invested more than 20,000 hours of my time, and more than $227,00 of my money, to stop industrial disasters which include water main breaks. Any profits from any future water main break research projects, like Aiken or some other city, will never repay the investments and sacrifices that I have made to date for this work, but saving lives is worth the price and worth the fight.

(Article changed on Jun 06, 2025 at 9:56 AM EDT)

Authors Website: http://www.leishearengineeringllc.com

Authors Bio:

Robert A. Leishear, PhD, P.E., PMP, ASME Fellow, Who's Who in America Top Engineer, Who's Who Millennium Magazine cover story, NACE Senior Corrosion Technologist, NACE Senior Internal Piping Corrosion Technologist, ANSYS Expert, AMPP Certified Protective Coatings Inspector, NACE Cathodic Protection Tester, Structural Steel Worker, Welder, Carpenter, and Journeyman Sheet Metal Mechanic, is a Consulting Engineer for Leishear Engineering, LLC, and worked as a Lead Research Engineer (Principal Researcher) for the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Savannah River National Laboratory (IQ = 161). He has also worked as a design engineer, test engineer, and plant engineer in nuclear waste facilities and nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities.

Additionally, Dr. Leishear worked as a lead electronic packaging design engineer for military aircraft and missile systems. In this position, he designed the first wireless aircraft radar system, and he patented an electromagnetic interference mechanism to ensure that aircraft radar computer systems remained operational for second strike capabilities in the event of nuclear war, where this mechanism was installed on all personal computers and printers for decades.

Dr. Leishear has written more than 190 technical publications on water hammer, nuclear plant explosions, and other research. Publications by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers include two water hammer and piping design books and Honors Journal publications.

Dr. Leishear received the Mensa, Copper Black Award for Creative Intelligence for his research on nuclear power plant explosions and petroleum industry explosions. He was appointed as an ASME Fellow for his research on water hammers, which are directly applicable to industrial explosions.

Dr. Leishear earned a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University, and at the University of South Carolina, he earned M.S. and PhD degrees in Mechanical Engineering, and also earned a Master of Engineering degree in Nuclear Engineering. For these degrees he studied, fracture mechanics, water hammer, fluid mechanics, mass transfer, gas dynamics, materials science, fatigue cracking, advanced thermodynamics, reactor thermal hydraulics, risk analysis, engineering law, reactor design, reactor physics, radiation shielding, reactor materials science, nuclear fuel cycles, reactor water chemistry, nuclear material safeguards, finite element analysis, structural vibrations, machinery vibrations, HVAC design, combustion, explosions, and structural analysis.

He has also extensively studied nuclear reactor physics, nuclear reactor thermal/fluid modeling, and nuclear reactor fuel design through Oak Ridge National Laboratories, the University of Illinois, the University of Barcelona, and the U.S. NRC; 12 corrosion courses through the Association for Materials Protection and Performance (AMPP/NACE); water treatment classes through the American Water Works Association; 7 combustion courses through the Combustion Institute at Princeton University and CERFACS; 20 Fluent and Ansys computer modeling courses; plus International Nuclear Law at the University of Singapore and International Radiological Protection at Stockholm University in Sweden through the OECD, Nuclear Energy Agency.

He also completed two years of full-time training at the DOE, Savannah River Site to understand infrastructure, diesel engines, pumps, compressors, fans, heat exchangers, evaporators, steam systems, air and nitrogen systems, mixing, instrumentation, calibrations, machinery design, fire protection systems, safety analysis, emergency response, radiation worker, electrical worker, first aid, explosion risks, plus 17 ASME courses on pressure vessel design, inspection, and piping design. At SRS, he also studied nuclear industry processes, which included chemistry, radiochemistry, and physics for nuclear waste disposal and nuclear fuel reprocessing. He was also trained for 6 weeks at SRS as an HVAC, electrical, and electronics systems mechanic.

Prior to his academic education, Bob Leishear earned his indenture papers through a four-year sheet metal apprenticeship, and he attended six months of training to learn to weld, build steel plate construction, and cut steel with an acetylene torch.