Speaker 1: A man who is running for the Colorado House District
Speaker 1: in the twenty eighth House district.
Speaker 2: Peter Body.
Speaker 1: Of course, Peter, I chose to pronounce your name incorrectly
Speaker 1: before you came on the air with me, but never fear,
Speaker 1: I have corrected myself and welcome to the program.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 2: So, first of all, I.
Speaker 1: Want to ask you why did you decide to run
Speaker 1: for the twenty eighth House District seat.
Speaker 3: Well, I love Colorado and I love my country, and
Speaker 3: we have some problems that need to be addressed, and
Speaker 3: our Colorado legislature is out of control and I want
Speaker 3: to repair some of the damage and change things down there.
Speaker 3: So it's costing people money, and there's all kinds of
Speaker 3: problems that are being caused by an out of control legislature.
Speaker 1: So what specifically got your attention? And I'm directing you
Speaker 1: to the big backflow blunder which you are out there publicizing.
Speaker 1: Tell my listeners what happened when one word changed, literally,
Speaker 1: one word change destroyed businesses and jobs.
Speaker 2: Explain how this has happened.
Speaker 3: Sure, well, I call it the big backflow blunder, and
Speaker 3: it was caused by my opponent the incumbent in House
Speaker 3: District twenty eight, and it was a change to the
Speaker 3: state Plumbing Board Law, which had to be renewed because
Speaker 3: of sunset. And it was a change that the Plumbing
Speaker 3: Board law addresses licensing of plumbers and the regulations for plumbing,
Speaker 3: which is a necessary law and needed to be renewed. However,
Speaker 3: at the last minute they changed a couple words involving
Speaker 3: what's called the back flow prevention device testing, and they
Speaker 3: changed it so the previous law said backflow testing shall
Speaker 3: be exempt from being performed by licensed plumbers, and they
Speaker 3: change that too, are not exempt from plumbing license plumbers. Well,
Speaker 3: backflow devices are on all commercial buildings and large irrigation
Speaker 3: systems and even most of your backyard irrigation systems have
Speaker 3: a backflow device. And what that does is it prevents
Speaker 3: if you have a break in your system, in your
Speaker 3: building or in your irrigation system, there's a big loss
Speaker 3: of pressure, something happens. It prevents potentially contaminated water in
Speaker 3: your system, in your system from going back into the
Speaker 3: public water supply.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's a stopgap.
Speaker 3: It's been around for decades.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's a stop gap to prevent cross contamination if
Speaker 1: something goes wrong in one.
Speaker 2: Place exactly okay.
Speaker 3: And so there's been a whole industry built up of
Speaker 3: backflow tester certify backflow tester. They have to be take
Speaker 3: training and perform these tests once a year on all
Speaker 3: the commercial operations. Those have to be submitted to the
Speaker 3: water utilities and submitted to the state Health Department. And
Speaker 3: if you don't get the testing done, that creates a
Speaker 3: potential health violation. And so by changing it from not
Speaker 3: requiring licensed plumbers at the behest of a plumber's union
Speaker 3: and a plumbers organization, which my opponent readily to come
Speaker 3: to their request, put it in without anybody knowing, and
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, hundreds of backflow testers who had
Speaker 3: been doing this work for decades were potentially crushed out
Speaker 3: of business, couldn't perform the tests. And that went into
Speaker 3: effect July first, but nobody noticed, didn't till the laws
Speaker 3: started to take effect, and then it just created problems besides.
Speaker 1: Go ahead, So these companies specifically do this one thing.
Speaker 1: They're not like doing this, and then I will take
Speaker 1: care of this plumbing issue. They have one job and
Speaker 1: they focus on this one thing because.
Speaker 2: I want to make sure.
Speaker 1: I mean, if they have all this other training, what
Speaker 1: would be the necessity of having.
Speaker 2: It be a plumber.
Speaker 3: There is no necessity. It's been working fine for decades.
Speaker 3: And these businesses, some of them do there's fire pressure
Speaker 3: testing and big buildings and things, so some of them
Speaker 3: do some other work. But the backfloat there are some
Speaker 3: that that's all they do, is the backflow of testing.
Speaker 1: To Peter, if you're elected to the House of Representatives,
Speaker 1: what do you want to do here?
Speaker 3: Well, the first thing is to resend this this provision
Speaker 3: in the bill, correct it, and it has to be
Speaker 3: corrected by April first. Everybody panicked because it caused so
Speaker 3: much trouble that they postponed implementation till April first, which
Speaker 3: would give me a chance to propose a bill, and
Speaker 3: others propose a bill to fix the problem. Denver Water
Speaker 3: is so concerned about Denver Water Department, which serves a
Speaker 3: million and a half customers, I think, and they have
Speaker 3: forty four thousand of these devices that need to be
Speaker 3: tested every year. Because of the law going and effect
Speaker 3: July first, they were already behind on their testing. And
Speaker 3: if they get a notice from the State Health Department
Speaker 3: that they're in violation. They have to and out of
Speaker 3: public notice. It costs a quarter of a million dollars
Speaker 3: per notice.
Speaker 2: Oh good grief.
Speaker 3: For them to mail for postage and mailing and printing.
Speaker 3: I just then you multiplied that by every water utility, right,
Speaker 3: and you have a big blunder.
Speaker 1: I got this text message, Peter body who I'm talking
Speaker 1: to right now, Mandy. I just heard from a friend
Speaker 1: You're going to be doing a backflow segment on your
Speaker 1: show in about ten minutes because of the new law.
Speaker 1: I ended up selling my backflow business that I've had
Speaker 1: for eight years, and I'm a master plumber, still very
Speaker 1: active in the backflow community. But the way, oh hang on,
Speaker 1: some just updated there but them. But the way that
Speaker 1: the politics screwed with the entire system was enough for
Speaker 1: me to get out of it. I was doing over
Speaker 1: sixteen hundred tests a year, and whichever party decided to
Speaker 1: change this law really screwed this industry up. I know
Speaker 1: for a fact that I asked you once to look
Speaker 1: into it, and it was before the nine News interview
Speaker 1: with Colleen Morrison, who was a good friend of mine.
Speaker 1: So yeah, this is having real life effects here.
Speaker 3: Peter.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this aside from this, like this
Speaker 1: can't be the only thing that has you running. And
Speaker 1: people are asking where is the twenty eighth House district?
Speaker 2: What is that encompass? What's your biggest areas?
Speaker 3: It's the very south edge of Lakewood in Jefferson County.
Speaker 3: South edge of Lakewood down to about Coal Mine west
Speaker 3: to Sea four seventy and on the east is where
Speaker 3: parts of Denver and Arapahole County, Littleton kind of weave
Speaker 3: in and out on the east edge. Okay, so I
Speaker 3: call it central South Jefferson County.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you this, what does it take
Speaker 1: to become a licensed plumber? Because somebody said so these
Speaker 1: black backflow companies can just become licensed plumbers to continue
Speaker 1: this business. How easy is it it to become a
Speaker 1: licensed plumber?
Speaker 3: Well, I think it takes years. You have to become
Speaker 3: an apprentice, and I'm not that familiar with becoming a plumber.
Speaker 3: I just no electricians plumbers. They have to spend years
Speaker 3: training as an apprentice and testing and then you know,
Speaker 3: moving up to become a I guess a journeyman plumber
Speaker 3: and the master plumber. So it's not something that you
Speaker 3: do overnight and at the same time, the backflow testing
Speaker 3: requires a forty hour training and the passing a test.
Speaker 3: So in the past the plumbers didn't want to bother
Speaker 3: sending one of their plumbers to get that test right.
Speaker 3: The plumber could do it, and it just was such
Speaker 3: small potatoes as some An attorney at the Denver Water
Speaker 3: Department told me that the plumbers never wanted to do
Speaker 3: it in the past because it wasn't sexy enough. It's
Speaker 3: just a small test.
Speaker 2: Peter, we're out of time.
Speaker 1: Why should people vote for Peter Body in the twenty
Speaker 1: eighth House district.
Speaker 3: Well, as I've said, the legislature, the Democrats and legislature
Speaker 3: are are drunk on power, and you need to elect
Speaker 3: sober republic.
Speaker 2: All right, Peter, Yeah, exactly Body.
Speaker 3: For Colorado dot Com.
Speaker 1: I put a link on the blog to your website, Pody, Peter,
Speaker 1: so people could see what you're up to.
Speaker 2: Best of luck to you. Hopefully we'll talk to you
Speaker 2: when you become a member of the House.
Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you, Peter.