Residents in Midlands town lose water in Lumos fiber company’s latest digging mishap
Another fiber optic company has been put on pause in the town of Lexington.
Lumos Fiber has been issued a stop work order, a town official confirmed Tuesday, the latest in a string of incidents that have sparked tension between local residents and the companies that are laying high-speed internet lines around the country.
Lumos was told to stop all work in the municipality at a meeting with Mayor Hazel Livingston on Tuesday. A town spokesperson said the stop work order came following a series of incidents that have raised concerns with town officials, including damage to a water main that left the Westbrook neighborhood without service for 24 hours on Monday.
The stop work order will be in effect for one week. Town staff and Lumos representatives will tour the Westbrook area later this week to assess repair efforts, and the company and town will then plan a staged resumption of work, once the plan gets municipal approval.
In a statement, Lumos said the damage had been caused by “mismarked utility locates” in the Westbrook neighborhood.
“Water has been restored, and we regret any inconvenience the impacted residents experienced,” the company’s statement said. “We continue to work closely with the City and are expecting to be back to work soon. We appreciate your patience as we build the community’s high-speed fiber network.”
Town Councilman Gavin Smith said he’s received at least a dozen complaints from Westbrook residents who have had yards and flower beds dug up by crews moving through the neighborhood, some of which he said “left wires sticking out of people’s yards.”
“When are these companies going to realize the town of Lexington takes seriously our residents’ property, and will demand that they respect their property?” Smith said.
This is the second time in as many months that Lexington has stopped a fiber optic company from operating in the town. In January, the town blocked Ripple Fiber from continuing work in town after workers struck a gas line in the Woodcreek neighborhood, disrupting service and causing the police to shut down access to the area until the leak was repaired.
Town officials held a nearly two-hour meeting where they chided the company for its performance and told executives they had to submit a plan for improving how it digs up residential areas.
Lumos has its own history of getting into trouble for its line work. In September, the company was temporarily blocked by Lexington County from working the Murraywood area of Irmo after a water line strike flooded a street and created a sinkhole in front of one household’s driveway.
Earlier, Lumos was stopped from doing more work in the city of Columbia in 2023 over similar complaints, including a gas line strike that disrupted life in Elmwood Park and caused police to divert traffic down busy Elmwood Avenue.
But the company was eventually allowed to return to work in both Columbia and Lexington County, and Lexington officials have said before that utilities have a legal right to access public right-of-ways to provide their services, so they can’t stop fiber companies from working in the area completely.
“People have asked why we allow this, but utilities are regulated by the Public Service Commission, and they have the ability to come in and lay the fiber down... We’re doing everything we can to hold them accountable, but in the end it’s the commission and state law that allows them to come in,” Smith said. “I would encourage the state Legislature to take note of what’s happening in our communities and work through legislation to hold these companies more accountable.”
Fiber optic cable companies have proliferated in activity in recent years as they work to meet increased demand for high-speed internet with the growth of streaming entertainment and the number of people working from home.
This story was originally published March 5, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
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