Tuesday was Wrangell’s third day with a boil water notice in effect, though the water quality was improving. Public Works Director Tom Wetor said he hopes the water supply will be back to normal by Wednesday afternoon.
He said, “We have to stay on the boil water until we get sampling and testing. That tells us that anything that could have possibly been in the water is confirmed to not be there.”
He said through Monday night, they had to refill the storage tanks to give the staff time to restart the Dissolved Air Flotation system, which removes suspended particles from the water supply and had malfunctioned. Once they started it back up Monday evening, they had to backwash filters, which consumes a lot of water. By 9 p.m., they sent the treated water up to the storage tanks.
“That [treated water] is mixing with the water that was in the tank previously,” Wetor said. “We are working on flushing here today throughout the distribution system to turn that water over and get the cleaner water spread out throughout the system.”
It looks good, he said Tuesday morning.
Conserving water
Wetor said that if people in Wrangell conserve water now, it will go faster.
He can’t say exactly what caused the system to malfunction.
One factor is the new water treatment plant is under construction. Officials are repurposing parts of the old treatment plant to support the new facility.
“Anytime we get massive changes in weather events, that affects water chemistry”
Another is the failure of some equipment that measures water chemistry. He also said that weather could have played a role.
“Anytime we get massive changes in weather events, that affects water chemistry in our water source, in our reservoirs and lakes,” Wetor said.
For example, a sudden change from cool and rainy to warm and sunny like the last few weeks, would promote algae growth, and that would affect the chemistry of the reservoir.
Future water supply
Besides the malfunction, he said the borough is in fantastic shape for water supply and that the conservation notice is directly related to the water treatment plant problem.
“We are putting every resource possible into this and doing everything possible within our power to get this turned around as quickly as possible,” Wetor said. “We do appreciate people’s support and understanding in that and definitely thankful for the staff that we have.”
Wetor said the borough chartered flights to expedite water testing.
Since operations have remained stable through Tuesday, he said they’re working on scheduling follow up visits with engineers to provide extra training.
That way if this malfunction happens again to the new water treatment plant, staff would have better knowledge on how to handle the situation.
