One month later: City water situation still not fixed
Sep. 17—PLATTSBURGH — Disturbing, frustrating and challenging.
Those are the words City of Plattsburgh Environmental Manager Jonathan Ruff used at Thursday's Common Council meeting to describe the city's current water discoloration problem that has persisted over the last month.
"Everybody's frustrated...the guys working on the system are frustrated and feel terrible. This is not just their job, it's their passion," Ruff told the common council.
"We all feel absolutely terrible that we can't say this is exactly what's going on. What we can say is that the water is disinfected and is safe for consumption."
WHAT IS IN THE WATER?
Ruff reiterated for residents to use "common sense" and if their water is brown or discolored, wait for it to clear up before using it.
Councilor Jeff Moore (Ward 6) had posed the question, "What exactly is in that discolored water?" during the meeting.
Ruff said "it's a question we're trying to answer."
"We've collected samples of the discolored water, tested it for bacteria, chlorine residual and those results have been fine. We've also sent those samples of that discolored water out to the lab to test for a whole variety of inorganics and metals. We don't have that data back yet," he continued.
"Some of the inorganics and metals are nuisance items so... iron shows up orange, manganese can show up as dark brown or black, they're a real pain, but they're not a health issue. We also test for things like arsenic and cadmium...we have no reason to believe it's there, even in this discolored water. We don't have those test results back yet."
DATA WILL BE UPLOADED
All that data, he said, will be uploaded to their website as a way to be transparent with the public about their findings.
"One of the criticisms we received is about whether or not we are being transparent with all the data and we are," Ruff said.
"Every year, we publish what's called an annual water quality report that summarizes all of our data. All of the data that's collected so far this year...that's all available for public review. It hasn't been summarized into an annual report yet, but we're gonna scan all that data, post it on the website...if people really want to get into all the details and nitty gritty, it'll be there."
FLUSHING PIPES
Flushing the distribution piping system will continue in an effort to solve the problem.
An updated schedule of where and when the flushing will take place will be available next week.
Ruff noted that it's not uncommon for the water to look worse after the flushing happens, but as far as they've seen, the discolored water shows up randomly.
"Originally when this started, coming down Cornelia Street, the main lines, a lot of people were getting hit there, the restaurants and businesses, over time it's kind of spread, it seems toward the south, a little more toward the north, although the west end has had some issues, because that's where the flushing started last week," he said.
"Flushing went great. Water ran really dirty, cleared up, public works went back later, still clear, everybody seemed to be happy. Then we started working through the system and all of a sudden it started getting dirty water back on Kennedy. So that's settled down again, but we have people that we reach out to and proactively say 'hey, how is it today?' to get a feel for where it's at. But it can move all over and as it moves farther away, sometimes it will dilute.
"Somebody can have a brown tinge, a few blocks later it's a slight yellow tinge. We had one house with dark brown water, (and) one house with totally clear water right next to each other."
NOT A SIMPLE FIX
City Mayor Chris Rosenquest said the public will need to be patient during this process.
"We're talking about changing millions of gallons of water, so it takes time to flow through our system and see the result of that change down the line. Unfortunately, it's not just like when your electricity goes off and you turn it back on, it's not as easy as that," he said.
"When we make a change to correct a discoloration or correct a problem in the water system, it takes time for that solution to work its way through, but again that's what we're doing, that's why we do system-wide flushes. We came back again this week and said we need to take a step back and review the tanks again, drain the tanks all the way, clean the tanks all the way and then refill and flush the system again."
PUBLIC FEEDBACK
He added that the city still needs and wants to hear from the public when they notice their water is dirty.
The best method of contacting them is through email at info@cityofplattsburgh-ny.gov, but they can also be reached at 518-563-1188.
"If you have a complaint or concern about discolored water in your particular house, we want to know, how else do we know where it's happening? How else do we know how to track it, where to track it moving through the system? It is important that we do know where it is happening," Rosenquest said.
Email: cnewton@pressrepublican.com
Twitter: CarlySNewton
