By John Dobberstein, Editor
Coweta city officials said they are making progress as they work to clear up water quality issues that reared up this week.
Daily testing shows that chemical application at the city’s water plant and reservoir are beginning to work, said City Manager Julie Casteen.
The city plans at 8 a.m. Monday to begin implementing a system-wide flushing program to completely exchange water in the distribution system and storage tower.
The flushing could take 1-2 weeks to complete to completely exchange the water throughout the system.
“This slow flush will ensure that the system is not disrupted again while still allowing for a complete flush,” Casteen said Friday.
The flushing will begin at four outer quadrants of the city:
- Northwest – 111th Street (Cross Creek subdivision);
- Northeast – The Woods subdivision;
- Southeast – Heritage Intermediate School area; Southwest – 151st Street
- South (Sugarhill subdivision).
During the flushing process, residents may experience another brief period of discolored water but Casteen says this is unavoidable.
Residents experiencing any discoloration lasting more than 4 hours, or who are willing to provide feedback on improvement and/or worsening of the water delivered should send an email to publicworks@cityofcoweta-ok.gov.
Earlier this week, residents started experiencing off-color and off-taste water that the city said was caused by a variety of factors. such as excessive heat and heavy rain, are not within our control; those conditions contributed to an algae bloom at the reservoir. Some other factors including some mechanical repairs that are needed and decisions around water levels to maintain in the system were within the city’s control, Casteen said.
The city’s water plant superintendent resigned this week, and the city moved forward with consultants “to ensure we return to normal operation and are delivering a quality product as soon as possible,” she said.
The treatment plan includes targeted chemical application at the water plant to convert and remove manganese from the water to address discoloration.
“We will continue on-site and off-site testing through our partners at OMNI Water Consultants to monitor and will adjust chemical treatment parameters as needed based on test results,” Casteen said.
The city also began targeted chemical application at the reservoir to treat and control algae growth to address off-taste in the water.
The city planned to hold more water in the reservoir as needed to maximize pre-treatment detention time, as well make mechanical repairs to equipment, “that will help keep the plant running as designed into the future,” Casteen said.
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