News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Crews with the Warren County Utility District have begun an extensive flushing of Spencer’s water system.
Warren County Utility District General Manager Anthony Pelham said they are already seeing drastic improvements in the valley below Spencer. Pelham said the water quality in and around Hodges Ferry has been particularly bad because of its low elevation compared to the rest of the utility district.
“Due to the fact that they have not been flushed in a manner that I would deem adequate for quite some time, the biggest issue that I’ve evaluated was in all of the dead ends, bottle necks, low swags and places like that, the high manganese and iron content,” Pelham said.
Pelham said Warren County Utility employees have been in the area daily since June 13 working to flush out the water system. He said he anticipates to continue aggressively flushing the system for the next three to four weeks and then settle down to prepare for third quarter water testing.
“Then we’ll be back, probably through the rest of the year, flushing aggressively to make sure we can get all the other perimeter leaders that run off the main arteries,” Pelham said.
Pelham said that manganese is more dense than water so any manganese will settle into the bottom of the pipe if the water flow stops at nighttime.
“At normal usage and normal flow rate times, it stays right at the bottom of the pipe,” Pelham said. “It doesn’t stir it up and exit and make it to a customer’s home. But you insert a fire hydrant, you insert a line break in a flush, you insert other high-demand usage times and it’ll stir that debris or sediment up in the pipe itself and that’s what I’ve determined was one of the key elements for some of the very horrible pictures that we’ve all seen.”
Pelham said the filters the city purchased for the water plant during their May meeting arrived within a week of ordering them and the old filters were completely shutting down at almost the exact same time.
“It really is remarkable that from the time they were ordered within one week there were there and in less then ten days installed,” Pelham said. “And so from that time I can tell you this: the water quality leaving the water plant is better than it has been in years.”
Pelham said said they will be at the Tennessee Board of Utility Regulation’s July 18 meeting to get approval to expand the WCUD’s charter to include sewer services.
