(May 18, 2017) In an effort to remedy water quality issues that have plagued Pocomoke for decades, the city council approved an emergency expenditure of more than $100,000 for repairs at the water treatment plant during a budget work session on Friday.
City Manager/City Attorney Ernie Crofoot said a recently commissioned report by Hungerford & Terry, a water treatment contractor, identified problems with the filtering media and water flow control valves at the treatment plant.
“Over the years the backwashing apparently has been at an inappropriate pressure, which has caused a significant amount of the filtering material to go down the drain,” he said. “There were also valves … not opening and closing at the right time.”
In addition to replacing six water valves, Crofoot said the report also recommended changing the filter media in four water filters.
“They say we should consider this as an emergency situation to repair and quite frankly I understand why,” he said. “The filtering mechanism we need in our water filters isn’t there.”
When backwash pressure levels are set appropriately, Crofoot said, garbage is removed while the media is flushed and water is filtered.
“If the pressure’s too high that media goes out with the stuff that’s washed out of the filters,” he said.
Crofoot also questioned the accuracy of previously conducted water quality testing, which did highlight improperly sized media, but may have given faulty iron level readings.
“The fact of the matter is that testing, when its drawn and where its drawn, it’s not giving us an accurate reading of the iron that’s leaving the plant in the water,” he said.
As the water flows to areas of low usage it settles longer and higher iron levels become problematic, Crofoot said.
“Our problem is iron we’re sending into the water is sitting and it’s reacting to the chlorine because it’s sitting there a long time,” he said. “They view it as a major contributor to our red water problem.”
Councilman George Tasker said, adding that residents in certain areas have dealt with poor water quality for at least 30 years.
“I’m getting tired of buying new clothes and the water dinges them out in my wash,” he said. “The black looks grey.”
Mayor Bruce Morrison concurred the issue needed to be addressed.
“I’m really getting agitated with it,” he said. “There needs to be some kind of rigid maintenance program.”
Although the work session was actually evaluating the next fiscal year budget, Crofoot said the emergency expenditure should be allocated from the current budget.
“I think between now and the end of June we can squeeze this in,” he said.
Following a motion by Councilwoman Esther Troast, the emergency expenditure received unanimous approval.
Crofoot expressed surprise no one had dug into the water quality issue previously.
“I have been … pushing to find the cause of this since I got here and we might have stumbled onto the right answer,” he said. “We just didn’t look under enough rocks all those years to see what might be going on.”