Mandatory conservation ends countywide; Hillsboro resumes pumping reservoir water
All mandatory water conservation in Marion County ended Friday as Hillsboro's water plant switched back to pumping water from Marion Reservoir.
Pumping resumed less than two hours after officials received eagerly awaited results of more than a week's worth of testing of algae-infested reservoir water processed using a new treatment procedure that Hillsboro's and Marion's waterworks will implement.
The results, from a laboratory in Ohio, detected so little toxin remaining in water that it was impossible to assign a numerical figure to it, Hillsboro City Administrator Steve Garrett said.
This, coupled with the disappearance of toxic anabaena algae from the reservoir more than a week ago, convinced Hillsboro officials that it was safe to end round-the-clock trucking of water from McPherson and a nearby rural water district.
Marion plans to implement a similar procedure at its plant and resume pumping reservoir water, probably next week — as soon as a replacement part arrives. In the meantime it will continue to draw water for its backup supply in Luta Creek.
Hillsboro's switch back to using reservoir water was the latest twist in an often confusing and rumor-filled story that, according to some, has been marked by differences between Hillsboro and Marion but, according to state officials, has revealed close cooperation among both cities and Peabody, which gets its water from Hillsboro.
"Both water plants have performed more than adequately throughout the situation," the state's chief water quality expert, Dave Waldo, said Friday.
Waldo, chief of the public water supply section of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, stressed that never was public health jeopardized in any of the three towns.
"I would drink the water," he said. "That's never been in doubt."
Marion and Hillsboro legally could have continued to draw water from Marion Reservoir throughout the unusual toxic anabaena bloom, Waldo said.
"Anabaena has been on the EPA's contaminant candidate list for years, and they're doing a lot of research about it," he said. "But it's such an unusual thing there are no standards for how much is safe and how much isn't."
KDHE, which owns the water in the reservoir, reviewed scientific literature and World Health Organization data on the algae before collaborating with officials from Hillsboro and Marion to suggest procedures and standards for treatment.
Hillsboro water technician Morgan Marler oversaw creation of the new treatment.
It involves injecting powdered activated carbon, normally used to improve water's taste at one point in the treatment process, during a different step in the process so as to remove unsafe quantities of the blue-green anabaena algae and the toxins it has been known to release.
The procedure was devised and tested more than a week ago, but officials had to wait for results of the test and had to resolve a resulting problem with the length of time water would be exposed to chlorine.
Marion, which uses a somewhat different treatment process, was able to help, Marion City Administrator David Mayfield said, by showing how it maximized the exposure time to chlorine in its plant.
Marion's plant would have instituted similar procedures at the same time as Hillsboro's plant did on Friday, Mayfield said. However, with the ready availability of Luta Creek water — "a real luxury," as Waldo put it — he chose to wait until a needed replacement part could be obtained rather than buying an entire new carbon injector costing more than $10,000.
The activated carbon involved is not to be confused with carbon filtering, as was incorrectly indicated in an editorial last week. The newspaper regrets that error.
KDHE cleared both cities to resume using reservoir water June 17 once they were able to implement the new activated carbon treatment procedures. It also announced June 17 that all recreational activity at the reservoir could resume.
Despite daily inspections by state and federal officials, Waldo said, no anabaena algae has been detected on the lake since then.
A tiny bit of a different type of algae — green, rather than blue-green — did wash ashore Thursday and create rumors of a new infestation. These turned out to be false, Waldo said.
Mike Knak, maintenance inspector at the reservoir, also debunked another rumor about a supposed fish kill by noting that large groups of carp gathered near the shoreline were not dying but rather were eating, as they normally do, cottonwood seeds that fall onto the water's surface.
The anabaena outbreak has been linked by some experts to agricultural use of chemicals. However, Waldo said it more likely was caused by unusual weather.
"Runoff can lead to algae blooms, but the real question here is why anabaena bloomed instead of the more common green algae," he said. "Dry conditions, lack of discharge from the lake, and unusually clear water allowing sunlight to reach deeper into the lake probably contributed."
Meanwhile, the water crisis may have a silver lining.
Although both Marion and Hillsboro have what Waldo termed "perfectly adequate," up-to-date treatment plants, both communities — as with nearly every community in the state — need to make substantial additional improvements to meet stringent new federal guidelines that will take effect in 18 months.
Hillsboro recently made some improvements after receiving a grant. Marion applied for a similar grant but did not receive one because, Mayfield said, its existing water quality was too high.
The blessing in disguise is that the anabaena experience may allow both communities to rethink their pending improvement projects.
One alternative being investigated is high-voltage ozone treatment. Ozone treatment, though costly, "kills or removes everything," Waldo said, and and has the added benefit of greatly improving the taste of drinking water.
Emporia, which has ozone treatment, recently placed in the top five communities nationwide in a taste-testing contest for water.
"We're looking at the costs," Mayfield said.
Ozone would take care of any and all problems — current or, as was the case with anabaena before it appeared June 5, yet unforeseen.
Mayfield said Marion officials and engineers planned to meet Tuesday to discuss a proposed $800,000 upgrade of the city waterworks to include ozone treatment.
The city is waiting for approval from some state agencies before submitting a final loan request to the KDHE Revolving Loan Fund, which is expected to lend money for the waterworks upgrade to the city.
Already, Marion has spent more than $20,000 on the water crisis, and this does not include a bill Marion County has submitted to the city for the county's help.
It does include $10,562 for two new electrical pumps that have not yet arrived, $4,868.13 in overtime wages for city employees, and $3,986.43 for parts. One of two gasoline-powered pumps being used to draw water from Luta Creek threw a rod Thursday, and a new pump had to be purchased for $1,100.
Travis Murphy, press secretary for U.S. Rep. Jerry Moran said Friday that Moran has been trying to help solve the water problems in Marion County and would have more to say about the topic on Monday.
In Hillsboro and Peabody, meanwhile, city residents may now resume using water as normal for watering lawns and gardens and washing cars.
Although its conservation ordinance can't officially be lifted until a city council meeting, Hillsboro is no longer enforcing it, Garrett said.
