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After Brown Water, Authority Vows To Do Better

by Melinda Tuhus | Jul 23, 2010 6:49 am

(2) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author

Posted to: City Hall

Melinda Tuhus Photo The water authority’s working to avoid having New Haven’s water turn brown again, and to get the word out better to the public if problems do occur, its vice-president told an aldermanic panel.

Tom Chaplik of the South Central Regional Water Authority made the comments at a City Hall hearing called to get answers about the days when New Haven’s water turned brown, full of sediment, during a heat wave earlier this month.

Chaplik (in foreground of photo, with city government Chief Administrative Officer Rob Smuts, before both testified) reminded members of the Board of Aldermen’s City Services and Environmental Policy Committee that around the Fourth of July weekend temperatures in the city hit 100 degrees. Many people living in homes without air conditioning, without access to swimming pools or any other means of cooling off, opened fire hydrants for relief, which is illegal. He said 20 hydrants were opened in New Haven at one time, and the change in the velocity of the water caused what the RWA calls “scouring”—that is, the water picked up a lot of sediment, that was then carried through the pipes into people’s homes. Click here and here for previous stories about that.

Chaplik said the authority received “hundreds of phone calls” from concerned customers throughout their service area—from Milford to Cheshire to Branford and all the towns in between. On July 7 the authority contacted customers through a “reverse 911” system, which he said undoubtedly kept a lot more customers from calling in to report the problem. “We reached 70,000 households in less than an hour,” he said.

He added that it was incorrect to assume that all RWA customers were affected. “If they didn’t turn on their water [during that time period], the problem could have passed them by,” he said. The RWA insisted the water was safe to drink, if customers first poured it into a container and let the sediment settle out before drinking the clean water at the top.

Chaplik said the last time this happened was in 2001. Looking toward the future, the RWA is exploring an even more effective reverse 911 system and plans to to reach out to all the local health departments as well as the media to improve communication, he said. Then there’s the use of social media. “The closest thing we have to social media is our website, which is not really interactive,” he acknowledged. The authority is looking into joining the world of Facebook and Twitter. Workers at the water company will also keep a closer eye on the sky—or the radar on the computer—to get a better handle on when severe weather is expected, and plan accordingly.

Westville Alderman Greg Dildine (pictured) asked how long it took to clear the pipes of all the sediment. Chaplik described the water system as a “spider web,” with pipes moving out from a central location to the far reaches of the district. He said it took about a week for the system to completely clear the sediment from pipes in the outermost towns. Committee Chairman Justin Elicker wanted to know how much communication the RWA has with city officials. Chaplik responded that he’s most in touch with the health department regarding water quality and the fire department regarding safety.

Smuts, who oversees the fire department, said his big concern with opening hydrants is, that it “diminishes our ability to fight fires. The city tries to shut down open hydrants, but they are relatively easy to reopen. The sprinklers [attached to the hydrants] are a potentially good way to deal with this. We have a little bit of concern about liability—encouraging people to play in the street. But compared to the alternative, it’s preferable. A better alternative is the splash pads we’ve been installing in our parks. But the difference between an open hydrant—which can be as much as 4,000 gallons per minute—and a sprinkler, which is about 25 gallons per minute, makes a big difference in this kind of event.”

At the end of the mutually respectful workshop, before the committee went on to its regular business, Chaplik said he’d like to return in six months to provide a progress report on the changes the RWA plans to put in place. Committee members agreed that was a good idea.

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Comments

posted by: Threefifths on July 23, 2010  8:48am

Don’t fall for this.Read this and you be the judge

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/17/us/17water.html?_r=1


  SDWIS Violation Report


REGIONAL WATER AUTHORITY
NEW HAVEN, CT 06511
203-401-6720


http://oaspub.epa.gov/enviro/sdw_report_v2.first_table?pws_id=CT0930011&state=CT&source;=&population=389300&sys_num=0


You must check this video out.


http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/12/16/us/1247466144198/tainted-tap-water.html

posted by: Bill on July 23, 2010  9:03am

There were no open hydrants in my neighborhood and my water was fine, but I still put it through a inexpensive filter before I drink it because it tastes better. Most environmental concerns are greatly exaggerated.

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