A brown, frothy liquid poured from the taps of the Haines Borough’s water customers last weekend, following a drop in pressure at the borough’s water treatment plant.
The plant had been experiencing low pressure for about 10 days when pressure dropped to about 35 pounds at 11 p.m. Saturday night, ending water processing and causing the borough to pump water that had accumulated at the bottom of its FAA Road storage tank, said public facilities director Brad Ryan.
“The tanks got so low we were pumping what had settled at the bottom of the tanks. It was treated water; it just didn’t look good,” Ryan said.
That the borough’s Tower Road water tank – a secondary storage source – has been empty due to roof repairs complicated the issue, Ryan said, as did high water demand resulting from hot weather.
Those conditions caused the borough to put out a non-essential water restriction, asking people to refrain from washing their cars, watering their gardens or using city water for unnecessary activities. The borough lifted the restriction Wednesday morning.
The Department of Environmental Conservation instituted a boil order Monday due to the loss of pressure, but only for the Small Tracts Road, FAA Road, Tower Road and Highland Estates areas. After the borough took water samples and ensured the water was free of total coliform bacteria, DEC lifted the boil order Wednesday.
Beach Road resident Dick Flegel called the police station last weekend when he noticed the dark brown water pouring from his faucet when he went to brush his teeth. The dispatcher told Flegel the water was safe to drink.
“I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ Who the hell would drink that?” he said.
Flegel tried taking a shower in the water, but ended up feeling dirtier than when he got in. “My hair felt like it had a tablespoon of Brylcreem in it or something, like waxy, kind of,” he said.
Flegel ended up taking his next bath in the hot tub in his backyard. “I wasn’t going to get in that damn stuff again.”
The Haines Brewing Company, which relies on the water system to brew its beer, didn’t see any brown water at its Main Street location, but co-owner Paul Wheeler said he still couldn’t use the water to brew because it was being supplemented by the salty Crystal Cathedrals well water system.
Because the brewery is at the end of a distribution line, Wheeler was able to fill his water tanks with a couple hundred gallons of “good” water that had been sitting in the line before the Crystal Cathedrals water came in. He kept that on reserve to clean tanks and perform other routine work, but still didn’t want to chance brewing with it.
“We’re not going to brew until we flush the lines and know we have good water,” Wheeler said.
The brewery experienced similar issues in June, when the borough was forced to supplement Lily Lake water with Crystal Cathedrals water due to mechanical problems at the treatment plant and other factors.
“It’s making it a trying summer with the water issues,” Wheeler said.
Resident Anne Boyce said for her, as a singular consumer, the water problems are just an inconvenience. Boyce switched to bottled water and that was that. But for businesses that rely on a steady, quality supply of water to make their living, the water fiasco represented more than an inconvenience.
“These are businesses that are the storefront of Haines, and when they can’t make their product, that’s a big deal,” Boyce said.
Public facilities director Ryan said he’s still not certain what caused the drop in water pressure at the treatment plant, but identified two possible suspects: an air lock in the 10-inch transmission pipe from Lily Lake, or a faulty shut-off valve at an air-station on the line near Lily Lake.
Typically, water enters the treatment plant at 160 pounds. At 11 p.m. Saturday, that dropped to 40 pounds or less. “We couldn’t maintain the pressure and keep water in the plant,” Ryan said.
Borough workers went to work on five air-release stations, located at manholes along the 10,080-foot transmission line.
They replaced a two-inch shut-off valve, rebuilt a half-dozen bleed-off valves and used mobile pumps to suck air out of the line. Water pressure started building again around 8:30 p.m. Sunday and was at 150 pounds at noon Monday.
Ryan explained that although the Lily Lake water source is considerably higher in elevation than the plant, the pipe that connects them must contain a certain amount of air for water to flow. But too much air in the system creates an air bubble or “lock” that effectively reduces flow in the pipe.
It’s possible that the treatment plant was “sucking air” for weeks or even years, causing the air lock, despite the air-bleeding valves which were designed to maintain proper air pressure in the line.
“We were probably getting air in the lines and some of the bleeding that was supposed to happen wasn’t happening for one reason or another,” Ryan said. If the problem is long-term, the borough may have to manually pump air from the system or make other adjustments, he said.
Ryan said borough workers initially suspected a possible blockage in the transmission intake line that is suspended about seven feet under the surface of Lily Lake. Workers used an underwater camera to determine there was nothing blocking the intake, Ryan said.
The week’s work included removal of a bleed-off valve nearest the lake. Since the valve was at the same elevation as the lake, it was extraneous and may have been problematic, Ryan said.
Southeast Roadbuilders installed the transmission line in 2010 for $712,000. The plastic pipe replaced a ductile steel one.