Still much work to be done
The water district produced over 48 million gallons of water in July and purchased an additional 1.6 million. However, only around 14 million gallons were actually used in July. Over 36 million gallons of water were lost due to line leaks.
BY PHILL BARNETT
MOUNTAIN CITIZEN
INEZ — The Martin County Water District met Aug. 23 to discuss pressing business.
Repairs and maintenance to the water treatment facility are underway. Sandblasting and painting of the three clarifiers are almost complete. According to Alliance Water Resources manager Craig Miller, they have all been painted, but clarifier 1 was painted via spraying, whereas the other two were painted with rollers.
The spraying method results in a thinner coat, which did not meet the thickness requirement for operation.
“We’re getting really close to putting that clarifier in operation,” said Miller.
A generator will be installed later this year at the treatment plant. Conduit and wiring has been laid in preparation of the project.
The recent storms, which caused severe flooding across eastern Kentucky, posed multiple issues for the Martin County Water Treatment Plant.
“The past month and a half has been very difficult for many water districts in Kentucky,” said Miller. “Many in worse shape than us.”
Due to several downed trees during the recent storms, the water treatment plant experienced multiple power outages resulting in a significant slow down in water treatment.
The heavy rain also led to unprecedented raw water turbidity (murkiness; lack of clarity). As a result, the water district has adjusted the treatment process to ensure a clearer end result.
The Alliance distribution crew recently located and fixed a leak on Turkey Creek that was losing 55 gallons per minute. Two other leaks were found nearby.
Large leaks were also present in the Tomahawk and Pigeon Roost areas. Kentucky Rural Water Association was brought in for a day to help with leak detection, allowing two areas to be surveyed for leaks at once.
“I’ve seen it a lot worse,” said Miller. “With the outages we had, we were able to bounce back quicker than ever and I’m really proud of our team, what we accomplished there.”
Miller and MCWD chair Jimmy Don Kerr contended that based on outage logs, this was the quickest recovery on the books.
Water loss increased by about 1.6 percent and was 71.93 percent in July, according to Alliance.
“You’ve listened to us sit up here and talk about how much better we’ve gotten,” said Kerr. “But we still have a lot of issues with leaks.”
The water district produced over 48 million gallons of water in July and purchased an additional 1.6 million. However, only around 14 million gallons were actually used in July. Over 36 million gallons of water were lost due to line leaks.
Alliance plans to finish fixing leaks in the Turkey Creek area before moving to the next most affected area of the county.
Alliance also plans to fix the asphalt damage caused by water system repairs throughout the county. Technically they may be fined if repairs are not made within 30 days.
The board voted to contract an asphalt company to begin the repairs.