Letter from the Mayor: Mayor's letter addresses water issues

(Editor's note: The following letter was mailed to area households last week.)

To our valued water customers:

As you know the city of Williams has been dealing with extremely high levels of manganese in the water supply. Manganese is a mineral that is naturally occurring in the water supply, and while it is generally undetectable to the average user, when manganese reacts with the chlorine in the water supply it becomes a problem. As manganese levels increase, the result is discolored water, laundry and plumbing fixtures and more importantly an overall dissatisfaction with the water quality. However, it is important to keep in mind that the manganese does not pose a health threat, and at all times the City's water has met Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) standards.

The mayor, council and city staff have been diligently working to correct the problem. Some progress has been made but the problem has not been fully resolved. The measures we've taken or are in the process of taking are:

• Installed a Chlorine Dioxide System that reduces the amount of manganese. The system has been somewhat successful reducing the manganese by up to 50 percent, but not quite enough.

• Installing a potassium permanganate system. This process will help oxidize the manganese before it reaches the water plant. This system is relatively easy and inexpensive and in combination with the Chlorine Dioxide System should reduce the manganese levels even further.

• Installing new carbon in our filters. Our water treatment plant has state of the art filtration, but new activated carbon should help reduce the levels of particulates in the water.

• Adding a Solar Bee to Dogtown Lake. Manganese level increase when the dissolved oxygen in the lakes gets low. Every summer when the lakes turn the dissolved oxygen levels decrease. This year was greater than normal. The Solar Bee is a solar powered aeration unit that will put oxygen back into the water. For more information go to www.solarbee.com.

• Replacing the equipment in Dogtown Well III. The city has used well water from Dogtown III each year to dilute the surface water from the reservoirs, which has kept the manganese level down. Unfortunately, Dogtown III failed this summer. The equipment is on order and the installation is being fast tracked.

As you can see the City is taking every reasonable action to fix our brown water problem. We've brought in engineers and various other experts to assist us. The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality has made several inspections and is aware and concurs with the steps we are taking.

Understand, we live here too, and this is the same water that comes into our homes. We are extremely concerned when we can't provide the quality product that our community deserves. We are confident the steps being taken will solve this problem; unfortunately it can't be solved overnight.

Over the last few days we've had incidents of dark brown and black water coming out of the tap. This is attributed to the buildup of manganese in the distribution system that is breaking loose and flowing through the system. If you experience this problem please flush the water until it clears. We also recommend flushing your hot water heater to remove as much of the buildup as possible.

We have started a "Community Update" email distribution list to keep our citizens up to date on the latest news and events around the city. To sign up you can send an email to cow@williamsaz.gov. We will also continue to communicate through the City's website, postings at City Hall and notifications to the local newspaper.

We sincerely appreciate the community's patience and understanding.

Sincerely,

Mayor John W. Moore

Williams