Now that the issues have been addressed, city of Emporia officials believe the drinking water should be returning to normal taste and smell soon.
Communications Manager Christine Johnson and Public Works Director Dean Grant came to KVOE to join our 8:05 am newscast Tuesday. Grant says a failure in a programmable logic controller had a big impact on the ozone disinfection system.
Public Works crews worked with a vendor to resolve the issues and get the situation fixed by late Monday afternoon.
Since the situation came to light late Saturday morning, Johnson has been telling residents the water is safe to drink despite what was increasingly described as a smell of a river or of fish. The city used several methods to get the word out, including local media.
Grant agrees. He says the ozone disinfection system both removes any impurities in the water and helps to give the water the taste — or lack of taste — Emporia is known for. The chlorine and ammonia system used for treatment since Saturday handles the disinfection, but it doesn’t handle taste or smell issues.
Grant says chlorine and ammonia are typically added late in the treatment process, regardless of whether ozone is in the system. In this case, “a little bit of chlorine” was added throughout the process.
Grant says there was no point in time where the city was in danger of a boil water order or advisory.
After the issues were resolved late Monday afternoon, the early thought was the taste and odor concerns would be resolved systemwide — including parts of Lyon and neighboring counties — by late Tuesday. There is a chance some issues could persist to Wednesday. Grant says procedures are being adjusted in case something like this happens in the future. If you have concerns after Wednesday, use the city’s new website, emporiaks.gov, and use the Report a Concern function on the home page.
