KANE — During the Kane Borough Council workshop Wednesday night, Tim Mague, field operations supervisor for the Kane District from Pennsylvania American Water, provided a detailed update on the status of the water odor and taste issue that surfaced over a week ago in the Kane area.
“Starting Monday, Tuesday and as of today, we are just growing the area that kind of has less odor, if you will. I think it’s improving in most areas, but there may be pockets of places that haven’t gotten flushed yet or haven’t gotten the water from the plant that is basically odor-free at this time,” said Mague.
He went on to describe that some branches of the distribution system that did not have odor issues to begin with now have some, but then areas that did have odors did not at this time. He and his team have been responding to each complaint, flushing sections of the line where possible, to continue purging the system, but stressed that it would take some time and that the water quality was still within compliance standards.
“Just about everyone is probably going to encounter this at some point,” stated Mague. “It was at my house this morning. So it was good last night but as of this morning it’s at my house.”
Pennsylvania American Water crews continued to flush lines Tuesday and Wednesday nights to get water moving and other crews were working during daylight hours in areas that would not create safety concerns.
Mague commented that weather conditions and flushing lines can create significant safety risks and that Pennsylvania American Water took the safety of their service areas, customers and employees very seriously.
“It’s a little bit of a challenge with the ice and snow and so on. As you all know the water doesn’t just run into the catch basins, it usually runs down the road for three blocks until it gets to one. We can’t have that with the weather the way it is,” said Mague.
Mague then urged the council members to pass any constituent concerns on to them or have the concerned parties contact the customer service center. He said, “Sometimes it may happen that we think we have street cleaned up, and maybe somebody is like ‘hey what about me? I still have an odor.’ Let us know and we’ll investigate.”
Mague also stated that some complaints of odors were not related to incoming water odors but a result of the water remaining in a hot water tank.
“Some may have had hot water odor, but that’s going to take a while,” he said. “If your cold coming in is odor free, I would suggest take a couple extra hot showers or just get your hot water tank turned over because that’s what it’s going to take.”
Mague went on, “You’re going to notice it more in the hot water because it excites the molecules and creates more of an odor. If you don’t smell it at all in the cold, you don’t taste it in the cold, it’s probably clean coming into your house and it just needs time to work through your system.”
Mague also stressed that the water quality was still good and that it was not harmful. “It is an odor and taste issue,” he said. He then went on to confirm that they still have not identified the source, but that more samples were sent out Wednesday afternoon and it was hoped they would tell them something.
Mague said, “All we’re dealing with now is an issue with aesthetics really, but I know that it’s hard to tell someone that when they can’t drink their water.”
As of the workshop, a tanker with water was still available at the Kane Volunteer Fire Department. Mague said that the amount of customers was going down each day, and he was uncertain how much longer the tanker would be available.
“We know that it’s going to be awhile before they feel comfortable. I know. That’s what it is. Like somebody said yesterday, we need to build trust again.”
Mague went on to describe the system capacity, indicating that the holding tanks house 800,000 gallons of water and that the distribution system had an additional amount that was more difficult to calculate. To provide some perspective, he said that the system had over 46 miles of mains and that an eight inch main could hold 2.5 gallons of water per foot.
When asked how quickly the water would cycle through the plant, Mague provided that the average daily usage in Kane was approximately 400,000 gallons or around twelve million per month. He was confident that, given time, the odor would dissipate even with the recent drop in consumer usage and that flushing alone was causing the daily usage to double over 800,000 gallons.
In agreement, Denny Drost, borough council member, commented, “At my house, I was like ‘wow, I can really smell this’. Then a couple days later it was like ‘where did the smell go?'”
Don Payne then commented, “You know Tim, I’m impressed at the amount of effort you put into customer service. How many people did you call, like thirty or forty? You kept track of them all. Anybody that complained, you showed up at their door and took care of them.”
Mague replied, “That’s why we want them to call. You can tell them what you want to tell them, but if they don’t call us I can’t send somebody to see what it is. Or if they post a picture on the internet and not call, I can’t do a thing for them.”
Mague then went on to say that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection was slated to come to Kane Thursday in response to several customer requests and Pennsylvania American Water was continuing to provide updates and records to them as requested.
“They have our sample analysis, so they see what our experts are seeing. Their experts are going over the same data and they have not yet suggested anything different than what we’re doing,” said Mague.
In closing, Mague again asked that any issues or concerns be directed to the customer service line at 1-800-565-7292.
