Aging filter causes city to request restricted water useby Nathan Arneal North Bend’s aging infrastructure continues to catch up to the city, and as a result, the city council is asking citizens to restrict their lawn watering to certain days.
As a result, the filters will be unable to keep up on heavy usage days. PeopleService water system operators Knapp and Jason Brandt were on hand at the May 5 city council meeting to discuss the situation. Brandt said on an average day the city water system pumps out between 375,000 and 400,000 gallons, but on a hot summer day it can get as high as 600,000. “If we use more than 450,000 gallons a day,” Knapp said, “our filters are not going to produce that. That’s why we look at the water restrictions. We don’t want to take the (water) tower level below 50% because of emergency use and fire protection.” To prevent the filtered water from being used up, the city passed Resolution 600, setting guidelines for voluntary water restrictions. North Bend residents on the city water system who have odd numbered addresses are asked to limit their lawn watering to Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Even numbered addresses are to water lawns on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Houses with private wells are not subject to restrictions. As part of the resolution, the city will also limit watering public parks and ballfields. Filter 1 was installed in 1987, and had parts replaced in 2013. The 39-year old filter unit has holes in its steel casing as the result of corrosion. There is also cracking in the concrete pad it sits on and in the exterior walls near the filter. “Due to old infrastructure and reduced detention time,” the JEO study said, “the existing filter units are not capable of treating at the original design capacity or effectively reducing iron and manganese levels. It is recommended to replace Filter Unit No. 1 and replace or provide improvements to rehabilitate Filter Unit No. 2.” The city has three water wells. Well 3 is the newest and has the best water quality. It uses Filter No. 2, which is made of stainless steel and was installed in 2004. Well 1 is fed through Filter No. 1. Well 2 has the worst water quality and it only used in an emergency backup situation, Knapp said. Knapp said that one of the main jobs of the filters is to filter out manganese. The manganese concentration after Filter 1 is 0.32. Knapp said that should ideally be 0.20 or lower. Filter 2 produced water with a 0.11 manganese concentration. At the April 7 council meeting, the council approved $4.45 million for the filter replacement from the State Revolving Fund, which includes a loan for $3.375 million and a grant of $1.125 million. This will pay for replacement of Filter 1, rehab work on Filter 2 and pumps for bother filters. As of the May 5 meeting, the council was still waiting on paperwork from the state to finalize the funding. The council did approve a $674,000 contract with JEO to engineer the project. In other council business: • PeopleService submitted its annual contract for operating North Bend’s water and sewer systems. The monthly fee it being increased from $19,130 to $19,953. The contract was approved 3-1, with councilman Waylon Fischer voting against. • The city gave the North Bend Volunteer Fire Department approval to test fire hoses until they get them all completed – 20,000 feet of hose – which is an annual requirement of NBVFD’s insurance company. The hose testing started on May 6 and will continue every Wednesday for a couple of hours until completed, and perhaps some on the weekends. The goal is to finish before extreme heat arrives to avoid stressing the city’s water system.
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