...about Town With Mayor Bob: Water Department Update September 2018
9/18/2018
For the past 31 years I have been a customer of the Decatur Water system. Most of that time, as an out of city customer when we lived on our broiler farm. Often, on Chicken Drive, we would experience sulfur odor in our water. Our response was to contact the city and they magically did something and the water got better. I do understand that from time to time we pull water from our well system, which does have sulfur odor.
As Mayor, my goal has been to improve the quality of life in Decatur, so rest assured that we have been actively looking for a "better way" when it comes to controlling and removing sulfur from our wells.
We have three strong wells that supply our potable water in Decatur and we supplement from Two Ton Water System. My goal is to keep water rates as low as possible and that is accomplished by using wells and not buying costly Two Ton Water anymore than we must.
We pump water from three wells, one of those wells has an aeration system which does an excellent job of removing sulfur gas. The aeration system on well #5 was very expensive and installed when the well was drilled. The other two wells do not have the aeration system on them. I have engaged with an engineering company to find a long term design so we can build such aeration systems to control sulfur odor on the other two wells. Today we use chlorine gas to remove the sulfur. We have a new automated injection system on Well 3, and a manual injections system on Well 2 that we use for the chlorine gas which seems to be working consistently. We are ready to add the automated system to Well 2 if necessary. Well 3 is a more complex system as it now helps maintain a constant pressure on the system by speeding the pump up and down depending on the system pressure. Well 2 runs at the same speed all the time making the chlorine injection much simpler.
Looking for a solution the water department team and a local equipment vendor has installed a programmable PLC system that meters the water being pumped and simultaneously injects the correct amount of chlorine to remove the sulfur gas, and mainain a safe chlorine residual required by the Health Department. The treated water is monitored for just the correct amount of chlorine as we deliver water. This installation took place last Thursday, September 13, 2018, and so far the results appear to be positive. The cost for the system for one well was $8300.
Over the next few days the new system will be monitored and if proves to be successful, we plan to purchase another system for the other well.
Working Together Decatur is Doing Awesome Things!
Mayor Bob