Volume 3   Issue  36                        November   2004

                 

Residents Putting Up With Dirty Drinking Water
©The Associated Press, November 11 2004

The state Health Department says water that comes out of the taps in several homes north of Bald Knob isn't dangerous, only dirty.
The residents say their water is so dirty that their clothes come out of the wash browner than when they went in, black gook sits at the bottom of glasses filled from their faucets and gritty film remains on the sides of bathtubs.

But the state Health Department says the water does not pose a health hazard, and water officials say the problem should be corrected when a pipeline is completed to carry water from Searcy to the city of Bald Knob and the Bald Knob North Water District.

Residents in the Bald Knob North Water District say the water quality has become particularly bad over the past week. Neighbors Keri Johnson and Amanda Knuckles and several other Bald Knob area residents complained to the Searcy Daily Citizen.

Robert Blumley, vice president of the Bald Knob North Water District, said Wednesday that he was aware of the problem but the district has done all it can. He said the district buys the water from the Bald Knob Water Department and it comes to the North Water District dirty. "We are not guilty of having dirty water ourselves. It's coming from Bald Knob.

 All we do is add a little bit of chlorine," Blumley said. He said the North Water District has spoken to Bald Knob water officials but hasn't gotten much reassurance that the problem will be addressed. "They think it's going to be OK one of these days," Blumley said. He said he hoped the North Water District could begin getting water from Searcy in about two weeks, when the pipeline project might be completed. "We've got it in the works," he said. "They're working on the pipeline."

The water for the city of Bald Knob and Bald Knob North Water District currently comes from Bald Knob Lake. Earnie Storey, superintendent of the Bald Knob Water Department, told the newspaper the water in the city system was running clean, but a part of the Bald Knob North system that is fed by a tank, which Bald Knob North owns, is having problems.

Storey said any number of things can happen when water is transferred between the two systems: There can be a break in the line, for example, or simply a pause between pumpings.

Storey theorized that as pressure in the system changes it breaks off calcified magnesium deposits in the pipes and the brown gunk gets dropped in the Bald Knob North tank, and then into residents' homes.

The lake is high in magnesium. And when the water is chlorinated it combines with the magnesium to form a solid that lines the pipes.
Officials stressed that the water does not pose a health hazard. The brown and black magnesium chunks may be unsightly but don't threaten human health.

The Health Department checked the water this week because of the complaints and found bacteria levels in the acceptable range. Storey said that using chlorine bleach in the wash only makes the problem worse because the bleach accelerates the solidification process. Storey said the magnesium problem will ultimately be solved when both the Bald Knob and the Balk Knob North systems shift to using water from the Searcy Water District.

A pipeline has been constructed along U.S. Highway 67, but the hook-up has been delayed because of minor construction problems.

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