Boil order lessons discussed and changes made

Jasper — The City of Jasper has made some changes and is researching others to potentially prevent another boil order similar to what happened on the morning of September 17.

At Monday’s Jasper Utility Service Board meeting, the city released a detailed report of how the water plant and city personnel responded to the incident.

According to the report, the Jasper Water Filtration Plant noticed that the chlorine levels in the treated water were dropping below the normal range on September 15. It was also noted that the potassium permanganate — a chemical used to treat for manganese — level was dropping in the untreated water. The water plant operators began adding additional chlorine and potassium permanganate to the water as is directed by established protocols.

The plant foreman, Tim Doersam, returned the evening of the 15th to check on the chemical levels in the water and found that they were returning to normal. However, on the morning of September 16, the plant operators noticed the potassium permanganate levels were dropping again and they responded by increasing amount added to the raw water. In response, the levels returned to normal again.

That evening, operators noticed the clear well (cleaned water) had a high turbidity (cloudiness) and were unaware of what could be causing it. They continued to monitor all the chemical levels in the plant.

Doersam went to his residence and drew a sample for testing and discovered the below acceptable levels of chlorine in the water being distributed to the city residents. The city commended Doersam for his actions which went beyond set protocols to determine the problem.

At about 2 a.m. on September 17, Doersam determined a city-wide boil order was necessary. The last time such a boil order was needed was when a water main feeder line was ruptured during demolition of the old water filtration plant in 2004.

Doersam notified the Gas and Water Department manager, Ernie Hinkle, of the situation and contacted Jasper Utilities Manager Bud Hauersperger and Mayor Terry Seitz. The Indiana Department of Environmental Management and Midwestern Engineers were also notified.

According to the city, Midwestern provided guidance and assisted with liaison between the city and IDEM during the entire process.

After the boil order was issued, Hauersperger and Mayor Seitz began calling all the government entities, schools, local media, large employers, and restaurants to notify them of the order.

During this process, the city found that the internal city call lists need to be updated. Fortunately, the Jasper Consolidated School’s call-out system is credited with notifying a large portion of residents of the boil order.

The difficulty of notifying the public of the boil order has since prompted a review of potential new techniques or technology to deliver urgent news to the populace.

Another suggestion made to the city was that they seek an alternative source of water. According to Doersam, the city can’t tap into Patoka Lake Regional Water and Sewer District due to chloramines in the water they provide to the majority of the region. Simply put, the chemicals in the Patoka Regional water do not react well with the chemicals used by the Jasper Water Filtration Plant; they can’t be mixed without modifications being made at Jasper’s plant.

At a suggestion from IDEM, the city is looking into it but no actions are being taken at this time.

Also revealed by the report, IDEM has determined the increase in manganese in the Jasper Water Filtration Plant was caused by the inversion, or turnover, of the Patoka River. IDEM officials speculated that the unusually cool summer impacted the river water, the extreme increase in temperature then followed by the drastic cool down in September may have caused a premature inversion of the water levels.

The inversion is a natural occurrence. Bodies of water have layers of different density water created by temperature differences; cooler water is found at lower depths — think about diving into a lake how you can hit a layer of cold water suddenly at certain depths — and warm water stays near the surface. The line between layers is called the thermocline.

A lake or river has natural currents created by the impacts of the ambient air temperature. As the air cools or warms water, it can cause sudden inversions of the layers of water. During normal seasons — whatever those are anymore — those changes become defined in the summer and the winter while during the spring and fall, the water is more mixed as the changes occur with the air temperature changes.

This inversion then causes the layers to mix and the resulting currents can carry organic material such as mud and vegetation from the bottom of the river up to the surface of the body of water. The material eventually settles again but until the layers reestablish, that debris can be taken up into the intakes of the Jasper Municipal Water Plant.

This material is what held the manganese, according to Hinkle and created the issues with the turbidity of the water in the plant. Turbidity is simply the clarity of the water and in this case it was greatly affected by how much “mud” was being brought into the plant.

For future similar incidents, the city is investigating the use of sodium permanganate, rather than the potassium permanganate being used currently, to treat for the increased manganese.

The water filtration plant has changed its manganese testing procedures based on what happened. They have adopted a new ultra-low level manganese detection kit that is used three times daily. Previously, testing was completed once per day.

According to Hinkle, the water filtration plant was not damaged by the manganese but the total cost of the boil order has not been determined yet. During the order, the city purchased water from Dubois, dumped millions of gallons of treated water, the use of additional chemicals, and had additional staff on duty. The utility service board did approved paying Midwestern Engineers $4,558.16 for their services during the event.