Author: Villageofgnaden

This information is from the www.waterlogic.com/en-us/ website

Pink Tinted Water

What Causes My Water To Look Pink?

Potassium permanganate is characterized by small granules and is added to treat water, per the correct weight at your local water treatment plant. The permanganate is often added before the standard treatment steps and removed through filtration and disinfection. Irregular quantities or mechanical failures can cause an excess amount being released during treatment, turning your water bright pink and sometimes, a deep purple. Despite the water systems working to remove the permanganate by flushing the distribution system, pink water can still reach your tap.

Is Pink Water Safe To Drink or Use?

As pink water does not pose any immediate health risks, it has been deemed safe to drink and use. However, if an individual has sensitive skin, it is advisable to use an alternative source of water for bathing until your tap water begins to run clear. You can contact your water supplier and seek further advice on this.

What Should You Do?

Do not panic.

In most circumstances, pink water will run clear after a short period. However, if you continue to see pink deposits in your tap water, it is advisable to contact your water supplier and notify them of the ongoing issue.

Bleach Smell

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Have you noticed a weird smell coming from your water? If it resembles bleach it can be pretty alarming, but rest assured this is likely not caused by harmful contaminants. People often associate the smell of chlorine with that of bleach. In this case however, chlorine is manually added to public water systems and functions as a disinfectant to eradicate waterborne disease. There are a few ways to improve the state of your drinking water, but it is important to note that chlorine will almost always be a part of your tap water.

Quick Facts:

• The smell of bleach in your tap water is likely caused by high levels of chlorine.
• Small traces of chlorine in your water is not harmful. It is actually required by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) in order to disinfect water before it is distributed to homes and offices.
• Boiling your tap water or chilling it in the refrigerator will remove the bleach smell from the water.
• The EPA requires chlorine in public water systems but recommends levels below 4mg/L. Chlorine can be smelled at levels of 1mg/L.

What Causes The Smell?

Because public water sources are treated with chlorine, your drinking water can sometimes exude a smell similar to bleach. This usually occurs when your water is over chlorinated. If you’ve ever swam in a pool after its recently been chlorinated, you’ve probably experienced this smell.

Chlorine is actually a crucial part of water treatment. Small amounts of chlorine are added to public water sources and treatment plants to eliminate traces of bacteria, viruses and parasites as the water travels to its point of use. Even treatment plants that use non-chlorine disinfection agents are required by law to add small traces of chlorine before distribution.

The EPA requires that chlorine levels in public water systems be maintained at a range that is detectable but not above 4mg/L. Most people will detect a bleach smell if the chlorine level is around 1mg/L, so it is not an uncommon occurrence. If the bleach or chlorine smell is strong, it is possible that your local water source distributes water over a long distance and therefore adds extra chlorine to keep the water clean for longer lengths of time.

What Should You Do?

The smell of bleach in your water is the direct result of it being treated with too much chlorine. You have no control over the amount of chlorine in your water but you can try contacting your local utility company if it is a serious problem.

To eliminate the bleach smell from your water try filling a pitcher of tap water and then cover it and put it in the refrigerator. You can then drink it after it has chilled for a while because the smell will have dissipated naturally while cooling. Don’t drink water that has sat for longer than 24 hours and instead fill the pitcher with fresh water. You can also try boiling your water for about five minutes to remove the odor and then store it in your fridge as well. There are even dechlorination tablets that can remove chlorine from up to 100 gallons of water with one tablet. This also works with vitamin C tablets.

Discolored water

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Brown water can be caused by the corrosion of water pipes as materials flake away and find their way into water supplies, making the water an orange-brown color (iron pipes) or even black (lead pipes). Certain elements from sulphur dioxide can cause water to turn brown when combined with hot water.

Has brown water recently come flowing through your taps? It may have been caused by an increase in the quantity of minerals, rust particles or other sediments in the water pipes supplying your home with drinking water. Many people have experienced brown tap water and although this is an inconvenience and can be damaging to clothes and fixtures, it is not a serious health concern. Despite this, we would not recommend drinking any brown water as it could have an unpleasant taste.

What Causes My Water To Look Brown?

Over time, corrosion deposits such as rust and minerals can become trapped in the water lines and make their way into your plumbing system through several ways. This can be the result of:

• Longstanding water becoming weighed down with oxidized iron particles
• A surge in water flow through the pipes due to increased demands
• The fire services using hydrants for emergencies
• Resuming water flow after repairs or routine flushing
• An old or damaged service pipe – this connects your domestic pipes to the mains distribution system

Any of the above can disturb the rust particles and other sediments that have settled at the bottom of the water pipes. Despite municipalities doing their best to implement filtrations and carry out rigorous testing, the water can become discolored by the time it reaches your tap.

What Should You Do?

In most instances, the water should begin to run clear after a couple of hours of activity or after you have run the cold faucets for a few gallons. Should your water be running brown after 24-hours and if surrounding neighborhoods are also experiencing brown tap water, it is advisable to contact the local council as the problem is likely to be beyond your domestic pipes.

Your local water supplier is able to inspect your pipes more closely, identify the root cause of the brown water and has authority to use a fire hydrant to flush out any remaining brown water. You also can ask whether they monitor their water for secondary contaminants as supported by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Secondary contaminants do not pose a health risk but can affect the way your drinking water looks, smells or tastes.

Run the cold and hold water to establish whether the brown water is coming from hot or cold water. If the brown tap water is from hot water, your water heater may need to be flushed out or replaced.

I would like to address the concerns with the village water supply and what the village is doing to try and correct them, most important the water is safe and meets all EPA requirements.  Every day there are water samples tested and results recorded for review by the EPA.  

Issue: Pink water: 

Cause:  Potassium permanganate is added to the water as it enters the filtration system. If the potassium permanganate has not fully oxidized by the time it goes thru the filter system it will enter the water system with a pink color.

Actions items:   We reduced the amount of Potassium Permanganate that is being used to treat the incoming water, the long term solution will be that this chemical will not be used in the new treatment plant.

Issue: Brown tinted water:

Reason 1:  Surge in water flow through the pipes due to increased demands.  After consulting with other professionals the decision was made to back flush the system every 3 to 4 days, we believe this is creating more sediment in the lines mostly in the Hecks Grove park area.

Actions items:  To help keep the lines cleaner we have decided to flush hydrants every 3 months instead of every 6 months starting on 2/24/21

Reason 2: The fire services using hydrants for emergencies. We had fires in September 2020 and January 2021, and in June 2020 there was a fire suppressant test at one of the local manufacturing plants  

Reason 3: Resuming water flow after repairs or routine flushing.  We flushed hydrants in May and October of 2020.   We also had water line breaks in July, September, and October of 2020 and in February of 2021. 

  To improve the water quality we have entered into a contract with Artesian of Pioneer to engineer a new water treatment system.   We are currently working on the funding for the project and at this time we are confident there will be no need to raise rates.  We do not have a timeline established on when the project will be complete.  If you would like to discuss in more detail you can call 740-254-4307 or email me at gnadmayor@tusco.net to set up a conference time.

I ask for your patience as we work thru these issues

Sincerely,

Rich Gilmore