Drinking water change proves costly in West Columbia

A day after the state declared West Columbia’s drinking water system unsatisfactory, Mayor Bobby Horton acknowledged Thursday that a method of providing chlorine to disinfect the water didn’t work as expected.

State and local officials say West Columbia’s water is safe to drink for the city’s nearly 50,000 customers – but Horton said the city is seeking to replace the 10-year-old chlorine production method with another, more reliable system.

A March 23 state inspection, released to the public Wednesday, found that the existing chlorine system was failing and unable to produce enough of the material to disinfect water during times of peak demand. That is not a problem now, but could be at some point in the future if the issue is not corrected.

The inspection report outlined a variety of problems, including rusting tanks in some areas, stagnant water in others and “disarray’’ at West Columbia’s Lake Murray treatment plant. But state officials said a major concern was the breakdown in the chlorine production system.

The system “has not been what it was designed to be,’’ Horton said. “It wasn’t the cure-all.’’

City officials did not have an estimate of how much it would cost to make water system improvements or how they would pay for them. West Columbia has hired a consulting firm to investigate and to help it find other methods of disinfecting water.

“I can assure you whatever the cost is, we will bear it to make sure good, clean water comes out of that plant 24/7 as we go down the road,’’ Horton said.

West Columbia paid “somewhere around about a million bucks’’ for the chlorine production system about 10 years ago in an attempt to cut its reliance on chlorine gas, said Mark Waller, the city’s director of planning and engineering.

Chlorine gas is effective at killing germs in drinking water, but can be dangerous to the public if a gas tank at a water plant ruptured and released the material into the air.

The system that replaced chlorine gas, known as MIOX, makes chlorine bleach at West Columbia’s two water plants. It is producing only about 500 pounds of chlorine per day at the Lake Murray water plant because only one of four generators is working, the report said.

But the system would need to produce 1,100 pounds per day if the water plant operated at full capacity, according to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control audit released this week. Peak times for water usage are in the summer and after major fires.

David Baize, DHEC’s acting drinking water division director, said few utilities in South Carolina, if any, use the MIOX system.

A representative of the MIOX Corp., headquartered in New Mexico, was unavailable Thursday. The company says on its website that it has for two decades made reliable, cost-effective generators for water disinfection.

Baize said problems with West Columbia’s drinking water system have arisen since the agency last made a detailed inspection about two years ago. During the last inspection, known as a sanitary survey, DHEC did not find problems and rated the system satisfactory, he said.

“Really, since the beginning of the year, we became aware of the concerns with their chlorine generators,’’ Baize said.

The unsatisfactory rating is not unheard of for a larger water system, such as West Columbia’s – but it is unusual, Baize said. Poor ratings typically are found more commonly in small water systems without adequate staff or funding to pay for system improvements, current and former agency officials say.

The 2016 unsatisfactory rating is the first poor rating known to have been given to West Columbia since at least 2002, city spokeswoman Anna Huffman said.

The March 23 survey outlined problems at West Columbia’s 22.5-million gallon per day Lake Murray water plant, as well as in holding tanks. The Lake Murray plant was built about 25 years ago and is one of two the city maintains. The other is an older, smaller plant along the Saluda River.

Among the problems DHEC found:

▪  West Columbia’s four distribution storage tanks showed signs of exterior wear, including “visible rust.’’

▪ The city did not get DHEC permission to use liquid sodium hypochlorite to treat water when the chlorine generators failed.

▪ Water kept in a tank on Laurel Road had become stagnant, which could result in lower water quality for areas served from water in the tank, commonly called a standpipe.

▪ The general maintenance of the Lake Murray water plant was poor, with chemical feed pumps and lines rusting.

▪ Parts of the Lake Murray plant were in disarray, including a building where the MIOX chlorine generators are housed.

Both DHEC and the city said West Columbia’s drinking water remains clean and safe to drink. City officials said they test drinking water every few hours. Extra testing was done in some jurisdictions served by West Columbia. No problems with bacteria or lead have been found, officials said.

“We have concerns because that’s where our water comes from, obviously,’’ Lexington Town Administrator Britt Poole said. “But we’re not overly concerned. They test the water every day, DHEC tests the water and we have a follow-up series of tests we run on the water to verify their tests. The water has been nothing but within the standard.’’

Meanwhile, West Columbia officials backed away from statements Wednesday that last fall’s historic flood caused problems outlined in DHEC’s critical audit. The flood made treating water more difficult, but did not cause the equipment problems DHEC outlined, city consultant Clare Morris said.

This story was originally published April 7, 2016 at 10:31 PM with the headline "Drinking water change proves costly in West Columbia."