PARIS – Residents of four homes on Lord Lane have been running water this week, trying to flush their pipes of sediment that’s turning the water brown. Steve Arnold, manager of the Paris Utility District, hopes that the water in the small neighborhood between Main Street and the Oxford Hills Middle School will be drinkable again by the end of the week. Some residents have their doubts.
Brown water isn’t a new problem in the area. “In the past they had gotten some blasts of grit that we thought could have been sand,” Arnold said. Last week, utility district crews switched the pipes in the neighborhood over from the original 6-inch pipes to new 12-inch pipes. The old pipes had been installed in 1958, and Arnold thought they could be rusting, or might have a faulty shut-off valve that was allowing sand to get into the line.
Arnold said the water seemed fine over the weekend, but turned brown again Monday morning. He doesn’t believe that there was a leak in the line, though. “We stirred up some material in the line itself,” he said. Sediment tends to form in water lines over time as oxidation occurs. The town flushes the system twice a year to clear sediment out, and is scheduled to flush lines soon.
Lord Lane resident Janet Hebert doesn’t think “brown” is a strong enough term to describe what came out of her tap Monday.
“It was so brown,” she said. “It was worse than brown. You stuck your hand in the tub and pulled it out and it just dripped off your hand.”
Hebert’s water had been turning a muddy brown and then clearing up again for a couple months. She left her tap on and let the water run Monday and Tuesday this week, as Arnold suggested, and has been drinking bottled water.
She said the water cleared up a bit after running for two days, but she’s afraid that it’s just the old pattern repeating itself.
Arnold tested the water for bacteria and iron Thursday morning. He said the iron levels were well below acceptable levels, suggesting that there’s no sediment remaining in the line. Bacteria test results will be available Friday. If they’re good, Lord Lane residents can go back to drinking their tap water.
“I’m scared to do it again. We’ve had so many problems.” Hebert said. Her 7-month-old daughter has been drinking bottled water since she had diarrhea that wouldn’t go away. “We put her on bottled water and after four or five days, it cleared up.”
She said Arnold has been very helpful during this week’s brown water episode, but she doesn’t believe the sediment came from inside the water lines. “There must be a broken line somewhere,” she said. “That much iron doesn’t come out of a PVC pipe.”
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