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Here's why floodwaters present a challenge for water treatment in Kansas, Missouri

Posted at 10:55 PM, Mar 28, 2019
and last updated 2019-06-05 13:55:29-04

ATCHISON, Kan. — Days after seeing water levels rise quickly along the Missouri River, water treatment plants finally are getting relief from the challenging experience of cleaning flood-impacted waters for drinking.

Residents of Atchison, Kansas, were under a temporary boil advisory thanks to the flooding, which had a major impact on area homes and businesses.

“We couldn’t do any coffee or tea,” said Shellie Tull, manager of I Don’t Care Cafe. “We had our drinking water actually come in from a different county.”

Tull said the boil advisory forced her to close for a short time and depend on her family to bring water from a well at their home.

“They said we could boil it for a minute at high, but it just took too much to do it, so we just brought fresh water in,” she said. “We shut down for a couple hours the first night it actually happened, because we had to shut our ice maker off.”

The boil advisory in Atchison, which lasted three days, resulted from the difficulty experienced at the city’s treatment plant.

City of Atchison Utilities Manager Mike Stec explained Thursday why the floodwater that mixed into the Missouri River presented such a special challenge.

“It was never touching soil," he said. "It was all rain and snow melt. The water is so soft, because it hasn’t had time to migrate through the ground to pick up calcium particles and other minerals that make it hard.”

Stec said the water treated in Atchison often is loaded with minerals, which he described as “hard water.”

However, due to the ground being saturated across the Midwest and the floodwater coming from rain and snow melt, the makeup of the water changed enough to throw off the plant's normal treatment process.

“We’re set up to treat hard water not soft water,” Stec said. “We’re set up to treat dirty water, but the dirty water we’re having right now isn’t especially dirty.”

With crews needing to pay extra attention to treating the water, Stec said the boil water advisory was meant to keep the public safe.

“It was precautionary because the disinfectants may have been blindsided by the increased cloudiness,” he said. “We’re used to that variability within the water. We just push through it.”

Other areas in Kansas and Missouri reported similar issues with water treatment as a result of flooding.

With the Midwest expected to see even more flooding this year, Stec said the recent situation provided valuable lessons.

“This is a challenge that not only we have been facing as we talk to our fellow operators down river from us in Leavenworth and KCMO,” he said. “It’s what wakes me up at 2 in the morning. It’s what makes me get out my iPad and start looking at what the river is going to do.”

With the boil advisory now lifted in Atchison, Tull said she was glad to have normal water service back.

“It’s definitely a lot easier now that it’s back to normal,” she said. “We actually have the resources we can get to, so it won’t be as bad next time.”