Protests greet plan for clearing water

Frustrated with the remedy proposed by Medway water and sewer commissioners for the brown water coursing through pipes in the northeast section of town, officials and residents made their feelings clear during a selectmen's meeting last week. And they expressed little relief after hearing that lab tests showed the discolored water - which gets its hue from elevated levels of iron and manganese - was safe to drink.

"I couldn't have been more disappointed," said Glenn Trindade, chairman of the Board of Selectmen, after Monday's meeting.

The commissioners imposed a complete ban on outdoor watering to conserve enough water to allow heavy-duty flushing of the iron sediment in town pipes - but agreed that it is only a short-term fix. At the urging of residents, selectmen voted to form a committee of residents, selectmen, water commissioners, and Mark Flaher ty, the water and sewer superintendent, to hammer out a timeline for solving the problem.

Still, selectmen and many of the approximately 60 residents who attended the meeting demanded more consistent answers. They criticized Flaherty, who had said a week earlier that a new Village Street well would be operating by January, but then said the date would be April or May.

Flaherty drew groans from the audience when he announced the new time estimate.

"Last week you stood right where you are right now and you told everybody January," Trindade told Flaherty. "I asked you to be conservative."

The date change erodes trust, Trindade said later. "When you hear something so dramatically different the next week, how does anybody have any confidence that what they're hearing is real?" he asked. "This can't continue like this. This is insane."

Residents came to the meeting to hear the results of tests on samples of the dirty water conducted by Microbac Laboratories Inc. in Marlborough. Medway officials hired Tata & Howard Inc., the engineering firm already working on the town's sewer extension project, to analyze the results.

"I can state emphatically that there are no health concerns with the iron and manganese levels in the water," said Jack O'Connell, a Tata & Howard senior vice president. But there are aesthetic concerns, he said: "It's turbid, rusty; it doesn't look very palatable."

Residents have said the water stains their clothing and sinks.

The state doesn't regulate levels for iron and manganese, but does set a "secondary standard" to describe the water's aesthetic qualities, O'Connell said. This standard is .05 milligrams of manganese per liter of water. The tap at the Oakland Street well registered .21 milligrams per liter.

And those results were for water that was clearer than usual, according to Selectman Dennis Crowley and Sunset Drive resident Jeff Yost.

"It was the best day when you tested," Yost said.

O'Connell said a high-concentration flushing of 700 to 1,000 gallons per minute - as the water commissioners suggested minutes later - could help rid the pipes of iron and manganese deposits. Flaherty said this flushing could clear the water for about a year.

But residents and selectmen were wary of Flaherty's answers.

"I don't believe these guys back here for a minute. They've lied to us," Yost said. "I need the emergency action that's going to happen tonight, not nine months from now."

Hickory Drive resident Roy Muise said "the ball was dropped" by whoever allowed the testing to take place on water that was unusually clear. He asked who would take accountability for a solution, and urged selectmen to form a task force, which they later did.

The existing Village Street well has a broken screen that prevents it from pumping at full capacity, forcing the town to rely more heavily on the iron-heavy Oakland Street well.

The town is working to replace the Village Street well and dig a new one on Industrial Street.

But Flaherty said the state Department of Environmental Protection had added a new requirement -that the town chlorinate the water - as part of the construction of the Village Street well. This would add time to the project; moreover, Flaherty said, it would turn the iron-heavy water bright red.

The new committee plans to meet early this week, with its first task to meet with the engineers overseeing the Village Street well, Trindade said.