by Alex Brooks
Petersburgh Water District Superintendent Ben Krahforst conducted a little show and tell for the Petersburgh Town Board at its organizational meeting on January 3. [private]The object in question is a device which mixes and agitates the water in the water tank in order to keep it from freezing. When he tried to turn it on recently it made loud noises and then stopped working. When he tried to pull it out of the tank by its rope, a part that the rope was attached to broke off, and he had to pull it up by the electrical wire. It had a lot of corrosion on it, and Krahforst thought the cathode system in the tank that is supposed to prevent such corrosion may not be working.
With ice build up already happening as he spoke to the Board and cold weather predicted for the weekend of January 7 and 8, he was concerned about damage to the tank from freezing water. He said he will try to get a replacement for the device as quickly as possible, but until a new one can be installed, he will add new water to the tank to moderate the water temperature.
By Sunday January 8 when the coldest part of the cold snap arrived, he did not yet have a new mixer, so he spent much of the day at the water plant working on the wells to get more water into the tank. By Tuesday the danger had passed, as the ice in the tank no longer reached all the way to the edges, and warmer weather was on the way.
Krahofrst said Taconic had agreed to pay for replacement of the mixer, and he expects to be able to get a new one in there before the next cold snap.
Krahforst said the installation of the carbon filters is complete. They have been disinfected and filled with carbon, and they are now being tested. He said he has gone through the startup procedure with Taconic engineers and Health Department officials, and as soon as they get tests back showing that the filters are working, the process of flushing out the old water can begin.
There was an additional problem that Krahforst discussed with the Town Board at the January 3 meeting. Well # 2 was in violation of health department regulations and needed work to bring it back into compliance. A well contractor has been hired to fix it, but it is not clear when that work will be done. Krahforst said Taconic engineers said they needed that well to be up and running by the week of January 9 in order to move forward with getting the filters online and flushing the system, as the filters need a minimum flow of water to operate properly.
Perhaps with warmer weather this week all these issues can be resolved, but Krahforst clearly has his hands full between the wells, the tank, and the new filters.
The Town Board approved a purchase order at the January 3 meeting to have the tank company, Aqua Stor, come to clean and inspect the tank in the springtime when the warmer weather arrives. The cost will be $4,325 for cleaning and inspection, but may end up being more if they need to do repair work and replace parts. [/private]