Despite delays, cleaner water is on the way

New Rockford residents shouldn't be seeing orange water much longer.

Since early April, when construction began on the water plant's new treatment system, New Rockford's drinking water has been getting treated by a temporary treatment process.

The process has kept New Rockford's water safe to use and to drink, but hasn't exactly made it look appetizing. City officials have since received multiple complaints about the water's quality and appearance.

On April 4, city commissioners approved a new deadline of April 30 for "substantial completion" of the water plant's upgrades, but that date has come and gone.

A combination of weather-related delays and other circumstances have kept the project from a more timely completion. Thankfully though, at least the first step to cleaner water should be completed as soon as this week, according to Public Works Superintendent Bruce Hirchert.

Beginning this week, the new potassium permanganate treatment process should finally be up and running.

At that time, and once old water is flushed from the system, softer and more clean water should return to New Rockford's faucets.

According to Wade Senger of Interstate Engineering, the water quality still won't be as good as it was before the temporary process began, but will certainly be better than the slightly orange-colored water residents used for nearly all of April.

The new process replaces the old lime softening system, which was partially blamed for the taste of New Rockford's drinking water. It will also remove much of the iron and manganese responsible for the water's orange color.

However, smaller particles won't be removed until the brand new reverse osmosis (RO) system is also hooked up, which according to Senger isn't quite ready to happen.

"The whole point of the project was to get the RO's up and running," says Senger. "That'll get rid of some of the salts and sulphites and different things of that nature."

For the most part, the RO system is already assembled inside the water plant's new addition, and once ready should make New Rockford's water better tasting and more clean than ever before.

However, Senger says getting the RO operational could take another week or two.

"Bear with us for a couple or three more weeks here," asks Senger. "The water is still safe to drink.

"It is probably a little closer to well water like what you might see at a farm," he adds, "... but we are treating it with a couple chemicals to disinfect it and it is still being monitored daily by the treatment staff and regularly by the Department of Environmental Quality."

Meanwhile, work continues on some of the other 40-year-old infrastructure, systems and processes within the plant, and Hirchert says residents should see increasingly better tasting and higher quality water as work wraps up throughout the coming weeks.

According to a post on the City of New Rockford's Facebook page from April 26, work was being done last week to get treatment equipment properly backwashed and sanitized, as well as finalizing piping and electrical upgrades.

"With completion of these things this week we intend to start processing and treating water late this week or beginning of next week through the newly rehabbed water plant," the post reads. "Once this rehabbed portion is running at capacity we will have the Reverse Osmosis Manufacturer [May 9] to flush, commission, and start-up RO system."