City considers new chemical supplier

Not for the first time, discussions at the recent city commission meeting were all about water.

On Tuesday, Sept. 5, commissioners began with positive news, discussing a potential solution to their ongoing water woes. It wasn’t long, however, before they were once again defending their recent decisions regarding water service fees when questioned by property owners.

Ever since updates were made to the city’s water treatment plant, New Rockford residents have increasingly expressed their concerns about the city’s discolored drinking water.

The much-touted reverse osmosis system went online more than a year ago, but chemical and technical problems have plagued the treatment plant ever since, leading to brown water appearing in the homes of New Rockford residents.

The frustrations have also been expressed by the commissioners and water plant staff, who’ve put far more hours into the problem than were ever expected.

However, a report shared by Commission President Stu Richter from Wade Senger of Interstate Engineering, who couldn’t make it to Tuesday’s meeting, appeared to express some optimism that the worst of their problems could soon be over.

The report stated that recent tests at the water plant have revealed too much iron and manganese sneaking through the filtration process, thus leading to periodic brown water.

To fix the issue, Senger has been consulting with Aqua Pure, a competitor to New Rockford's current supplier, Hawkins.

Senger reports that a representative from Aqua Pure, “has recommended a coagulant that he believes will capture more iron and manganese than our current process/chemicals are fulfilling.”

The Aqua Pure representative said the city would be allowed to borrow a mixer for the coagulant – which would otherwise cost $9,000 – in order to make sure the new “gummy/sticky” substance works as advertised.

“So out-of-pocket cost to test this new coagulant will be minimal,” states the report. “If it works as perceived in the jar tests, we might be well on our way to minimizing the brown water in New Rockford.”

Senger also reported that there’s some concern the new coagulant could damage membranes at the plant. However, the representative from Aqua Pure verbally guaranteed that wouldn’t happen, and that even if it did, the membranes would be replaced by Aqua Pure at no cost to the county.

Further, a test was conducted at the water plant using the new coagulant to make sure it wouldn’t crystalize and therefore damage the membranes. The test results showed no crystallization, clearing the way for the city to do a full trial with the new coagulant and borrowed mixer.

“I think it’s a huge step in the right direction,” said Richter. “I hope we’re finally over the hump.”

After sharing Senger’s report, Richter also said that Aqua Pure has offered to be the city’s chemical supplier moving forward at an average cost of $7,000 per month.

“Which would turn into $84,000 [per year],” said Richter. “This year we’re going to be at $160,000, so that’s what they’re offering to us.”

Richter then suggested they should go with Aqua Pure moving forward instead of Hawkins, though the commission agreed to have the city’s attorney look into the proposal and to see the results of Aqua Pure’s new coagulant test before making anything official.

Afterwards, New Rockford property owner Larry Danduran was back at city hall on Wednesday to question some of the commission’s recent decisions regarding utility bills.

Danduran has been appearing at city commission meetings regularly since the commission began charging water service fees on all properties, even those that don’t have water service such as a vacant property in town owned by Danduran.

On Wednesday, Danduran questioned the purpose the city might have for capturing additional funds from properties that don’t use water and brought up a few concerns regarding the preliminary budget, suggesting they may be assessing additional water service charges to address a rise in expenses on multiple line items.

He also made the point that New Rockford shouldn’t be charging additional water service fees to pay for the water treatment plant project, when some of the properties now being charged did not have service when the project was financed based on water usage at the time, and haven’t since.

Richter responded by saying the city didn’t decide to charge more properties to pay for the treatment plant upgrades or any other expense – that they did so to create a “level playing field” so that everyone is billed equally.

The commission also said that New Rockford’s water bill is relatively low in comparison to other cities of roughly the same size in North Dakota – according to both the League of Cities website and a recent study conducted by auditor assistant Andrew Presnell.

Presnell’s study shows that New Rockford’s minimum water charge of $20.25 is lowest among 10 other North Dakota cities of similar size, including Carrington with a minimum charge of $24. Larimore, Cooperstown, Langdon, Hillsboro, Glen Ullin, Surrey, Napoleon and Ray also had higher minimum charges at the time the study was conducted.

Danduran also made one overarching point: that adding additional “taxes” to these properties will simply encourage owners to walk away, putting further burden on the city and county.

“There’s a cause and effect for everything,” he said.

The next regular city commission meeting is scheduled for Monday, Oct. 2 at 7 p.m. in City Hall.