Micro plants pose macro challenge for Price City water
By KEVIN SCANNELL
Sun Advocate reporter
Over the last week Price City has been dealing with water turbidity issues and while the water looks normal, what cannot be seen with the eye is popping up some problems.
Currently the city is fighting some turbidity issues not because of mud, it's because of a weird algae bloom that is causing the impact, said Gary Sonntag, public works director with Price City.
The algae bloom is causing the water to turn a blue and green color. The effort to treat water and get it up to approved standards and down the pipes to the city is an ever present challenge, Sonntag said.
"Our operators don't let the water go past the plant unless it's up to par to standards and it's approved," Sonntag said. "They will hold it back and they won't let the water through until they are satisfied that it has been treated and it can go beyond, going into the city."
The problem has been hard to treat because of how small the algae are. Finding the right combination and dosages of cleaning solution has been a challenge. The process to clean out the algae from the water works when a cleaning solution is added with the solution latching onto the algae through the process of coagulation. The coagulation process collects the algae particles and drops them to the bottom, not allowing them to flow through the system.
On Friday afternoon a solution was found to work well against the algae and on Saturday there was evidence that more water was filtering through the system, increasing the water levels in the storage tanks, Sonntag said.
Also adding to the problem are the recent rainstorms within the area. The rainstorms bring down a lot of sediment
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