New water system sought in Newport

NEWPORT – The two trailers behind the Newport Water District’s sand filtration plant on Williams Road look a bit odd: Pumps are noisily running, hoses are going in and out from nearby Nokomis Pond, water in tubes is dark on one end, light on the other.

The trailers represent two options that the district is researching to augment its existing slow-sand filtration system. A new system is required following a failed search for an alternative water source.

Under a federal mandate to clean up its water, the district will be forced to spend millions of dollars in improvements over the next year and a half, and two systems are being considered.

“This is not the worst water in the state,” Todd said Thursday. “We don’t have bad water, but as technology develops and restrictions get tighter, we need to further filter.” The issues are color and treatment by-products that were unable to be detected with technology of the past but are now discovered easily with current testing methods.

One of the problems with purchasing a new system is that the increased cost would require the district to exceed its debt service limit. This would require voter approval.

A public hearing on the issue will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 11, at the town office for Newport voters. Todd explained that all Newport voters, not just water users, will be allowed to vote on the limit increase during the Nov. 6 referendum.

The district is seeking to increase its debt to $8 million from the current $3.5 million. Without the voters’ approval, the district will not be eligible for grants to assist with the cost.

The district has 630 individual service lines that bring in $450,000 a year. Newport’s rates are about average statewide, but high for central Maine.

Chris Silke of Wright Pierce Engineering in Topsham was on hand Thursday to explain the two options. The first, manufactured by Orica Water Care of Australia, uses magnetic beads to treat the water before it goes through the sand plant.

“This removes the water’s natural color and also removes precursors [natural organic matter], which are materials that combine with chlorine to create byproducts,” Silke said. The water going into the system looked like tea, while the water coming out was clear and odorless.

The second process, which is built from a variety of parts and systems, uses ozone and biologically activated carbon. “The ozone is introduced to filtered water and it breaks up the larger molecules into smaller ones. Then it is filtered,” Silke said.

Wright Pierce was hired by the district to study various treatment options, and Silke said these two are the final contenders. The tests have been ongoing for the past three weeks and will end soon, resuming in the fall when water quality is at its worst. “We want the worst case scenario,” Silke explained.

By spring, the district should have a solid comparison of the two systems and will make a decision about which one to select. “Once decided, it could take 12 to 18 months to construct the addition,” Todd said.

The search for cleaner water began in 2004 when Newport failed federal water testing guidelines. Todd explained at the time that under those guidelines, one person in 10,000 has a 2 percent chance of getting cancer from Newport’s water – in its current state – but only if they drink 3 liters a day for 70 years.

Since 1894, Newport’s water supply has been Nokomis Pond, where the water is run through a sand filtration system and then disinfected with chlorine. Todd explained that chlorine reacts with natural organic and inorganic matter found in most surface waters and creates disinfection byproducts, or DBPs. In 2004, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency set new limits for DBPs that the Newport district was unable to meet.

Two of these DBPs are trihalomethanes, or THM, and haloacetic acid, or HAA, for which the yearly standard has been set at 60 parts per billion. The district’s fourth-quarter testing results in 2004 were THM at 101 ppb and HAA at 87 ppb.