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Helene's impact on Virginia's water quality

Flooding stirs up sediment that can make it difficult to treat bacteria in public water supplies
Western Virginia Water Authority
Flooding stirs up sediment that can make it difficult to treat bacteria in public water supplies

Bailey Davis leads a team of 120 state employees who regulate 28-hundred waterworks in Virginia, and he says Hurricane Helene has created big problems for some of them.

“It’s all hands on deck in situations like this," Davis says.

Flooding stirs up sediment that can clog filtration systems.

“Water treatment facilities disinfect their water to keep bacteria out of it. With the amount of rain and the runoff from mountainsides, a lot of sediment gets into the water. Sometimes that can impact the ability of the center to clean that water enough,” he explains.

And other communities have lost the ability to deliver water. A loss of power may mean loss of water pressure, and heavy flooding can destroy hardware.

“Areas of southwest Virginia have lost distribution system piping, storage tanks, those types of facilities so they cannot actually distribute water to their customers.”

Whatever the reason, Davis asks the public to be patient.

“When I wake up in the morning and take a shower and make my coffee, I don’t think twice about it. When issues like this arise and you’re asked to boil water that comes out of your tap, it’s very frustrating. We understand that, and we’re moving as fast as we can to get it back in place.”

Once systems are up and running, he says, testing is necessary, and most of the damaged waterworks are in that final stage now.

“The last thing utilities want to do is to issue a boil water order to their customers. There are couple of rounds of testing that have to occur before they can pull the boil water advisory, and so most of the systems are in that process now.”

Sandy Hausman is Radio IQ's Charlottesville Bureau Chief