What can the district do about brownish tap water?
Staff writer
After more than a week of dark brown tap water in Ramona and Tampa, water has cleared up.
But Rural Water District No. 1, which serves 355 residents and businesses in northern Marion County, continues to face criticism alleging poor service and delayed improvements to its water system.
The district has had large amounts of iron and manganese in its water for years.
A test by Kansas Department of Health and Environment in December, 2023, indicated its water contained iron levels of 1.5 and manganese levels of 0.14 parts per million — five and three times the recommended contaminant levels, respectively.
Those numbers were likely higher when two breaks in the main line caused water to turn dark brown two weeks ago.
“It was black as chocolate,” Elmer Ronnebaum, general manager of Kansas Rural Water Association, said. “It’s unconscionable to think that it came out of a public water supply system.”
Iron and manganese are not considered health risks by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Nonetheless, large amounts of the chemicals affect taste, odor, and appearance, leaving a brown product with sediment at the bottom. Few want to use such water for any purpose.
Manganese is on the EPA’s “emerging contaminants” list, meaning it may be classified as a health risk in coming years.
The water industry recommends a treatment process when iron and manganese levels are exceeded; the district uses a polyphosphate solution to treat the chemicals but is looking at altering the treatment after experiencing dark-brown water two weeks ago.
Water operator Autumn Chisholm said the district’s water was drinkable throughout the “brownout” even though the district handed out free bottles of water at the Ramona post office and Tampa library.
“It seemed drinkable,” board member Luke Wingerd said. “Did anyone want to drink it? No.”
What the district can do — or should have already done — to improve its system is contentious.
“We have offered to provide help to that district for 30-plus years,” Ronnebaum said.
He said his organization could help find financing for improvements “in a couple months, if not sooner,” from KDHE, USDA Rural Development, or Rural Water Finance Agency.
“They have to spend a little,” Ronnebaum said. “But there’s funding available to help.”
Former water board member David Mueller said the board had attempted to apply for grants little success.
Wingerd said board members “always have” been working with the state association.
Roughly 20 residents attended a water board meeting Monday. Many expressed discontent with leadership they perceived as passive and uncommunicative.
“There’s no open communication,” one woman said.
Arguments over adequacy of an email list run by Chisholm led to her storming out of the meeting halfway though.
Not only is the district’s water quality questionable, the system is inefficient.
Last month, the district lost 43% of its water from pump to customer, Daryn Martin, assistant general manager of KRWA, said.
The system also ranks first in the county for gallons of water pumped per capita per day — an average resident uses 120 gallons a day.
Those in the city of Marion come second with 112 gallons a day.
Those levels far exceed consumption in the two other rural water districts, which use 90 and 61 gallons respectively.
Higher per capita use may be because ranchers use the system to water livestock, but it also suggests to leaks and residents running taps to clear sediment.
Ramona resident Nathan Brunner said district customers sometimes were told to run their taps for two hours to clear away sediment.
Getting sediment out of the system will involve increased flushing of pipes and possibly drilling a new well to replace a sentiment-heavy one currently in use.
“The logical thing to do, if it were me, would be to hire a groundwater hydrologist and do a little water well expiration in that area to see if there’s not a better water supply,” Ronnebaum said. “We know that in one well that was drilled they drilled into iron pyrite.”
Iron pyrite also is known as fool’s gold.
Water service in Ramona and Tampa would have to be interrupted if the board moved to carry out extensive improvements, but there may be no other option if discolored water persists.
“It’s not logical to try to provide the water that I’m seeing to customers,” Ronnebaum said. “It’s not going to go away. It’s been there since Day One.”
After a tumultuous meeting Monday, the board took small steps toward improving the system, moving to meet biweekly for the next two months and hiring a Clay County engineer to evaluate the water system.
However, if the board neglects to take meaningful action in the future, more extreme measures could be taken by district members.
Petitions of complaint can be filed to remove a director.
If enough petitions are filed, a director can be removed with a 75% majority vote.
Directors must be notified of charges against them at least 10 days in advance of any special meeting.
Voting out a district water board member never has been done in Kansas, according to Ronnebaum.
Even conduction of a vote is extremely rare.
A spokeswoman for Leavenworth County RWD No. 7 who declined to be named said there was a vote against a district director “30-something years ago,” but the supermajority was not achieved, and the director remained on the board.
County commissioners also may influence the fate of the district. Commissioners are able to create, organize, and combine districts.
To create districts, commissioners must receive a petition signed by at least half of the landowners in the area. But K.S.A. 82a-639 also allows commissioners to merge districts without prior approval so long as they do not create a “special benefit district” in the process.
Landowners can petition the water board to release them from the district if their land is not “economically or adequately served by the facilities of the district,” per K.S.A. 82a-646.