MOUNDS, Okla. — New year, same water problems for the town of Mounds.
Residents are dealing with brown water in their sinks, bathtubs, even the washing machine.
2 Works For You reported the brown water woes last June. Residents said this happens multiple times each year.
While the water looks dirty, Creek County Rural Water District 7, which supplies water to Mounds, said it's healthy to drink.
"It’s not a health issue, it’s an aesthetic issue," said Chuck Linnet, superintendent for Creek County Rural Water District 7. "In other words, it looks bad, but it’s not a health issue at all.”
However, Mounds resident Laura Walker thinks differently.
“I wouldn’t take my kids to the Arkansas River to give them a bath," Walker said. "If the water looks like that, why am I going to bathe them in that? And you can’t tell me that that’s safe for my kids to drink and bathe in if it’s eating holes through my clothes.”
Walker says it’s frustrating to have this happen so often. She hopes the water district can get some help to solve the problem.
“I’m paying for a service," she said. "And when you pay for a service, you expect to have a certain quality of service or you stop using that service. I can’t do that with this.”
Linnet said the water color is due to elevated levels of a mineral called manganese.
Linnet spent the day going to the district’s 80 hydrants flushing out the dirty water.
“It’s hard to cure," he said. "We’re a small treatment plant. We produce our own water. We depend on no one else for water. So that does create situations that we can’t quite do like the City of Tulsa.”
Linnet said he tests the water six times a day, but things can slip through. The water district is working on relocating chemical feeds to help solve the problem.
“I live here too and I have to drink the same water," he said. "So, believe me, Chuck doesn’t sit on his rear-end and do nothing. He’s trying to cure it.”
Linnet said the water should return to normal either Friday or Saturday.
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