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Marshall's water vanishes

By Julie Ball, STAFF WRITER 02/18/00

JOHN COUTLAKIS Ronnie Ledford, Madison County emergency management coordinator, checks the chlorine level of water that is being pumped from a truck into Marshall's reservoirs. picture MARSHALL - Marshall leaders declared a state of emergency Thursday after the town's water supply dropped dramatically in only a few hours, leaving a few customers with no water and others with only a trickle.

"It was there one moment, and the next moment it was gone," Marshall Mayor John Dodson said of the town's water supply. "I've never seen anything happen like this to drain both reservoirs."

Town leaders sent their work crews home Thursday night without knowing the cause. "One of them only got less than two hours of sleep and then worked all day," said Town Clerk Darlyne Rhinehart.

The N.C. Rural Water Association was scheduled to arrive and begin offering assistance today, Rhinehart said.

Meanwhile, the 570 customers on the Marshall water system have been asked to conserve water. A few, like Marshall Board of Aldermen member Ed Morton, have no water at their homes. Morton said the water ran out at his home around 3:15 p.m. Wednesday. The water was back on Thursday afternoon, but it only ran for a few minutes before running out again.

"It's not new for me, but it's not pleasant at all," said 76-year-old Leta Fowler, who recalled dry summers when she lived on a farm. Fowler now lives in the Mashburn Gap apartments in Marshall, which is hooked into the town water system.

The water shortage forced the cancellation of Madison County schools Thursday and today, Superintendent Richard Greene said. "We're meeting with the principals (today) and central office staff at 10:00 a.m. to try to figure out what we might do about this situation, get more information and make some plans from there," he said.

Workers from the Marshall Housing Authority helped deliver water to the apartment complex Thursday afternoon. One worker, Danny Flynn, said they were distributing four gallons per household.

Fowler said she was able to fill a trash can with water Wednesday, and she was using that water to flush her toilet. She was also relying on bottled water she had stored.

Residents are also being asked to boil water before drinking "just to play it on the safe side," Dodson said.

Dodson said he's not sure how many customers are completely without water. Marshall officials were working around the clock to try to pinpoint the source of the problem.

"The situation is very serious," Dodson said.

The town relies on three wells to pump water into two reservoirs. One reservoir has a million-gallon capacity, and one can hold 500,000 gallons. The town uses, on average, 100,000 gallons per day.

The problems started Wednesday afternoon. Dodson said workers discovered one of the three wells had gone dry. The other two are not pumping the amount of water they should normally pump, according to Morton.

Officials also suspect water is leaking from the system, but they were unable to locate the leaks Thursday afternoon. "We're not seeing any significant increases in the reservoirs. That's giving us an indication we've got a break or breaks in the system somewhere," Dodson said.

With help from the town of Mars Hill, Marshall officials were hauling water using a tanker truck and dumping it into the reservoirs Thursday afternoon.

The town asked the N.C. Rural Water Association for help finding the leaks. State environmental officials are also testing the water.

The town was also relying on volunteers to deliver water to nursing homes. The Manna Food Bank, Hearts With Hands and state emergency management officials were providing bottled water to the town.

Morton said town officials are considering putting in a new well, but that could be time consuming. In the meantime, they re-opened a well that had been closed.

http://www.citizen-times.com/cgi-bin/story.cgi?20000218_n1.txt&n

-- Dee (T1Colt556@aol.com), February 18, 2000

Answers

What in world is happening to all the water systems? Great posts, Dee, keep up the great work...and thanks for the encouragement, too!!!

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), February 19, 2000.

Carl,

I do not have technical expertise with these matters, but I wish that somebody who does, would post some opinions about this.

-- Dee (T1Colt556@aol.com), February 19, 2000.