Why Is My Water Brown In Shrewsbury?

SHREWSBURY, MA—If you've noticed some discoloration in your water, the town is explaining why that is happening.

Officials alerted and updated the community this week concerning the town's water supply. Shrewsbury gets its water from a series of eight ground water wells. Mineral deposits of iron or manganese are present in those wells.

According to the announcement, Shrewsbury’s wells contain manganese and very low levels of iron which have been treated with a sequestering agent to keep the manganese in solution since December 1989. Despite the sequestering agent and other approaches, over time these minerals have accumulated in various aspects of the water distribution system.

With concerns over those rising levels, the town pilot tested technology to remove the manganese and committed to build a full-size treatment facility. The plant construction stated in July 2017 and is scheduled to be done in late September or early October.

"However, the filtration plant will not address the minerals that have already accumulated in the water mains and other aspects of the distribution system," said the announcement. " In 2016 and 2017 the town began scouring the largest water mains to remove mineral deposits. This work was very time consuming but effective. Since the start of construction of the new treatment plant in July 2017 we have not continued these activities since we will have to redo the mains over again once the new filtration plant begins operating.

In some areas of town, the minerals accumulate greater than others, and also, some of those areas have yet to be scoured. Because of that, routine activities such as exercising vales or installing new connections or opening hydrants are "causing acute and widespread discolored water. Impacts are even more significant when a main fails or other significant disturbance occurs. The breadth of these impacts has caught the town off guard and will require us to change how we communicate and what activities we permit within and to the distribution system."

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