City officials assure Broken Arrow residents discolored water is safe despite concerns
BROKEN ARROW, OKLA (KTUL) — Some Broken Arrow residents are raising concerns after they said their water is discolored.
It wasn’t what some residents expected to see this weekend, which was a yellow-greenish colored water coming from their pipes.
One resident said, “I wanted to give my baby a bath tonight, but I’m so scared of the bath quality.”
Another resident said, “I personally am not drinking anything out of any faucet in Broken Arrow.”
The discolored water you’re seeing is something Timothy Robins with Broken Arrow’s Utilities Department said you don’t need to worry about. He adds, it comes from transitioning to their high flow season in the summer when people use more water.
“You remember in the spring, all the rain we had? We’ve had a lot of water where your residents have not had to use their irrigation systems, businesses, golf courses haven’t had to water their yards and their lawns and the golf course and right when we hit at the end of all of those rains and the heat hit upon us, we went from rain, rain, rain, to over 90 degree temperatures overnight,” Robins said.
According to Robins, in the winter and spring, the city used about 10 million gallons of water a day, to now over 16 million in a day. That discoloration comes from the pipes at the start of the high-flow season.
“There is iron and manganese deposits that are in the pipes, and that high flow scours those pipes and it pushes it out,” Robins said.
The city also wants to assure residents that the water is safe to drink and is meeting all state and federal standards. We double checked the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality website, and there are no reports online saying otherwise.
To get your water cleared, you can contact the city to come flush the hydrates to clear it. To contact the city regarding water concerns, you can:
- Call the Water Utilities department at 918-259-7000 (during business hours)
- Call the non-emergency line at 918-259-8400 (after hours)
- Email water_resources@brokenarrowok.gov
- Submit a report on the My Broken Arrow Action Center app which is free to download on mobile devices.
For more information on the discoloration of the water, the city has provided a link for you to read more here.