City officials share how Germantown water crisis unfolded - FOX13 Memphis

City officials share how Germantown water crisis unfolded | News | fox13memphis.com

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - More than five days after the City of Germantown told residents the water supply was contaminated with diesel fuel and was only good for flushing toilets, officials announced more progress in their recovery efforts.

“All samples from the Southern Avenue reservoir tested today are clear of contamination,” Germantown Mayor, Mike Palazzolo, said Tuesday. “We have received permission from TDEC to proceed with a very controlled, systematic flushing program.”

The announcement does not mean residents can go back to drinking the water yet.

Crews still need to flush out and the rest of the city’s water system. This means cracking open fire hydrants and testing for diesel in other parts of the city than the water’s source.

“You have to flush and test, flush and test, flush and test,” Mike McGill, president of the water crisis communications firm WaterPIO, said. “And then you have to double check it.”

McGill said in his more than 15 years of experience with water systems, he has seen similar crises before.

At this point, he believes the City of Germantown is in for a waiting game while officials clear the lines of diesel.

“With this you simply slush and test and, it’s a bad rhyme, hope for the best. That eventually, it’s coming out,” he said. “It’s not the answer that everybody likes to hear, but it’s the answer that you have to give.”

Officials said once the contaminated water is flushed out, it’s headed into the Wolf River.

As FOX13 reported earlier this month, people have been swimming and partying in that river all summer.

“So, we pump it away and it then goes into the stormwater conveyance system that then from this part of town is going to the Wolf River,” Palazzolo said Monday.

Contaminated water in the Wolf River might sound concerning but Sarah Houston, executive director of the environmental nonprofit Protect our Aquifer, said it shouldn't be cause for alarm, even though the Wolf River flows from Germantown through the City of Memphis and into the Mississippi.

“Dumping it into the Wolf is unfortunately really the only way to get that much water out of the way that is possible,” Houston said. “The good thing is the diesel is really diluted.”

Germantown officials said around 100 gallons of diesel spilled into a system that holds around 5 million gallons.

Houston said the fuel will get even more diluted once it enters the Wolf River.

Between the dilution and the fact that diesel dissolves when it hits the air, she believes there is little risk of the contaminated water entering the aquifer that supplies Memphis with drinking water.

“Hopefully this specific instance is not going to be something that really impacts wildlife or the Memphis sand aquifer,” she said.

Officials also shared more information on how exactly the fuel got into the water supply.

Bo Mills, Germantown’s Public Works director, said the diesel leaked out of a generator into the soil, then entered a broken pipe that brought it into the reservoir.

Both McGill and Houston agree ensuring a similar spill can’t happen again should be a top priority.
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