Greensboro’s Water Resources Department will be holding a public meeting Tuesday evening to respond to resident concerns regarding brown and discolored water.
The meeting will begin at 6 p.m. at East Market Seventh Day Adventist Church located at 101 W. Vandalia Road.
At the meeting, Water Resources personnel will discuss the city’s water quality, new and proposed upgrades to the system and the city’s flushing program.
The meeting comes in response to concerns from residents in and near Southeast Greensboro who spoke at the Sept. 2 city council meeting.
Water Resources Director Mike Borchers said at that meeting the city typically receives around 30 to 40 complaints of discolored water out of more than 100,000 water accounts in the city.
He said imbalances in the system can lead to the brown water.
“We like equilibrium and when things get upset, whether it’s a main break, whether it’s a very large user on the system or whether it’s some other type of impact to the system, the system reacts and how the system reacts is we see sediment or brown water that can be in the pipes and in people’s homes,” Borchers said.
He said there are things that can be done to address the problem, such as flushing lines. Borchers said the city was in the process of conducting a “deep scrub” of water lines to remove sediment in Southeast Greensboro.
Borchers added that the department is “committed to addressing it permanently.”
Keith Peterson, one of the residents who spoke out about the discolored water problem, questioned whether the Toyota battery manufacturing plant is affecting the system in a way that is causing the discoloration of the water.
“We did not start having brown water until the Toyota plant came,” Peterson said. “Then we start having brown water.”
kevin.griffin@greensboro.com
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