Murky Granite Shoals water safe; should clear up soon
Murky water has been pouring out of Granite Shoals faucets since the Llano River flooded on Oct. 26, but city officials assure residents it is safe for consumption and will soon return to normal.
“Due to the heavy rainfall and the surge of water late last week from the Llano River, Lake LBJ quality has decreased significantly,” reads a public statement issued by City Hall on Thursday, Nov. 2, on the city’s Facebook page. “The utility crew is doing everything they can to reduce the color/tint in the water coming from our residents’ faucets. Please be patient and know that besides the color, the Granite Shoals water being produced from the treatment plant meets all state requirements and is safe for consumption and/or bathing.”
According to Granite Shoals Utilities Superintendent Josh Hisey, the water was clearing up on Thursday and should be completely normal by Monday, Nov. 6.
“The issue is that the day that we were waiting on the Llano River to come surging down (into Lake LBJ), we shut down the plant to do a (pipeline) tie-in,” Hisey told DailyTrib.com. “By the time we got the water plant back up, one of the chemical feed lines wasn’t producing the same way.”
The line to which Hisey referred is used to add a coagulant to the city’s water plant to capture suspended material and remove it from the water sanitization and filtration process. Without this coagulant, an abnormal amount of material was able to make it through the water treatment process. Lake LBJ, the source of the city’s water, became increasingly muddy after the Llano River flooded and heavy rains fell across the Highland Lakes in late October, leading to murky water in city pipelines.
Hisey assured DailyTrib.com that the water was still adequately sanitized and never surpassed state standards of water quality set by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.