[0:04] We would be on.
>> Can y'all hear me?
[0:07] » Yeah.
>> Okay. Um I'm Tom Dark. I'm the chief
[0:10] administrative officer for the city of
Shreport and I am by appointment of the
[0:13] governor, the chair of the clean water
task force for the city of Shreport. Um,
[0:18] it was created by a house concurrent
resolution that was passed this year and
[0:25] it was pass it was it was sponsored by
Representative Walters who is here and
[0:29] we'll give you a chance in a second. Um,
we we welcome you here. Um, we this is
[0:36] the second of our meetings. We met last
last month. We will meet again once a
[0:41] month probably in September and October.
Um, we are required to put out a report
[0:46] by I think
Um, so we'll be doing that. Um, I'd like
[0:53] for the task force members who are here
to introduce themselves to
[0:58] Jesse. I represent the Louisiana
Department of Quality.
[1:02] » Good afternoon. I'm Kiana. I represent
the Department of Water.
[1:08] » Good afternoon. Thank you for being
here. Brand director of water and sewer
[1:12] environmental services.
I'm Barbara Featherston, Louisiana
[1:16] Department of Health,
>> West Environmental Services Manager in
[1:20] the city's water department.
>> I'm Sharon Dunn and I'm a citizen of
[1:25] Streetport, but it was written into the
legislation that a an administrator of
[1:30] LSU Health Sciences will be here and I'm
the dean of the school health and
[1:34] science.
>> We have three other members who are not
[1:36] with us, at least not yet. Um Dr. Dr.
Jimmy Jones who's the CEO of Accent
[1:41] Development of Shreport was specifically
named in the legislation to be on there
[1:45] and representatives of LSUS and Southern
LSU's representative is Dr. Chris Greece
[1:52] who is the chair of the department of
chemistry and physics and southern
[1:56] traports is Dr. John Galotus who is the
dean of workforce development and
[2:00] associate associate professor of
chemistry. Uh at this time it' be
[2:04] perhaps good to have representative
Walters greet everyone and say hello.
[2:12] Good.
>> Testing. Testing.
[2:18] » Good afternoon everyone. I am
Representative Joy Walters. Uh you are
[2:23] in district 4. So uh thank you so much
CEO and chair Dark for coming to
[2:30] district 4 first. uh and um I created
this task force to uh to explore uh what
[2:38] is going on with our our water because
in the legislature we received uh year
[2:44] after year a grade. Um and so far since
I've been there it's been um an S. Last
[2:50] year of course it's upgraded to a D. Now
we're back at an F. Uh and that's a a
[2:55] concern of of mine. Um my grandmother
she was an educator. She retired with
[3:01] the mattress plus 30. Um, and I cannot
bring an F or a D to her house. Uh, and
[3:07] so, um, I look at it from the standpoint
we don't want to, um, have F or D grade
[3:14] water going into people's homes, um,
either. And so, thank you all for being
[3:18] here.
>> Mayor, would you like to speak for a
[3:22] second?
>> I'm just here to listen.
[3:23] » You're just here to listen. All right,
good deal. Um
[3:27] we were tasked as a as a as a task force
group to evaluate the current situation
[3:34] in the water department water system
from a whole lot of standpoints from
[3:37] infrastructure from management from
sustainability. Uh the the requirements
[3:42] we have are to make recommendations to
improve system reliability, water
[3:46] quality, affordability, what's called
long-term resilience.
[3:51] Um, what I'm going to ask you to do, you
see that TV behind you? We have a we
[3:56] have a presentation that was supposed to
be on this one and the projector wasn't
[4:01] where we needed. So, I'm going to talk,
but if you want to if you want to turn
[4:04] around and turn your back on me, it's
okay. All right. If it needs to, I'll
[4:07] I'll come over there.
[4:16] » Time's traveling salvation show here. Um
Chris, you can go ahead and advance it.
[4:22] Um we got here, this task force was
actually created a year or so ago by the
[4:28] legislative session a year ago. And for
a number of reasons, nothing
[4:33] particularly happened for that year. So,
Representative Walkers recreated it. And
[4:38] so what it it really was started, I
think, because in the late part of 2024,
[4:45] the city had a couple of water issues.
one particularly manganesees in the
[4:49] water. Then a little bit later in the
winter we had an issue with
[4:53] an algae form called giosa that gave us
some taste and odor issues. So it was
[4:57] timely at about the time this was
originally created. Um it was also
[5:02] created as representative Walter said in
response to the grades we've gotten. U
[5:07] we met uh right at the end of July.
We're meeting tonight. We'll meet again
[5:11] in September and October. Go ahead.
Go ahead. Go ahead. Okay.
[5:19] See those two bottles up there where I
was sitting? One of them is quite cloudy
[5:25] and one of them is quite clear. Quite
Brandon's going to hold them. That's
[5:29] what we do here. Um the one in Brandon's
right hand is cross lake water. It is
[5:36] what we start out with. That's straight
plant. That's what comes into the lake.
[5:42] » That's straight from the lake. And that
is what comes out out of the plant
[5:45] heading towards your house. We do all
that for one half of a cent per gallon.
[5:51] Um in fact, we were talking about it
today. We a lot of water customers in
[5:56] the city use about 4,000 gallons of
water a month. We will sell you that
[6:01] 4,000 gallons of water for about $17.
Um if you bought that in gallon jugs at
[6:08] Walmart, it would cost you $6,000.
So that's that's the way to compare
[6:12] this. We you know we we have our own set
of issues from time to time. But what we
[6:17] are doing is taking that ugly stuff and
turning it into something really you
[6:22] know palatable and for most folks
drinkable. We will tell you later that
[6:27] some people have perceptions that it
isn't. But everybody's pallet is
[6:30] different and by by no means everyone
thinks that. I'm going to give you the
[6:34] really short version of how we treat
water. It comes in uh as raw water. Um
[6:41] we it has a whole lot of things in it.
It has some some organic matter, dirt,
[6:47] whatever else you might have. And so we
have to to at some point pre-treat it a
[6:52] little bit to make sure that um you know
we we get the pH balanced right so it's
[6:57] easier to treat later. We also do some
pre-treating now that we weren't doing
[7:02] at some point early in the manganesees
process. We learned that if we did some
[7:05] pre-treatment early, we were able to uh
to get that out of the water better. Um
[7:13] but what really happens after that is
that we we in effect settle all the the
[7:17] clumps of stuff out of the water. Um it
starts out you you have little clumps
[7:23] that eventually are formed into bigger
clumps and eventually are are separated
[7:27] from the rest of the water by a whole
series of settling processes. Um we use
[7:34] a couple of chemicals to do that. Um,
and then we're going to filter it. We
[7:38] put we our main disinfectant is ozone.
Um, that's something we did not always
[7:44] do, but but have done in in a number of
years lately. It is is filtered through
[7:50] carbon. It is filtered through sand. Um,
what you're trying to do is get all the
[7:55] particulates out, trying to get as much
of the of the biological stuff out, and
[7:59] then we put chemicals in it to make it
stable and safe. We use a combination of
[8:03] chlorine and ammonia called chloromine
to to try to disinfect it. And we have
[8:07] to walk a very fine balance. I'll tell
you about an issue we have with that
[8:11] later. But the idea is at the end of the
city's lines, we are required to have a
[8:16] certain amount of chlorine in the water
to keep it disinfected. So, not only is
[8:21] it disinfected leaving the plant, it
also has at least still some
[8:24] disinfectant later when it's time to uh
for you to drink it. um that finished
[8:30] water gets pumped out. It's fairly
complicated. Um want to change the
[8:36] slide. Um we've got a thousand miles of
water, a little over a thousand
[8:41] actually. And we divide the city into
four different pressure zones. We have
[8:47] lots of elevated water tanks and booster
stations all all over town to try to
[8:52] keep the pressure as high as we can
everywhere in the city. And you know, we
[8:58] have we have water tanks out. One right
off I 49 St. Vincent. We have one going
[9:03] out I 24 Greenwood. We have one on 49 um
just past Bunes. We have another one
[9:09] down at Port. Um we have another one
that we're working on finding a site for
[9:13] in southeast Freeport. We have elevated
We have booster stations. If you come
[9:18] offline, if you come off I49 South at at
Interloop, you'll see a big round
[9:23] building. That's a that's a ground
storage station for us. We have one at
[9:26] 70th in Pines out this way. We have one
at 68th in Union Street. Um and we have
[9:32] what was at the old McNeel Water Plant
uh in the adjacent to downtown. It was
[9:36] the original city water plant in the
1880s. Um there is a booster station
[9:41] there. Okay. Okay. Let's talk a little
bit about water quality. Um we have four
[9:47] issues that we that we want to talk to
you about just a little bit. One of them
[9:50] is taste and odor. One of them is safe
drinking water and violations that we
[9:54] have there. sometimes boil oil bo oil
advisories and notices and how the state
[9:58] grades. Go ahead. Taste and odor, which
is what really tends to get the public
[10:04] most excited, is normally not a
regulatory violation. It can be, but
[10:10] very seldom is. Most of the time it is
caused by things that are actually not
[10:15] regulated as directly by the the
regulatory agencies. They would be
[10:19] caused by things like seasonal algae. uh
they would be caused by by manganesees
[10:24] and things like that. But because that
is the biggest issue that we face in
[10:28] trying to make u customers happy with
what comes out out the pipe, we have to
[10:34] use ozone disinfectant to try to get the
algae out before it ever before we ever
[10:38] settle it into the you know get the big
particles out. We use ozone to help
[10:42] settle. We one of the things we learned
um and this will be a theme we use a
[10:47] couple of times when we have had a
couple of the water quality issues that
[10:51] we've had over the last few years. We
have learned how to treat the water
[10:54] better because of those and have really
not had those sorts of issues lately. Um
[11:00] manganesees we did a different set of a
set set of chemicals but the algae that
[11:04] we had in the winter was unusual for a
number of reasons. You don't normally
[11:08] get algae blooms in in December or
January and we did and it was a
[11:11] particularly viral v viralent one and we
had to learn how to treat that and one
[11:16] of the things that happened there years
and years ago the city treated use
[11:21] activated carbon to treat water. It was
it was one of the things they did for
[11:24] taste and odor. Ozone is more is more is
more modern is is more technologically
[11:30] advanced but it's not as good at getting
algae taste and odor out of the water.
[11:34] So we have gone back to using that. We
got some money from the state to to get
[11:38] new carbon feed equipment, but before we
did that, the folks at the water and
[11:41] sewer plant basically built rebuilt the
old system long enough for us to to to
[11:46] be able to deal with that early. We
really have not had a whole lot of those
[11:50] problems. And again, knock on wood
because the lake is different every day.
[11:54] And and that's one of the things that
that our water folks have to deal with
[11:57] is is that it's not the same lake year
after year because the the quality of
[12:02] what's coming in or weather conditions
when hot like it is right now and all
[12:07] kinds of things. You go ahead and flip
it. You occasionally will get a notice
[12:11] in your water bill that says we have had
some sort of safe drinking water act
[12:15] violation. The most common one of those
is something called total
[12:20] trihillomemethanes. And that's a long
word to basically say it's a series of
[12:25] chemicals
that are formed when chlorine reacts
[12:30] with organic material in the water while
it's being treated. And you used to use
[12:35] raw free chlorine to do do that and that
was a much bigger problem. The
[12:39] chloromine system that we use now is
supposed to make that go away. We have
[12:43] had a couple of issues. The most recent
one that we had we had an ammonia pump
[12:48] fail relatively briefly. Had to get it
replaced. Soon as we got it replaced,
[12:52] we're back in limits. But we had we we
we get sample four times a year and they
[12:57] take an average. And as long as that
average is still above the limit, which
[13:01] by the way is 80 parts per billion,
which will tell you how small an amount
[13:06] EPA regulates,
we occasionally get um something called
[13:11] turbidity, which means the water's got a
little bit more cloudy material in it
[13:15] than it should have. Um we we get that
most commonly in the winter when
[13:22] everybody's pipes are breaking all over
town at their house and we're trying to
[13:25] push water out of the plant. Sometimes
they don't let it settle quite as long
[13:28] because they're trying to keep water
pressure up. We have tried to use
[13:32] chlorine dioxide to help that to some
extent. Um we also have to have the
[13:37] water in contact with the disinfectant
for a certain amount of time.
[13:41] Uh LDH has asked us to make that a
longer time and we we are complying with
[13:46] that. Okay. Go ahead Chris. You will
sometimes hear us say we have a boil
[13:51] water advisor. Um, this is commonly done
when we have a water mane break of some
[13:57] sort that requires essentially the pipe
to be exposed to outside influence. It's
[14:03] not sealed for a period of time while
you're while you're maintaining it. And
[14:06] if the water pressure goes down below 25
pounds per square inch, we are required
[14:12] to issue or we do at least as a matter
of practice issue a boil adopt.
[14:17] What normally happens there is a day or
so later, folks at the water plant do
[14:21] the testing, water's clean, no problem.
We we lift the advisory.
[14:27] It is possible for you to get a boil
order. We don't ever want to do that and
[14:33] haven't had one in recent memory. But if
we are absolutely sure that the water is
[14:37] contaminated and we do not want you to
drink it, that's what a boiler is.
[14:41] That's a whole different thing that
would happen. It happens a lot of times
[14:44] when you when you have a treatment plant
that gets flooded in a huge hurricane or
[14:49] something like that and you can't
guarantee what's in there. You have no
[14:52] idea. So, until you're absolutely sure,
you're you're telling folks to boil. We
[14:59] don't normally do that. When you get a
boil advisory, you can decide if you
[15:02] want to boil the water, but an advisory
does not usually mean the water is
[15:06] unsafe. It just means we haven't tested
it since we did the repair. and and as
[15:11] soon as we do it usually comes right
back to normal. Go ahead. State grading
[15:15] scale is a source of it. Let's be clear.
Um we have gotten ratings.
[15:22] The first thing you need to understand
is that a state rating
[15:26] does not mean your water is bad
necessarily. It is not a measure of
[15:31] water quality. It is a measure of a
whole series of grading things that the
[15:36] state department of health uses. And
some of them we agree with and some of
[15:39] them we don't.
We we had a meeting last time we talked
[15:43] about this. The state has a has a you
can get dinged for public complaints.
[15:49] And the scale is you get dinged 1.0 to
10 for every complaint you get. Well,
[15:54] that works really well if you got a
little tiny system. If you you know, if
[15:58] you're the village of whatever and
you've got 200 customers, you get 10
[16:02] complaints. That's a that's a big deal.
We have 70,000 customers. you're trying
[16:08] to get LDH and I think they're beginning
to be more receptive to saying let's
[16:13] rate it at least on you know the size
you are so that 10 10 doesn't mean 10 in
[16:19] a in a huge place like us um city of
Boer has a rated water um that does not
[16:26] mean their water tastes better than ours
mean they have a newer system
[16:30] they have less old pipes and a lot of
times we get dinged for some of that
[16:34] we've also got dinged a little bit for
stuff that we are well in the way
[16:37] fixing. Um, you've seen work going on at
the big some of the big water tanks in
[16:42] town and we can only work on those one
at a time. We got an order to to to make
[16:48] to do some significant heavy maintenance
on them and we have done all that now
[16:53] except for the one that's on I49 at St.
Vincent and because it controls so much
[16:57] of the city's water pressure, we've got
to do it in the winter. And so as soon
[17:03] as we quit having the kind of summer
demand we have, we'll go back to doing
[17:07] that. We believe we will we will not be
a failing grade too much longer. But we
[17:12] need you to understand that the grade is
not really a measure necessarily of
[17:19] whether we are doing a good job giving
you water that is safe to drink, safe to
[17:23] bathe in, safe to cook with, all those
things. Go ahead. Go ahead. One more. Um
[17:29] we're required to look at sustainability
uh whether we have and the big question
[17:34] there do we have enough water supply to
meet the needs that we're likely to have
[17:38] now and in the future. The answer to
that is yes. Our water plant was was
[17:42] expanded when everybody thought street
was going to have 50,000 more people
[17:46] than it does right now. So we have
plenty of treatment capacity. We're not
[17:50] in a situation where we're in danger of
um just not being able to treat the
[17:57] amount of demand we have and that goes
up every you know this time of year
[18:00] we're we're pumping more water than we
would be on a cold day in January but we
[18:05] still have enough capacity to deal with
that. There are people who will ask you
[18:09] in the in the world of the data center
does that does that affect this? The
[18:13] answer is one of the reasons that we
were able to deal with the data center
[18:17] is that we have water to set. We're not
in danger of you not having enough or
[18:23] them not having enough. And the other
part is does the city have the financial
[18:27] resources to operate and maintain the
system. Y'all need to understand that
[18:31] that's always going to be a balancing.
The elected officials on the city
[18:35] council who set the water rates would
like to keep the rates as low as they
[18:39] possibly can because it's everyone who
pays it. um you have to balance that
[18:43] between the needs of the system. So far
we have been able to do that. Uh but
[18:48] that will always be an issue that we
have to you know deal with sometimes.
[18:52] Rates we have, you know, we we have a
combined bill. You understand you get a
[18:57] bill for water and sewer service. Um the
water part is actually the cheap part.
[19:01] Um you you can most people's water
portion of their water bill is $30 or
[19:08] less. Um and we actually series of kind
of lifeline rates where the the smaller
[19:15] consumption rates are charged a little
bit less per gallon than than the folks
[19:19] that use a lot of water. Um, our sewer
rates are high and they're going to
[19:23] continue to be that way. We have to do a
great deal of work to keep EPA happy
[19:28] regarding a legal consent decree we have
and that we're trying to get modified.
[19:33] But it's likely that that sewer rates
will always be more than water rates no
[19:36] matter what happens here.
Um, we try, however, go ahead to try to
[19:42] find other sources of money. Um, we try
really hard to to to use sources that do
[19:48] not require being paid back as as
expensively with water and sewer rates.
[19:53] In the 2024 bond issue that the mayor
put together and the voters approved by
[19:57] 80%. We had, I think, about $80 million
in that bond issue for water and sewer
[20:03] projects. Those are projects that don't
have to be paid back with your water.
[20:08] A good deal of that work is water work.
It's going to be some of [clears throat]
[20:11] it is already about to be under
construction out of the Amos plant. We
[20:14] have four different projects out there.
Um we've also got some sewer work and
[20:18] we've got the elevated water tank in
Southeast that way. We have gotten some
[20:23] some FEMA grants. Um you know the Cross
Lake dam is important to us because it's
[20:28] obviously holding Cross Lake in so we
have water to treat. The dam is is the
[20:33] spillway gates are not exactly new.
We're trying to get some work done there
[20:38] so it will be easier for us to regulate
the level of um we have uh we've got
[20:44] some money for generators because it's
important for us to be able to to deal
[20:47] with your water needs when there's no
power. Um and we've got some generators
[20:53] that are in the process of being
delivered and unfortunately they take
[20:56] forever to get here but we're we're
working on. We have asked for some state
[21:00] capital outlay money to try to do some
work inside the state inside the game
[21:03] plan because the plant is old. Now most
of the equipment that treats your water
[21:07] is not it's been updated a number of
times over the years but there are still
[21:12] things we can do there. We're hopeful
that next next session we'll be able to
[21:16] do a little better. There are also some
grants and loans. There is a federal
[21:20] program called that lets you borrow
money at 0.95%
[21:25] pay it back over a long period of time.
We are trying to get somewhere in the
[21:29] neighborhood of 50 to $60 million that
way that will be used for water and
[21:32] sewer. Uh the state has a has a
revolving loan program for for drinking
[21:37] water programs. That's another way we
can get some money. Um and then when all
[21:42] else fails, we can sell bonds that are
paid back by your by your revenues, but
[21:47] we try to stretch what we can as well as
we can otherwise. Okay, now for the fun
[21:53] part. Um we recogize over and over and
over that whether or not we have
[22:00] regulatory issues with our water, there
are there there are a large number of
[22:05] people or at least some number of people
who believe our water is nasty, doesn't
[22:11] taste good, smells bad, whatever. And we
are not here to try to tell them that
[22:16] they are wrong. We are here to try to
say we are selling water to you that
[22:20] meets
public it meets all the standards
[22:24] required to be safe. If you have a
particularly sensitive nose or
[22:28] particularly sensitive pallet, you may
have a different perception and we have
[22:33] we have you know there are people up
here who have who would have different
[22:37] perceptions depending on what on what
there is. But what we have been able to
[22:41] do is when we've had a compliance issue,
we've been able to fix it relatively
[22:44] easily or at least address it reasonably
well. Um, we have learned how to deal
[22:50] with algae better and we're always going
to have some algae in a shallow lake
[22:54] like we have. Um, but we, you know, we
are in the age of anyone can post on
[23:01] social media that you are chasing and
then there are a number of people who
[23:05] will like that, some people that won't,
some people will defend us and some
[23:08] people won't. We're not really here to
do that. But what we are here tonight to
[23:12] do is to give you an opportunity to
taste three different water sources in
[23:19] this area. Um they're all surface
drinking water. One of them is ours. Um
[23:25] we would like you and and Kiana can help
explain how this works, but we have
[23:31] three different samples back here. We
have different color cups for each one
[23:35] of them and a rating scale for them. And
what we would like you to do if you're
[23:39] interested is to
set it. Let's let's set it up and come
[23:44] on back and um we will let you have the
opportunity to pour yourself three
[23:48] different and these came from water from
household water tanks. They did not come
[23:52] straight out of the plant. They didn't
come from the dead end of the line. They
[23:55] came from somebody's house, frankly. Um
we would like you to taste those and
[23:59] break them. We do not know what the
answer you will give us is. We're taking
[24:04] a certain amount of risk there, but we
have done this test in in a controlled
[24:10] environment once and we came out
reasonably well. I mean, again, not
[24:17] everybody is going to have the same
opinion about which one of these they
[24:21] like better. Can you explain what
they're supposed to do? So, we have like
[24:26] Mr. D said, we have three uh dispensers
back here with water in them and from a
[24:33] household
from different water systems. All
[24:35] surface water all have similar uh means
of treatment but slight differences
[24:40] based on again the source that they're
actually treating. [snorts] And so with
[24:44] each sample that you take um of course
we'll give you a slip to fill out and
[24:49] each sample you don't compare it to to
to the other sample. You just compare it
[24:53] to how it tastes to you. Um give it a
rating of one through four. One being
[24:59] the best it tastes the best and four
being the worst.
[25:05] » And so, please feel free again, we have
pins back here. You don't have to give
[25:08] us your name. You can if there's
anything particular that stands out
[25:11] about the uh sample, either for the good
or for the detriment of that sample,
[25:16] please feel free to make that uh comment
here to the side. It always helps um you
[25:21] know, if it's if it's ours, it helps us
to better understand what people are
[25:25] tasting. Um again, he taste of water is
subjective. I do drink the water every
[25:30] day. I try if I'm here in town, out of
town, I try to drink the tap water just
[25:34] kind of get a taste for especially when
I'm around town here in the city to see
[25:37] what our citizens are and I live inside
so I drink water. One of the things that
[25:42] » one of the things that we can tell you
is that if you have un if you see a
[25:48] specific change in your water at your
house or at your business, we will be
[25:53] happy to come out and test that to see
if there's anything unusual going on
[25:58] with your plumbing or there's something
going on with the system adjacent to
[26:02] your house. And we can we will be happy
to look at that because, you know, we're
[26:06] not going to try to tell people who tell
us they don't like the way the water
[26:10] We're not going to tell them, "Well,
you're draining." No, we're going to try
[26:13] to see if we can find whether there is a
reason. And sometimes there is.
[26:16] Sometimes it's your plumbing. Sometimes
it's it's we've got a leak we don't know
[26:19] about down the way. I mean, there's all
kinds of possibilities, but we would
[26:23] like you to to see what you think. And
we'll give you some time. Uh if you have
[26:27] any questions, Kiana, and her crew be
back here to answer it, but please
[26:31] please come forward. Shann,
>> how does how does somebody go about
[26:39] requesting their household water to be
tested through the Department of Water
[26:44] and Sewage? Is there is there a number
or an email to call if somebody thinks
[26:48] something might be tasting funny at
their house? Yes, you can call the uh
[26:53] our water quality lab. That number is
3186737654
[27:00] or 318-6737655.
[27:04] The city also utilizes the system I
believe call you can also call dispatch
[27:08] as well. That number is 318-6737600
[27:12] and that line they collect information
for just about anything you see a water
[27:16] leak. Um, if you suspect that your meter
is running, you know, running too high
[27:20] or or something is wrong or anything
related to water, you can call that that
[27:24] 7600 number to report just about
anything. I think they even take um
[27:28] other city uh department complaints and
pass those along as well.
[27:33] » Yeah.
>> So, we we invite you to come
[27:40] » the city folks will not do that. Would
you um also let them know that I have
[27:45] the same customer service
representatives here if they have a
[27:47] billing question?
>> If you have a billing question or if you
[27:49] know someone who does, we have someone
here from customer service. Look it up
[27:53] » and they're right here. So if you need
anything, they're right here.
[27:59] » Thank you for
>> because I participated in the prior test
[28:02] and I may very well recognize one of the
may recognize one more of the samples.
[28:09] So I am not participating but
[28:20] I don't
[28:23] like
[28:31] » everybody gets through. We're going to
have an opportunity for public comment.
[28:36] Let's
[28:44] get you.
[29:42] Everybody
[29:50] [laughter]
[29:55] need a taste.
[30:32] You should know
[30:47] Snapchat.
[31:14] whale.
[31:39] Tiana's still tallying, so this would
this would be a good time.
[31:44] The normal format of a meeting like this
is to ask for public comments. And so we
[31:50] would invite anyone who would like to
speak about any subject related to the
[31:55] task force to come forward.
We don't have to enforce time limit too
[31:59] dramatically tonight, but
anybody like speak
[32:09] faster.
[32:12] » I think what you what you find when you
do these is everybody has different
[32:17] preferences about what they do in their
life.
[32:20] um the the the products of individual
water systems are always going to be
[32:26] somewhat different depending on [snorts]
what their source is, depending on how
[32:29] they treat it, depending what time of
year it is.
[32:33] Um so, you know, we
we try to be sensitive about that
[32:39] because really we we really believe that
that a lot of our issue is simply
[32:46] people
almost trained to believe that stuff's
[32:51] nasty.
And you know that's what you read. If
[32:55] you if you want to spend a little time
on social media, you can certainly do
[32:58] that. What we try to tell folks often as
we can go back to this,
[33:05] it is a miracle of modern science
[snorts] that we are able to take that
[33:11] stuff and for less than half a cent per
gallon, turn it into that stuff. And we
[33:16] do it every deliver to your house. And
that doesn't mean you're not if you have
[33:22] complaints about it or concerns about
it, we want you to tell us what they
[33:25] are. Uh we want to be able to come out
and check check what's going on at your
[33:29] house because we want to provide as good
a service as we can. And we are not
[33:34] always perfect. We've had a couple of
occasions in the last couple years where
[33:38] drinking it wasn't all that easy. And we
have learned from those things. We have
[33:42] tried to to modify the treatment
processes we have in order to make it
[33:47] less likely. And I'll give you an
example. Brandon told me this week they
[33:50] had had a little uptick in manganesees
in the lake. You didn't know it because
[33:55] they have learned how to treat that to
where you don't see that beautiful
[34:00] yellow color we had for a little while,
>> which is not uncommon, just to be clear,
[34:05] in summer months, all systems. um one in
particular right now that they've
[34:11] experienced that we've just gotten
better at treating it. Um and when we
[34:14] say uptick, they're still well below any
threshold that would even be detectable
[34:18] to the naked eye. But it seems that we
learned with that experience and our
[34:23] monitoring, we have increased that
because of that process, which allows us
[34:27] better data that are trending to see the
levels and how they move and flow from
[34:31] day to day, year to year, season to
season.
[34:39] Almost there.
>> I think I think Tom at our last I don't
[34:44] know if
>> push
[34:54] it on.
>> At the last meeting we talked a little
[34:57] bit about the LDH scale that that we are
are getting an unfavorable grade on that
[35:05] is part of
what the concern is and that LDH may be
[35:10] with reconsidering the scale that will
maybe be a little more scientific and
[35:18] scientific and based on evidence less
than opinion.
[35:22] » Can can you share with us where that
conversation goes about?
[35:27] » Well, and I want to clarify a little
bit. I don't think we necessar we don't
[35:32] agree with the criteria hall. Um the we
have not agreed with other than the
[35:37] number of complaints. We kind of you get
dinged over and over for stuff we're
[35:41] actually working on and fixing. Once we
get it worked on and fixed, hopefully we
[35:45] won't get dinged anymore. But, you know,
we we'll own the grade we got. We think
[35:49] it ought to be iron. But mostly what we
want to tell you is you can get an A
[35:54] grade system and your water tastes
nasty.
[35:58] That that is the way that works.
Um so yes we are um we've had four years
[36:05] of the grade rule looking back that
particular example of having water
[36:12] systems that have in particular I'm
going to say color issues. We don't have
[36:16] a lot of systems where water has a lot
of taste issues other than surface water
[36:21] systems that obviously are prone to
having algae issues and things at
[36:26] different times of the year. So we are
focusing on looking at the the grading
[36:32] scale which right now is heavily
weighted towards federal violations,
[36:37] state violations, infrastructure that is
significantly deficient. Um all of the
[36:44] measures that we have I would say
besides the complaint law are, you know,
[36:49] based on actual deficiencies of the
system. It's not, you know, our
[36:54] perception that something is bad. It's
just we have so many things that are
[36:58] significantly deficient and we count
points against them. There are
[37:01] violations that we count points against.
Um so we are looking at all of those
[37:06] components and so that you know more of
the water quality weighs a little higher
[37:13] um on that grade. And so that's a part
of its rule making. And so we will be
[37:18] proposing we will all of that goes
through public comment um where we
[37:24] really really encourage water systems
will be encouraged to comment to give
[37:28] their thoughts some ideas on how we can
make this better. Um but you know we we
[37:34] started with something that the
legislature asked us to do and I think
[37:37] that it's it's served its purpose. It's
brought attention to our water systems
[37:42] where
frankly I don't think enough attention
[37:46] has been previously put. Um people just
expect it to come out of their faucets
[37:50] every day and it's going to be fine. And
so I I think it's been a good thing and
[37:56] we're looking at tweaking that.
We have results
[38:02] and this points out I think as well as
anything else how much perception is
[38:07] about water.
All three of them had somebody say they
[38:13] were the best one and two of the three
excuse me and one of the
[38:20] sample A got the worst score. It is from
a water system near Monro but it had two
[38:26] people who thought it was wonderful and
People thought it was absolutely awful
[38:31] and that is what perception means. We
are second. We have a very stable score.
[38:36] We have a number we have two number
ones, no number fours um and lots of
[38:41] twos and threes. The other system um the
item C is the one that was rated best
[38:48] that the city of Budget um it got also a
fairly stable set of scores. Um, that's
[38:56] actually fairly consistent with what you
would see. I think if if you had a
[39:00] random 500 people,
you would see some people love it no
[39:07] matter what system. Some people hate it
no matter what system it is. Um, and a
[39:12] lot of people are kind of, okay, I drink
it, but it's probably not as good as
[39:16] period. But, you know, that's the way
that works. But, but that's what that's
[39:20] what we learn. Um, I mean, look, we like
to be number one all the time, but when
[39:25] you're dealing with perception,
sometimes you get absolutely wonderful
[39:30] scores and sometimes you just get
acceptable
[39:33] and although we'll try for better than
than, you know, just acceptable every
[39:38] day. Some days we, you know, some days
we run into a perception that is
[39:42] different and that's just what we get.
But I think that the most interesting
[39:45] thing is that
we had looks like we had 10 people
[39:52] do do these and four of them thought the
Boer water was better. Three of them
[39:58] thought that nasty stuff in Northb
is better
[40:02] » and two thought that um you know
um that's kind of the way that that
[40:08] works in the real world.
>> But the interesting thing is we did the
[40:12] same test a few weeks ago and was number
one in that test thing and so and Boer
[40:18] was number two. So it's again like you
said it's about the pallet and what
[40:21] you're especially where you live and
where you
[40:27] » and and I mean we had I was sitting next
to someone at the when we did it in
[40:32] house and I thought the boer water was
okay when I found out which one it was
[40:38] you know I've grown up thinking you know
boer water nasty but it kind of kind of
[40:42] was and what what I saw was this is this
is okay the person sitting next to me
[40:48] absolutely absolutely hated the Bojer
and you know that's just that is what
[40:53] this is about some
you know sometime some people like Coke
[40:57] and some people like Pepsi both of them
are safe to drink
[41:00] » yeah this is an example I like the water
that's my grandparents
[41:05] » I drink it
[41:09] » did you recognize it as you were
drinking it or did you just
[41:11] » not that's what I like
>> I usually think that's That's where we
[41:18] are. That's what we're trying to trying
to get across to people is that
[41:21] everybody's power is different. And the
the thing we are trying to do in in our
[41:27] work every day is not to convince you
that your opinion is correct or
[41:32] incorrect. We are trying to put together
water every day to your house for a
[41:37] reasonable price that is safe to drink,
safe to bathe in, safe to cook, safe to
[41:44] use for whatever purposes you want to
use it for. And we do that. Um, and we
[41:49] have a we have a very good team of
people who work on that plant. Some of
[41:54] y'all remember back in the spring.
We [clears throat] had a major water
[41:59] right right inside the water. And we
were seriously afraid we were going to
[42:03] be out of water for a week in part or
have almost no pressure for a week.
[42:09] Brandon and Kiana and the folks that
work at the wand did an absolute
[42:13] miraculous job tweaking the system
making it where we were basically low
[42:19] pressure for mostly a day in some places
a little less than and that expertise is
[42:25] extremely valuable we prefer those
maintenance but we are trying to give
[42:31] you a system that is dependable
almost all the time that's our job
[42:37] anybody has any comments. We're almost
ready to go. I think
[42:42] » I got I got another question. It's it's
related to infrastructure. As as
[42:48] feathers said, much of the grade is
related to infrastructure and their
[42:52] grant opportunities to build out the
infrastructure. We learned last time at
[42:56] our meeting that is one of the older
municipalities in Louisiana.
[43:03] New Orleans, of course, is the oldest,
probably Baton Rouge. I figure we're
[43:07] behind those two as as a municipality
go. So, our infrastructure is aged, we
[43:13] talked about last time, but there are
grant monies and maybe legislative
[43:19] interests in water quality now that the
city can perhaps go after. And if the
[43:26] idea is to replace
lead and other galvanized metals, do we
[43:32] know how far along we are at this point
and how far we have to go? I think the
[43:36] short the short version of that is that
the feds are still trying to figure out
[43:40] exactly what they want us to do. And
given the current regulatory climate in
[43:46] Washington, that's going to be a little
uncertain for a while. I think at some
[43:49] point we're going to end up being asked
to remove any lead service lines that
[43:53] are between the water man and your water
meter. We are not likely to be asked to
[43:58] take care of the ones between your house
and the water, but we'll see how that
[44:02] goes. And there will be some money for
that. There'll never be enough When the
[44:05] feds do a mandate, it very seldom has
enough money to to do everything. But
[44:09] there will be some money there. We are
trying though to get every grant we can
[44:13] get
simply because every dollar we can spend
[44:17] on construction from somebody else keeps
shooting that pay
[44:22] or in the case of one of the loan
programs, you know, we borrow money 5%.
[44:27] They're willing to give it to us at
0.95, which means it doesn't cost much.
[44:32] » To to your point though,
the lead service what Tom's talking
[44:36] about from you know our main to your
meter which is ours. If we have a break
[44:42] or we uncover that, we go ahead then and
replace that. We don't just cover it
[44:47] back up and put it back in the ground.
If we come across that in the field or
[44:50] when we're doing work, we we remove
that, notify the homeowner, and we move
[44:54] forward.
>> Yeah. So, it's incremental. So, we we
[44:57] know how much we've done and how much we
have to go. Is there any kind of
[45:03] percentage on
what we know we've replaced when we come
[45:06] upon it versus what's still out there.
>> There's some some there's some figures
[45:10] out there. I don't have them. Um our
team along with uh the government came
[45:15] in and did a a program and and they kind
of studied some areas. We do have a
[45:20] older book that shows where historically
and it's mainly older areas, right?
[45:25] Because you know that's been banned for
many years. Um, so it's so we do have a
[45:29] a round figure and then they even did
some more research to kind of itemize
[45:33] those and we also sent out uh surveys
asking people questions to get it back
[45:38] to us that would help us even do that.
So we do have some of that data. I just
[45:42] don't know it right off the top of my
head.
[45:46] » Anybody
can explain the point of the taste test
[45:50] exercise in light of the mission of the
task force.
[45:54] I think it's important for us to to to
deal with both sets of issues. We have
[46:02] regulatory
compliance issues now again, but we also
[46:08] again we're asking people to drink the
stuff every day and people have
[46:13] different perceptions of what taste is.
Obviously, our goal generally is for you
[46:19] to drink our water without you thinking
about it.
[46:24] It needs to be as dependable as turning
on light switch. If you have to think
[46:29] about whether the power is going to be
on, that's a bigger problem. And it's
[46:32] the same with our water. We want we're
we're trying to do these because we
[46:36] think part of the point of of where we
are in terms of community is not just
[46:43] that we have a few regulatory issues,
but that we have a public which has very
[46:50] different opinions about what what
tastes good.
[46:54] Nobody wants the water to be man.
Everybody's real clear about that. I
[46:58] mean, there's not going to be a soul
that thought that was fun. Um, and when
[47:03] it, you know, when it tastes funky like
it did when we had the algae for a
[47:06] while, nobody wants that either. But
when it gets down to the sort of
[47:10] acceptable range where your water tastes
okay and your water tastes okay, and I
[47:15] have a preference because I grew up in
Boer, you know, stuff like that, we
[47:18] simply want to be good. We want to be
where you don't think about whether it's
[47:25] going to taste bad when it comes out and
we don't want you to worry about whether
[47:29] it's going to come out. Those are we got
to be and we've got to be acceptable. So
[47:35] that's it's a fun exercise is really
what it's what it's there for. We don't
[47:39] necessarily again we don't know what
we're going to get. Um when when we do
[47:44] these um I know that there are water
waterworks industry conventions where
[47:50] they do these things all the time and
sometimes some of the bigger cities win
[47:56] and sometimes they get embarrassed and
it all depends on who your tasters are.
[48:01] That's that's
Anybody have anything else committee? We
[48:07] are likely to do this again September
10th, most likely at at Southern Hills
[48:11] Park. Um we are required by the
resolution created this task force to
[48:17] meet once a month and that would be our
likely September date. Um we have any
[48:22] other business, any other comments? If
not, we return and thank you for