A measure that aims to protect the City of Plymouth’s drinking water was passed this week by the Common Council.
Utility Superintendent Donnie Davidson says new “backflow prevention standards” were recommended by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. “Sometimes, there can be an override in pressure from a private system which could put materials that are unwanted into the drinking water system,” Davidson explained, “or the City of Plymouth could have a drop in pressure, which could also back-siphon something that could be connected to a contaminate source.”
Those problems may stem from things like herbicide and lawn-care equipment. Davidson says the city’s had some issues in the past with that type of equipment being connected illegally to fire hydrants. That means there’s a risk of those materials ending up in Plymouth’s drinking water if pressure changes occur. “Irrigation systems are a big problem,” Davidson added. “People think, ‘Why?’ If you look at the situation, if there’s a drop in pressure, anything anywhere where those irrigation heads are lain has a possibility of pulling all that material – could be lawn-care products, worms, anything – back into the system. And there are case histories of that actually happening. That’s why these have been identified.”
Davidson said there are 1,500 places in the city where backflow prevention is already in place. “We have a couple hundred that we want to focus on,” he said. “We want to do a thorough inspection on these before a judgment’s made. Like I say, we don’t want to get overzealous in our enforcement of this, but where we feel that there is a high risk of this occurring, we want to make sure that they’re addressed.”
However, council member Jeff Houin was concerned that leaving that judgment solely up to the utility superintendent might lead to some legal issues for the city. He recommended that the ordinance state that the utility superintendent’s judgments will be based on IDEM recommendations.
With that minor addition, the ordinance was approved unanimously on second and third readings.
