SILVERTON, Ore. – It appeared the community of Rhododendron, Ore.  would be on a boil water order for a long time – the Rhododendron Water Association had lost its filtration plant, and only five days away from Thanksgiving. Despite the destruction, a pair of Oregon Association of Water Utilities circuit riders assisted the system staff, and had clean water restored in less than a week.
                 A wind storm on Sunday, November 22nd caused an old growth fir tree to fall on the Rhododendron filtration plant. The tree was 208 feet tall and three feet in diameter. It landed directly on the plant, breaking through the steel building and coming to rest on a bank of multimedia filters.
                 “It destroyed the multimedia filters,” explained Scott Berry, OAWU Circuit Rider. “All the piping in the building was destroyed.”
                 The damage not only shut down the plant, but also made the repairs extremely difficult.                 “The plant was in a steel building, the electricity was out and grounding out on everything,” Berry said. “It was really hazardous.”
                 The Rhododendron staff was in action before the circuit riders arrived. They removed the tree and contacted an electrician to deal with the damaged power. They had also issued boil notices to their customers. The system had also contacted business and restaurants, providing them a voucher for bottled water so they could continue to operate until the water service was restored.                 “They had an emergency plan and were acting on it,” Berry explained.
                 The system was considering portable treatment options, but Berry had not seen any good options locally. He and circuit rider Heath Cokeley researched the portable treatment option and found nothing that would help. Once the electrician made the building safe, the circuit riders and Rhododendron Water Master David Jacob began an inventory on the damaged filtration plant.                 “The first thing we did is bypass the filtration plant,” Berry said. “The tank was getting low and my feeling was that untreated but chlorinated, disinfected, water was better than no water and low pressure.”
                 Rhododendron gets is water from a surface water source, Henry Creek. The filtration plant removes sediment and other impurities before the water is sent for disinfection. The water would still need to be boiled, but a drop in water pressure could allow bacteria into the system and the entire distribution system would have to be disinfected. The crew then started working on a way to replumb the plant and configure it to work on the few undamaged filters remaining.
                 “We had to cut and break a lot of pipe, to get the damaged piping out and see what we could use,” Berry said. “We started pulling out broken components and setting up the plant to operate on the remaining filters.”
                 The repairs would require 80 feet of new pipe and several boxes of fittings. A welder was called in to work on converting the one surviving multi-media filter to the new layout.                 “It took us quite a while to replumb everything,” Berry said.
                 Repairs were progressing, but now the group had to contend with the Thanksgiving holiday.
                 “We were all ready to stay and keep working through Thanksgiving, but the Rhododendron Association president insisted we all go home and spend time with our families,” Berry said.
                 The circuit riders returned Friday, and completed the work. Steve Graeper, the Rhododendron Water Association president, reported in a letter that the filtration plant was operating at maximum capacity at 1:05 p.m. on Friday, November 27. The water service has been restored but the work is far from complete.
                 “The association is waiting on word from their insurance. Once they get more information, we’re going to assist with the planning and oversight for the rebuilding,” Berry said.                 “The entire board was very grateful,” Berry said of the response to their effort.                   In his letter, Greaper writes that the efforts of the circuit riders and water master were a miracle and that the Association’s dues to the ORWA had been repaid 10 fold or more. The work of OAWU staff had been able to restore the heavily-damaged filtration plant in less than a week, even working so close to a holiday.
                 “It was certainly a long week,” Berry said with a laugh.
                 He admitted, though, the effort was worth it. The effort made Thanksgiving safer and happier for Rhododendron’s 900 residents.
                    “I have a renewed faith that miracles really do happen,” Graeper wrote.

.

###

 NWRA Homepage                              RSS Feed                                        News Archive
   

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recent News