ST. CHARLES, Mo. – The City of St. Charles is once again able to supply some of the drinking water to its residents. This comes just a couple of days after a noticeable drop in ammonia levels at well #10, forcing the city to shut down it’s only operational water treatment plant.
“Now, we’re out spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to get ammonia to put into our water in the plant so that we can process it and get it to the people as safe drinking water,” Mayor Dan Borgmeyer said.
The mayor said adding ammonia is a short-term solution to a long-term problem.
“That’s not something we’ve ever encountered in 60 years of operation, so it’s not an anticipated thing by any means. In order to deal with that, we had to put a temporary chemical treatment system in. Basically, we had to add that ammonia in where it was no longer there,” said John Phillips, utilities superintendent for St. Charles.
Phillips said the ammonia solves the current problem. The next steps are a filtration system inside new 25-foot tall tanks.
“Our goal with this is the carbon media will be able to remove any kind of contaminates that make their way into the wells that are currently contaminated. When we pull that water into the plant, it’ll strip out those contaminates to ensure we’re continually providing safe water,” he said.
Phillips said the tanks will move six million gallons of water a day through them.
“We are anticipating that we can bring this online and go through that testing process again, this will have to be tested and approved by the state department of natural resources. So, we’re working through those steps now,” he said.