More than two dozen Salado Water Supply customers from the western portion of the SWSC service area went before the board of directors Aug. 25 to express their concerns with the chloramine-treated water that they have been receiving since mid-July.

While only a small number of those present spoke before the board, they represented a group of customers who have reported having skin rashes and other problems that they link to the switch from chlorine-treated water from groundwater sources to chloramine-treated water from the surface water plant on Stillhouse Hollow Lake.

Salado Water Supply owns a nine percent stake in the 7.5 million-gallon-per-day, according to SWSC General Manager Ricky Preston. “We paid $1 million to get 9 percent of the plant,” Preston said. “We get the water at wholesale rates rather than paying retail rates. We have spent more than $2 million to get surface water.”

Surface water has allowed SWSC to double its capacity and is part of an overall water solvency program that SWSC has implemented to meet the Texas Water Development Board 50-year plan for solvency through 2050.

Preston told the audience at the Salado Civic Center that Salado WSC has purchased surface water “for at least the 28 years I have been here.” For most of those years, the SWSC had no access to the surface water and relied solely on groundwater wells to supply its customers.

However, since 2011, SWSC has spent $2 million in infrastructure to be able to get surface water from Stillhouse to a large tank on FM 2484.

Preston explained that it is a matter of proximity that customers on the western side of the service area are being supplied with chloramine-treated surface water while other customers continue to get treated groundwater from wells.

“How many of you are getting this water,” one customer from the audience asked SWSC board members. “We just want the same water you get.”

During the formal public comment portion of the meeting, Dr. Ben Liles, Jr. a retired biology professor, told SWSC board members of the rash he began to get on July 11 when the switch was made to the chloramine-treated water. He asked if SWSC could put in water-saving restrictions on outdoor water usage in order to serve all of its customers with the groundwater rather than the chloramine-treated surface water.

Mary Kelch said that she did not have issues with discolored water but was having issues with skin rashes from the chloramine-treated water. She questioned why SWSC was using chloramine-treated water.

She also said that she felt like customers in the western portion of the service area were being “bullied” and told “to suck it up.”

“This sounds nothing like a water co-op,” she said.

Engineer John Winkler responded that chloramine-treated water is being used in a majority of communities that use surface water with no ill effects among its customers. He listed Killeen, Ft. Hood, Temple, Belton, Dallas, Fort Worth and Waco as just a few of those cities. He estimated the use of chlormaine in treated water in Texas at about 60 percent.

“It has been used for decades and it is safe,” he added.

The Environmental Protection Agency has a very strict standard on the levels of trihalomethanes (THM) in drinking water. “They don’t require you to use chloramines,” he said, “but in order to meet the standard they set (EPA) there is no other alternative.”

Preston told the audience and board that Kemper WSC has applied for a loans in order to aerate the water that it treats. “This will help with the color and odor,” he said, adding that the process should be done within 90 days.

He explained that Kempner WSC will also start flocking the water as part of the treatment process: “This adds coagulants that will capture particles and separate them from the rest of the water,” helping with the color and smell.