SNOW SHOE, Pa. – Since the beginning of the year, some Mountaintop Regional Water Authority customers have been having problems, but when 6 News talked with the chairman of the water authority, he said this is all a part of the process of getting things fixed.
Centre County customers of the Mountaintop Regional Water Authority are facing some issues again. This time, some are saying they have brown, dirty water.
In January, Mountaintop Regional Water Authority said they saw a water crisis, with historic lows for their water levels.
"The water level was so low we were sucking air into the lines," President of the Mountaintop Regional Water Authority, Jim Yost said.
Since then, things haven’t been easy for customers or the water company.
"For about a year now, it wasn’t that bad, and then it's like almost every week now, we get it shut off at least once," customer Kaleb Hauser said.
The water authority has been fixing leaks and installing pressure-reducing valves after the major issues at the beginning of the year, which left some folks with water they aren’t happy with.
"They'll shut it off, and we won't have it for a day,” Hauser said. “Whenever it comes back on, the water will be dirty or cloudy and usually not feeling safe to drink it."
Officials say throughout the year, they've already installed 700 out of the 1100 individual meters that need to be replaced. That's more than half of the customers.
Now people are seeing their water in different tents of the color brown.
"I know they try and it's not their fault that the water does that, but it’s just frustrating that it happens so frequently," Hauser said.
Hauser says this has been happening within the last two to three weeks.
6 News talked with the president of the water authority, who says things are better than before.
"We reduced our pumpage, we've increased our storage levels and we're doing much better," Yost said.
Authorities say the problem now is that people must flush their lines. The water company can flush main lines to get rid of dirty water, but it doesn’t get it fully clean for each customer.
"When we stir up the water line, that the customer line is still in them until it's flushed by them," Yost said.
According to officials, they made all the installations they planned for 2018. They say they even hired a leak-detection specialist to double-check all the work that has been done so far.
As far as next steps for clean water, it’s all on each customer and when they decide to flush their lines individually.
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