After a day at the water park, Kristen Shanley ran the water in her Cedar Lake home last Tuesday evening to give her two youngest children a bath.
When she returned to the bathroom to check the water temperature and plug the water, Shanley said the water looked light orange.
“I wasn’t even surprised, that’s the worst part. It was nasty and I was like, ‘Oh, Cedar Lake water. Here we go again.’ It does happen often,” Shanley said.
Two residential fires — on the west and south sides of town — early last week led to iron in water, said Cedar Lake Town Manager Ben Eldridge.
Iron is clear in color until it becomes oxidized, either when it comes in contact with air or chlorine, and then it becomes yellow in color, Eldridge said. Iron typically sits at the bottom of water mains, Eldridge said, but during heavy water usage — like during hydrant flushing or fire response — the iron gets stirred into the water.
“It is not harmful, it just discolors,” Eldridge said. “There is no health hazard to the iron in the water. It is an inconvenience because it can stain fixtures and it doesn’t look aesthetically pleasing.”
By Wednesday morning, Shanley said the water was still orange and she noticed it in the kitchen sinks. The worst, she said, was the water in the toilets, which was a dark orange.
Shanley said she kept running the water in her home to flush out the system. She called the Cedar Lake Public Works department, because officials hadn’t sent out an alert about hydrant flushing as is common when the water turns orange.
Officials told her that there was a fire, which meant firefighters pulled a lot of water out of the water system, Shanley said. The fast flow of the water led to the iron and particles in the pipes to kick up into the water, she was told.
The person on the phone told her to flush the water before using it, Shanley said. But even after a few minutes of flushing the water, it didn’t change in color, she said.
Since Shanley used hot water while the iron was in the system, the person said meant the iron was in her water heater, which she had to flush out.
Overall, Shanley said her water was orange for about two days. Throughout that time, Shanley said her family used paper plates to avoid washing dishes, didn’t do laundry and had a plan to use a family member’s house for bathing.
Eldridge said some municipalities have filters or use phosphates to remove iron from the water. Cedar Lake does not have any treatment to remove iron from the ground water, he said, like many others.
“Usually within a couple hours, (iron) will settle out in the system again. That is why communities many times will flush their hydrants once or twice a year to … blow out any iron that settled out in the water mains,” Eldridge said.
Shanley said she would like the town to install a filtration system to prevent iron from getting into the water system, especially as the town continues to see new development and more people moving in.
Town officials should also alert residents about water discoloration after a fire, Shanley said. Typically, when the fire hydrants are flushed, Shanley said town officials send out notices and post signs, so an alert in this situation should’ve been sent out.
“I just felt like I had to really jump through hoops to figure out what I should be doing to get my water back to normal,” Shanley said.
Eldridge said the town’s Facebook page and website posted information about residents experiencing discolored water after the fire hydrants were used to put out fires, and that there were no health hazards to using the water.