Officials work to eliminate tainted water in Pittsville

PITTSVILLE, Md. – Since last week neighbors in Pittsville have been concerned about the yellow-orangey water coming from their faucets.

“We haven’t seen a lot of progress since then, it’s been very yellow,” said Sarah Ash, a resident in Pittsville.

“It did seem to kind of lighten up a little bit and then it got really dark for about a day and it’s right back to where it was a week ago,” said Ash.

The culprit a pipe rupture in the town’s water plant, which town officials say happened last Thursday allowing chemicals to change the color and smell of the water.

“The chemical where the pipe ruptured this actually ran down into the control panel and shorted out the wires in here, which made the chemical injection pump fail,” said the Director of Public Works, Gene Cook.

Even though the town’s director of public works said the damage at the plant has been fixed, neighbors said things only seem to be getting worse and town officials said they are doing the best they can to fix the problem.

“We go through phases where it seems like our water is discolored or has a really heavy chlorine smell and even if not we’ll get scum rings in the sink and in the toilet pretty quickly,” said Ash.

“It’s cleared up here at the town hall, it’s clear, but because we have so many lines out there we’re serving over 1,300 people it’s going to take a while for the water to clear up,” said Town Commissioner Joe Mangini.

Moving forward neighbors said they just hope town officials are able to find more permanent solutions to fix this issue, which is why commissioners like Joe Mangini say they are working to get new installations for the future.

“In the case of our equipment failure the best way to handle it is that if you have an equipment failure you’ll always have backup pumps and electrical mechanisms that you can easily put in real quick, so that’s something that we’re definitely going to be looking at,” said Mangini.

Mangini said fire pumps will be used in the next few days to help clear the water as quickly as possible.