West Plains, MO. – The City of West Plains is asking its citizens to conserve water this week. This is due to ongoing drought conditions and ongoing maintenance at the city’s Water Treatment Plant following a glitch that caused a citywide boil order.
As part of the water conservation effort, the city will be closing the splash pad at Butler Children’s Park until further notice, as well as stopping irrigation at North Terra Golf Course and all watering at city buildings.
The Missouri Department of Natural Resources placed a boil order on Thursday, June 15th, and lifted the order on Saturday, June 17th.
According to information from city officials, the Drinking Water Plant operators were completing a backwash on cell 2 when the filter controller malfunctioned, resulting in a spike in turbidity that was over a 1 ntu*. The Drinking Water Treatment Plant had a high turbidity reading of 2.0 ntu at the weir trough, which is after the filter but before the chlorination at the clear well. The combined effluent turbidity did not hit or exceed 0.3 ntu.
The city stated that “Public Safety is our number one priority. After receiving bacteriological sample results the boil order can be lifted.”
*NTU stands for Nephelometric Turbidity unit, the unit used to measure the turbidity of a fluid or the presence of suspended particles in water.
