Tests show, save for minerals, city water is virtually pure

by Chris Peterson Hungry Horse News
| April 11, 2016 5:24 AM

Columbia Falls residents don’t have to worry about lead contamination in their water. In fact, the city’s water supply is some of the cleanest on Earth.

The city routinely tests its water for a laundry list of contaminants, noted public works director Grady Jenkins. The city’s water pipes, even the older ones, aren’t lead, Jenkins noted. They’re galvanized steel. Some of the pipes date back to the early 1950s and the city is constantly searching for leaks — it loses thousands of gallons of water a day to leaks — but the water in those pipes, leaking or not, is very, very clean.

“We don’t chlorinate,” Jenkins said. The water comes from two 200-foot aquifer wells, one near Super 1 Foods and the other near the high school. Both can pump 1,000 gallons a minute at peak capacity. The water is pumped back up the North Fork to the city’s water 2 million gallon concrete water storage tank and then runs back into the city. The system has excellent water pressure — about 65 pounds per inch at the top of the system and close to 90 psi at the bottom. The wells recharge quickly, Jenkins noted and the static level remains virtually unchanged, even at peak usage.

The city went to a well system back in the early 1990s. Prior to that, the water came from the Cedar Creek Reservoir. Being an open reservoir, it had to be treated and generally didn’t taste good.

When cyanide and other contaminants were found in wells at the Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. plant, the city ran the same tests for those contaminants in its own wells. They all came back negative.

“We had non-detects for all those parameters,” Jenkins noted.

In fact, of the hundreds of contaminants the city tests for, virtually all of them come back with non-detects, meaning they can’t even find a trace. The water does have trace amounts of zinc — .01 milligrams per liter and barium — .13 mgl. It also has some mineral content — it’s hard water.All are well below safe drinking limits.

“We’re pretty fortunate,” Jenkins noted.