Saratoga Whitewater

Whitewater usually means different things to many Valley residents—but the white water that has recently concerned Saratoga residents has been coming from their faucets.

Several Saratogans have asked about the fizzy and milky qualities in tap water that began early last week, so the Saratoga Sun editor spoke with Jon Winter, Saratoga’s public works director, about the subject.

“When the pumps get lower and pump a lot of water like we’ve had to do, a couple things cause it, Winter said. “One is increased production like has been associated with the (Saratoga Forest Management lumber mill) fire.

A second thing is like when we have to take the system off-line and do a repair and then we bring it back on. When we flush it there’s air in the system that gets distributed. What you’re seeing is basically entrained air in the water. It’s just air in the water.”

Winter added that, “We also had a tap on the main line going out to the wells for Old Baldy. That 14-inch line was tapped with an 8-inch line for Old Baldy. When we did that we had to shut the line down, drain it, make the connection, reopen the line above it towards the wells, flush it (the line) out and open that line back up to normal flow. We had to flush it out—we had to flush that line to make sure there was no contamination associated with that activity. We had to do that twice on back-to-back days on Thursday and Friday last week.”

Winter said another cause for the aerated water could be that some wells get to a certain level in terms of static water level and then have a tendency to get air entrained in the system.

Winter did say that if the condition exists for longer than a week or so, he will be taking a look at other sources for the cause or causes.

First in Taste

Though town tap water has been fizzy and white lately, Saratoga water did recently win 1st place in The Great American Water Taste Test sponsored by the National Rural Water Association and Wyoming Rural Water.

Saratoga Town Clerk, Suzie Cox, said that Saratoga had been entering the contest for eight years now and had previously gotten 2nd and 3rd places.

“We just couldn’t break 1st,” said Cox.

This year Saratoga won the Wyoming taste test and Cox commented that she is very proud of the crew involved with Saratoga’s town water system.