Marion keeps battling water shortage on several fronts

The City of Marion on Friday recapped its latest efforts to deal with the ongoing water shortage.

A comprehensive campaign to fix leaks in city water lines has proven to be very effective so far. The Kentucky Rural Water Association has inspected about 75 percent of the city lines since July 5 and repaired about a dozen leaks. A telling sign of its effectiveness is that Marion's overnight water usage has fallen from 230 gallons per minute to 68 gallons per minute.

Conservation efforts by residents have also reportedly reduced the city's water consumption by almost 40 percent since May.

Water provided by neighboring utilities is still very necessary, and the city hopes to expand connectivity. The Crittenden-Livingston Water District has battled some outages of its own to assist the city, and is back to providing 180,000 gallons per day, which is about 60 percent of Marion's daily needs while in emergency mode.

At the same time, engineers are going over rough drafts of plans to make connections between Caldwell County and the Crittenden-Livingston system. A mile-long extension from the Sturgis Water District is also in the works.

The city is proceeding with a plan to explore storing water in the old Lucile mine. It recently approved $5000 to purchase a pump for use at the mine. Once it has been emptied, they can determine how fast the mine refills on its own, and they can address any water chemical issues in the new water. Water that was already in the mine had too much flourine for human consumption.

Meanwhile, 120,000 gallons of raw water is being hauled from the Tradewater River to Old City Lake each day by the National Guard and private haulers. The Guard has also delivered 73,000 gallons worth of bottled water for residents to pick up at the armory, and other local churches and charities have also handed out bottled water.

Volunteers are always needed to help hand out bottled water at the armory. If you'd like to help, call (270)704-3523.

On the longterm front, geotechnical research is being done at the now empty Lake George to determine a plan for its future use. The lower elevation of the lake bed recently captured a significant amount of last weekend's 1.5-inch rain that is being routed toward the Old City Lake reservoir.

The city has guidelines posted for residents who are using well water or large storage tanks on how to maintain the quality of your stored water. Information is posted at the City of Marion Facebook page, as well as info about Stage 3 water conservation protocols, the boil water advisory, and the burn ban.



A National Guard soldier empties another truckload of raw water from the Tradewater River into Old City Lake. (Photo courtesy Kentucky National Guard Public Affairs Office)