Water system maintenance prompts confusion

For such a simple act-turning on the kitchen or bathroom faucet and letting the water flow-operating a water system sure can be complicated. The complications can lead to misunderstandings, as in the case of what some Brewster residents thought was muddy water coming out of their faucets.

What looked like mud-or what a couple of people thought might be worse than mud-wasn't really mud at all, said Mayor Lee Webster. It happens when city workers flush the water lines.

A municipal water system bears a resemblance to the circulatory system in a human body. And like arteries can get clogged with-with-well, whatever arteries get clogged with, water pipes can get clogged with minerals. Even the cleanest water has minerals suspended in it, and as water moves through the system some of those minerals settle out to the bottom of the pipes. Let the minerals build up long enough and it can become a big messy problem.

So periodically city workers send large volumes of water down the pipes to break up those minerals and clean out those pipes. (It also happens when the fire department uses large volumes of water, Webster said.) Normally the flushing is done very early in the morning so it won't interfere with residents' morning routines.

However, those dislodged minerals have to go somewhere, and the only place they can go is the faucet, toilet or bathtub at the end of the line. It's unsightly, Webster said, but that's all it is; there's no taste, smell or hazard. If residents run the faucet for a minute or flush the toilet, it will go away.