It’s official: Better quality water is on the way for Confluence
After years of iron and manganese, volunteer project manager Mark Waszczak says better tasting tap water is on the way for Confluence.
Mark Waszczak says he spends his days herding cats, but residents of Confluence could soon be the beneficiaries with tap water that is, well, drinkable.
Waszczak, who retired to Confluence after a career as a project manager at a big school system in Virginia, has shifted gears as a volunteer project manager for the Confluence Municipal Borough Water Authority.
His goal: getting better tasting water to the town. And soon.
“The water, as you probably know, is not good,” he said. “Iron and manganese make it unpalatable.”
Confluence has been plagued with poor tasting water for years due to high levels of iron and manganese, which inhibit the germ-killing work of chlorine. Since 2000, the borough has been served by two municipal wells, located in the vicinity of the old Confluence Food Mart on Williams Street, which were sunk after a reservoir used previously as a water source became contaminated with giardia.
The microscopic parasite is found in the droppings from deer and other animals.
Giardiasis is the infection that can result from drinking contaminated water and it can cause diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and other problems. The elderly are at special risk from complications of the infection.
Special filters are the preferred solution to giardia contamination, which can be prohibitively expensive for a small system, like the one serving Confluence, which has about 650 customers. Pennsylvania has 1,939 water systems and 83% of them, like Confluence, are classified as small.
But getting better tasting water to the borough from new wells that have been sunk in Draketown, Lower Turkeyfoot Valley Township, about 1.5 miles downstream from the borough, is well underway. Grant funding to cover most of the estimated $5.5 million cost of the project has been secured and residents could see a big difference in water quality in about 18 months, Waszczak said.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is supplying most of the grant funding.
New water for the borough will involve Confluence swapping parcels of land with the Pennsylvania Game Commission in order to gain access to the well site, which is owned by the Game Commission and operated as state game lands. The well site is where Drake Run empties into the Youghiogheny River.
The borough’s consulting engineer, Dan Carbaugh, principal at Hollidaysburg-based Keller Engineers, said early water quality test results have been favorable.
“The water quality is good and all we have to do is disinfect it,” he said. “If everything falls into place, it’s possible it could go quickly, but nothing has gone quickly on this job.”
Water from the new wells will be pumped to an updated chlorination plant, near a reservoir previously tapped by the borough in Lower Turkeyfoot Township. A small storage tank will be constructed to hold the water before it flows to homes in Confluence.
“One of the biggest time constraints is getting the necessary permits,” Carbaugh said. “Construction won’t take very long.”
Included in the project will be replacement of water lines on Oden and Beggs streets in the borough.
Work on the new water project was ramping up during the week of June 1, which included doubling the size of a 4-inch test well to 8 inches to supply the municipality, securing a right of way for power lines and improving an access road to the site. Meanwhile, Waszczak is keeping the project moving by serving as a liaison between Confluence and various government agencies.
He is among a dedicated cadre of retirees over the years who’ve discovered the beauty of the region’s mountains and rivers and found second acts making Confluence a better place to live.
“We got permission to move forward in the past month or two,” Waszczak said. “The hard work is just starting.”