💧 The Story of Water in Avoyelles: A Precious Commodity

Open the faucet and we expect water to flow, pure, clean and tasty. When it doesn’t we are upset but for water to arrive pure, clean and tasty there’s a lot that has to happen.

Penn Lemoine is the president of AWC (Avoyelles Water Commission) that serves Moreauville, the outer limits of Mansura, Marksville as well as Spring Bayou. There’s also an emergency connection with Bordelonville, Big Bend and Hamburg.

He refers to water as a “precious commodity” as our western states are currently learning. “Water is the most important thing to service,” he said. And Lemoine knows this first hand from his position on AWC; his past position as superintendent in Moreauville with water one of his jobs and back to working for Cleco where he saw how much water it took to make electricity.

The story of Avoyelles Parish water through AWC began in 2005 when drilling and construction on a pipeline started from Odenburg to Hamburg. Four wells were drilled in Odenburg because after a lot of testing, that water was determined to be “good water.”

Lemoine also added that a fifth well is in the process of starting up and will be “one of the largest wells and will be the work horse.”

The water line from Odenburg to ground storage tanks in Hamburg on Hwy 1, is 24 inches. One storage tank can hold 225,000 gallons and the other holds 175,000 gallons.

It’s there the water is treated with chlorine and sodium phosphate.

Lemoine is very aware of the chlorine debate that is constantly out there. He shared a back story on the state-dictated chlorine level.

“Several years ago in a southeastern parish a brain eating bug got into a small boy's brain and killed him. The Department of Health said chlorine levels had to be raised from .02 to .05 to kill that parasite.”

Lemoine pointed out that particular parasite was in surface water such as in ditches, ponds etc. AWC water is ground water and pumped. After many tries the AWC can’t convince the State Department of Health to allow Avoyelles water to have the lesser amount of chlorine.

On the other hand, Lemoine said claims the chlorine causes cancer, well you’d have to drink a whole lot for that to happen.

The chlorine is injected as it comes into the Hamburg tanks “but has to sit awhile before it does what it’s supposed to do.”

And this is what chlorine does: AWC water has iron and magnesium in it when pumped from the ground. Together both compounds cause discoloration but chlorine breaks the iron out of the water. Phosphate sequesters it and after so many hours the water goes back to its clear color.

There can be a boil alert when pressure drops below 20 pounds because of a leak etc. That means ground water could seep in so customers are advised to boil the water before drinking or cooking.

When the lines are flushed regularly that’s an important function to get solids out of the line.

Superintendents from each town who receive AWC water rotate weekly and daily inspect the system especially the meters.

Lemoine pointed out that working with water is so important operators have to be trained. “Water is the most important thing to survive,” Lemoine commented, “and we take into our bodies.” Those working with it have to be trained on four different levels, which is done by Louisiana Rural Water.

“You just don’t walk in and work with water.”

Lemoine remarked that “right now our water availability is good.” He is also proud to say the water Avoyelles Water Commission provides consistently receives an A+ rating.