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How Flushing Fire Hydrants Helps Keep you Safe
Posted: Dec 5, 2012 3:36 PM by Caroline Flores - cflores@kristv.com
Updated: Dec 5, 2012 7:00 PM
CORPUS CHRISTI - Have you ever seen the city spraying water out of fire hydrants around town? Well the city calls it flushing, and most residents see this and think the city is just going around wasting water. But that's not the case at all. The city is doing this to clean out our water lines to keep our drinking water safe.
"Ultimately we could end up with a lot more bacteria in our water if we didn't do this," said Justine Hutton with the Water Department.
The fire hydrants are at the end of a water line, and old water just sits there. So all the chemicals the city puts into our water supply to keep it safe get diluted and bacteria begins to build up. Which would mean the water in your home would not be safe for you and your family.
Water officials say the flushing can take from 10 to 40 minutes, but the city says this is a task that needs to be done.
On top of the flushing they also check your water every day by getting samples at about 200 different water stations around the city. At these stations they check the water to make sure there are no chemicals or bacteria in it that could make you sick.
"We could potentially send water that is unsafe to drink to your home if we didn't test this," said Hutton.
And while some bacteria in the water isn't harmful, others are.
"People could get sick and it could lead to death if they were infected. Especially someone had a poor immune system," said Hutton.
So to ensure nothing like that happens to Corpus Christi water customers, they make sure to do their daily testing and monthly flushing.
While the city says flushing water isn't the most ideal thing to do during a drought, they try and be productive with the water they have to flush. So if a hydrant is near a city park or even a home, they will water the area so the homeowner or city won't have to use their own water to do so.
In addition they are slowly working on getting rid of the areas that need to be flushed. What the city is doing is looping their water lines so there will be no end to them and no need to flush them.
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