While you may not have heard the term water turbidity before, you've probably seen it.
Think about a muddy puddle or runoff on a road after a storm. The water looks murky. That's high turbidity.
Turbidity is a fancy name for cloudiness. Clear water has low turbidity. Fully opaque water has extremely high turbidity. Generally, organic matter suspended in water increases turbidity. If you've ever filtered water on a hike you've seen all the floating bits in the water in the bottle or bag holding the untreated water, and those bits are missing from the treated water. It's worth noting that turbidity doesn't always mean water is unsafe. Some water has dissolved minerals in it - which are perfectly harmless, but still make the water cloudy. And similarly - clear water doesn't indicate purity. Bacteria are microscopic. If you get water out of a stream in Colorado and it's clear - that does not mean it's free of bacteria or viruses.
Manitou Springs gets its water from snowmelt and natural springs on Pikes Peak. This water enters the Manitou Springs Reservoir before heading to a water treatment plant. This is where the bits in the water get filtered out, lowering turbidity, and making the water safe to drink. The water is then released into small storage tanks above town until it's needed. Small is relative. Manitou Springs' post-processed water capacity is 3.5 million gallons following the completion of the Mesa Water Tank. The treatment plant can process between 500-1500gallons of water per minute.
However, an average person uses 82 gallons of water per day according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. And, there are roughly 5,000 residents in Manitou Springs.
So, a conservative estimate would mean Manitou Springs goes through 410,000 gallons of water per day. This doesn't account for business use, any systemwide loss, agriculture, and other non-consumer uses for water. All told - 3.5 million gallons is less than a week of water supply in normal use.
HOW SNOWMELT RAISED TURBIDITY
Last week, several feet of heavy, wet snow fell on Pikes Peak. Pikes Peak gets plenty of snow and the water system is designed to handle that.
But spring snow contains a lot more liquid water than winter snow. And we're also in peak snowmelt season. The period between May 10th and 20th sees the fastest decline in snowpack levels statewide across the entire year.
So, a very large amount of water started coming down the mountain all at once. And this strong flow rate picked up a lot of dirt, plants, and other stuff you don't want to drink.
Water treatment plants are designed to handle a certain amount of these bits in the water. But the rapid snowmelt here has pushed turbidity levels much higher than normal. This water takes longer to filter, lowering capacity. You've experienced this if you've ever tried to filter very murky water while hiking. It takes dramatically longer to filter than clearer water (low turbidity), and you need to frequently back flush the filter. This same process needs to be done at an industrial scale, too.
So, high water turbidity ultimately lowers the water treatment plant's output. Since the holding tanks below the plant only hold so much water, restrictions are needed while melting occurs until the turbidity levels move back toward normal.
____
Have a question or story idea you would like the First Alert 5 Weather team to consider? Email: weather@koaa.com
___
Colorado couple warns of land swap scam after nearly falling victim
Amy and Bob Lathen are warning others after nearly falling victim to a land swap scam.
____
Watch KOAA News5 on your time, anytime with our free streaming app available for your Roku, FireTV, AppleTV and Android TV. Just search KOAA News5, download and start watching.
