Citizens of an Iowa town are concerned about their bright pink water.
The pink tint is just one of many recent issues with the water in Shelby, Iowa, according to its residents.
“Every time you flush the toilet, you turn the water on… pink,” resident Kara Robinson said.
And the bright pink color isn’t the only problem – the water tastes bad, too.
“The water tastes like iron. Like you are drinking straight pennies. That’s what it tastes like. It is horrible. Our kids don’t even like to use our ice because that’s what it tastes like,” Robinson said.
Shelby Water Supervisor Chad Gordon said the issue started on Saturday when two of their four water pumps didn’t re-engage.
Gordon said the water flow was cut in half, but the chemicals treating the water were not reduced. The city said the unusual pink color is due to potassium permanganate, but the water has been tested and is safe to drink.
LA SALLE, IL – Residents from La Salle and Ottawa met with Carus Chemical on Wednesday to discuss community concerns after the massive fire at Carus’ manufacturing plant in January. This was the second town hall meeting with Carus since the fire.
“As of last Friday, we have 123 outstanding claims,” said Chryss Crockett, Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Carus LLC. “Some of the clients have gone through their own personal carriers,” said Crockett. She then said that Carus will reimburse homeowners up to $2500 for their insurance deductibles and that information about filing claims and deductible reimbursement is on their website. Crocket said that coverage on vehicles is different by carrier but did not go into details.
Rich Landtiser, vice president of innovation and technology at Carus, discussed data from the PurpleAir monitor on the roof of the La Salle library that measures particulate matter in the air. He also talked about the chemicals that fell from the sky during the fire.
“There was potassium permanganate that went up in the atmosphere. It was raised up in the updrafts of the fire,” said Landtiser. He went on to say that some of the potassium permanganate decomposed in the fire and turned into potassium manganate manganese dioxide, which fell in the neighborhood, along with some potassium permanganate.
“The library data shows there isn’t any difference in the pre-fire or post-fire and plant restart in the air quality,” said Landtiser. Residents pointed out that Carus’ analysis conflicts with the Sierra Club’s analysis of the library air monitor data. Carus did not give details about how they made the analysis and announced they purchased an air monitor for the city of LaSalle to track data.
Sierra Club analysis of air monitor data during phosphate and catalyst start-up
Carus also said they were going to revamp community emergency response plans, which they did not have in place prior to the fire and are working with the city to put together a committee. Nick Mazzarelli, a resident of La Salle, asked if he could be part of the committee.
Questions were raised about safety and evacuation plans for the old K-Mart in Ottawa that is now being used by Carus to store potassium permanganate, catalysts, phosphates, sodium and zinc, among other chemicals, according to Alan Gibbs, vice president of operations at Carus.
The warehouse where the chemicals are stored is part of the Ottawa South Towne Mall, where several government offices are also located that are open to the public, including the Illinois State Dept of Employment, Health and Human Services and others. It’s also located next to a senior housing complex, recreation facilities and schools. When pressed about where safety and evacuation plans could be found for employees who work inside the building and the community, Carus did not respond.
“Does anyone here know what to do?” asked an unidentified citizen, to which the crowd replied, “No.”
“So, this can happen again. What happened in La Salle can happen again,” said the blonde-haired woman at the microphone.
LaSalle resident Marty Schneider responds to resident being served a warrant at the Town Hall meeting & the dumpster fire: https://youtu.be/pQm99ITAstk
Protect Starved Rock and The Illinois Valley 