Killian water shuttles continue at a cost of $30K per day | Business

Three days into a 24/7 shuttle operation keeping the town of Killian supplied with water, town and Livingston Parish officials waited Friday for answers about why water from the community’s sole well was fouled with brown silt and dirt.

Workers were able to remove a stuck well head on Thursday, which had delayed an inspection, and then sent a camera down the 550-foot-deep bore hole, but town and parish officials said the results of that review were still pending.

“There’s nothing really new to report at this point,” Livingston Parish Councilman Dean Coates said.

He suggested answers might not be available until Monday.

The camera didn’t come out of the well at town hall off La. 22 until near dark Thursday.

Meanwhile, the running caravan of 18-wheelers filling the Killian water tank and keeping water pressure up for nearly 1,000 people is costing the Livingston Parish government $30,000 per day, a parish official said.

Killian and Livingston officials have declared the situation an emergency, but they have not been able to get a similar declaration from Gov. Jeff Landry that would open up access to resources and potential reimbursement dollars.

Bruiser Bryson, a deputy for logistics in the parish homeland security office, said the Governor’s Office has been working with the parish and recently provided 19 pallets of bottled water for Killian residents to use for drinking and cooking.

Though the town has water pressure, it remains under a boil water advisory. Residents are also being asked to conserve.

But Bryson said the parish must meet “a bunch of parameters” before the state declaration can be made.

He noted that dozens of municipal water systems in the state have problems as well.

“So, we can’t … they can’t just blanket an emergency order on it, because you just cut line on 160 something” communities, he said.

Killian’s sole water well was drilled in the early 1990s. Two backup wells failed in 2014 and haven’t been replaced.

Livingston Parish officials recently explored trying to bring one of those wells back into service, but town officials said its condition was too poor to restore.

State health officials said that, under the law, towns are allowed to have just one well as long as they notify residents each year that no backup source is available.

Parish and town officials met Thursday with members of the parish’s legislative delegation to try to find funding for response and potentially a well fix.

“So, it’s being worked as best as it can,” Bryson said.

It’s not clear how much money Livingston Parish has available for continued water shuttles. It already has spent nearly $100,000.

Coates, the parish councilman, said Parish President Randy Delatte has already been talking about seeking funding relief.

But Bryson said Killian would continue to be supplied with tanker trucks of water while parish officials continue to work the process for the state declaration.

“I know we’re going to have water trucks until we don’t need water trucks, you know what I mean,” he said.

Chris Anderson, who leads the parish homeland security office, said the still-pending well inspection result and how those findings affect the system’s longer-term outlook could weigh on the decision for a state emergency declaration.

“The tanker thing is going to sustain through the weekend, if we need to, until we get an answer to what the problem is from the well company,” Anderson said.

The Governor’s Office has not responded to requests made since Wednesday for comment about Killian and the potential for an emergency declaration.

Town and parish officials have speculated that the well’s screen — a perforated section of pipe deep in the well — could be damaged. The well’s outer casing — usually a combination of concrete and pipe that is designed to seal off the interior of a well from exterior earth — also could be damaged.

Both fixes could be lengthy, and costly repairs would extend the inoperability of the well and tax or even exceed the small town’s ability to complete them, town and parish officials have said.

Some town officials have said the worst case could be that a new well would have to be drilled, an even more expensive prospect.

Despite the dire warnings from the town, state health officials said they were suggesting in late April, shortly before the well was shut for the inspection, that Killian take steps to lift the boil advisory, but Killian officials decided to wait instead for the well review this week.

In a statement, state health officials said the department’s Engineering Services team visited the town on Friday, April 26.

The team then found “that the water was clear, and the chlorine was adequate, and no additional significant deficiencies were found.”

“After that finding, Engineering Services asked the Killian Water System to take water samples as soon as possible for testing so the boil advisory could be lifted,” the Health Department statement says.

But Killian officials informed the department that they had decided “to continue the (boil water) advisory until after” the well inspection could be completed Wednesday, state health officials said.

The first part of that inspection process, the camera review, wasn’t finished until Thursday night.

Bottled water has been available for pickup at the fire station at the town hall along La. 22 between 8 am and 8 pm, with a limit of two cases of water per person in each household.