With recent concerns in the Perry community about a fire hydrant along Highway 141 that was flushing, Perry Water Works Superintendent Matt Holmes reassures residents that everything is being handled.

Holmes explains that the Water Works Department has wells along Highway 169 and there is a raw water line that runs between there and the Water Treatment Plant on the west side of Perry close to Highway 141. He confirms that a contractor, who was installing gas lines on Highway 141, accidentally hit a raw water line. Holmes shares that a normal response to that would be a boiler alert, but since no households were affected by that, the next step was to take bacteria samples to ensure the water would be safe. He states that the bacteria sample failed to pass the test and is classified as a non-chlorinated line. 

Holmes adds that they had to continue to flush the hydrant because there were multiple failed attempts to capture clean samples, which led crews to sample the water in the wells and found bacteria in there too. He says the hydrant is shut off, but the department is currently shock chlorinating both the hydrant and wells with bacteria and then will return on Tuesday to flush everything out and take another sample. Holmes concludes that if the samples turn out good, then the department will maybe need to flush the hydrant and wells for a couple of additional days.