Contact: Steve Drew
Phone: (336) 373-7893

 Flushing Hydrants Keeps Water Safe

GREENSBORO, NC -- (October 10, 2007) -- At first glance, the City of Greensboro’s practice of flushing fire hydrants during an extreme drought may seem counterproductive. In reality, however, flushing hydrants helps the City guarantee that water in our community is safe to drink.

The City’s Water Resources Department routinely flushes its hydrants to help ensure water quality and to comply with state requirements. The practice is nothing new: water system operators throughout the country regularly flush hydrants to help protect their water supplies. Greensboro uses technology to help balance the need for safe drinking water with the need for conservation.

About four years ago, the City installed 25 automatic flushers on certain hydrants in Greensboro. The automatic flushers are programmed to run at intervals to keep adequately-chlorinated water flowing to all customers, not just those closest to the center of the water system.

“Chlorine tends to diminish over time,” said Water Supply Manager Steve Drew. “Unlike fluoride, which remains at a constant level throughout the water system, chlorine reacts to other substances in the water and at the end of the pipe, there’s less of it than there was at the beginning. Our goal is to make sure that those customers who are farthest away from the center of the water system have an adequate amount of chlorine in their water supply, just like those customers who are closer to the center of the system.”

By using these automatic flushers, the water loss is minimized. In fact, the water used to flush hydrants is barely a drop in the bucket. For instance, in September, the water used for hydrant flushing amounted to a mere three-hundredths of a percent of the water used each day.
 
 “Flushing hydrants is a process that used to require a great deal more water,” Drew said. “Most of us can remember seeing open hydrants, with watering pouring out uncontrollably for hours at a time. By using the automatic flushers, we have minimized that type of waste while still maintaining our program and still meeting the standards set by the state.”

Here’s why the City flushes hydrants, even during a drought: The State of North Carolina requires that water suppliers like the City of Greensboro keep chlorine at a certain concentration all the way to their customers’ water taps to stop the growth of harmful bacteria. 

“The levels established by the federal government were put into place to protect people’s health, and the City works diligently to comply with the federal and state standards so that the public can trust in the quality of its drinking water,” Drew said.

The City has no violations of this requirement, in part, due to its effective flushing program.
 
“We understand that our messages may seem mixed,” said Allan Williams. “On the one hand, we’re flushing hydrants and on the other hand, we’re asking people to conserve and restricting how and when they can use our remaining water supply. In actuality, both messages have the same goal, and that is protecting our water supply and keeping it healthy and adequate for our City.”

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