Texas City Considers Blackflow Preventer Investment After Contamination Scare

Does it pay to invest in a new backflow preventers? Corpus Christi, TX, is mulling that question.

Local officials say a recent boil water notice, which was issued as a result of E. coli contamination, might have been avoided if functioning backflow preventers were ubiquitous, KIIITV reported.

Gene DeLauro, an official at the city’s building department, explained how the technology works.

“The city’s water comes through the underside. The pressure of the water compresses the spring, it lifts the release, and it locks this air gap up and closes off the air supply. And so the water is flowing to the irrigation system. If the city’s water pressure drops, everything locks back down and it prevents the water in the irrigation system from flowing back into the city system,” he said, per the report.

Officials who investigated the source of the contamination said a lack of functioning backflow preventers might be part of the problem.

“John Holsonback of Hebert Irrigation says his company constantly inspects these backflow preventers and finds old devices that don't work about once a week. With hundreds of them spread across Flour Bluff alone, he agrees that it's highly possible that the recent E-coli contamination is due to a backflow preventer failure. A few years ago, city leaders voted to only require these devices be inspected once every three years, instead of annually,” KRISTV reported.

He urged the city to have them inspected more often.

"If we test them annually, we have approximately 20 percent fail rate. If we test them every 3 years, we have a 30-40% fail rate. So there is a greater number of devices failing due to them sitting longer," Holsonback said, per the report.

It remains undecided whether local landowners or the city would pay for installation of new backflow preventers.

Corpus Christi issued a boil water advisory in late July. It read:

The City of Corpus Christi is taking a precautionary measures to help insure the safety of our citizens by issuing a boil water notice. The City has been closely monitoring conditions and has identified an area in Flour Bluff with elevated bacteria levels... The City is committed to bring the water supply back to normal levels and has increased hydrant flushing along with mobilizing additional resources in order to lift the advisory as soon as possible.

For similar stories, visit Water Online’s Water Instrumentation Solutions Center.