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Lake Michigan
ice disrupts
municipal water systems
South Bend Tribune
- 2/20
For
a while, some fire hoses and the Black River served as South Haven's
municipal water-intake system.
In
St. Joseph, drinking water had to be pumped from a reservoir.
At
the Palisades Nuclear Plant near Covert, water problems led to
a reduction in the reactor's power level and a declaration of
a low-level emergency.
Blame
it all on the ice atop Lake Michigan.
The
region's unusually harsh winter has created especially thick pack-ice
along the lake's shore, which resulted in trouble Sunday for South
Haven's water system.
Officials
said they believe the problem was caused by ice blockage or by
a frozen inlet to the water-intake pipe.
The
trouble lasted for several hours. After work crews set up the
makeshift water service, they corrected the problem Sunday night
by reversing the flow of the intake pipe and blowing out the ice.
Michael
O'Malley, superintendent of the St. Joseph water plant, said around
10 p.m. Saturday, lake ice started restricting the plant's water
intake, which is about 1,500 feet from shore.
At
approximately 5 a.m. Sunday, water workers shut down the plant
and reversed the flow in the intake pipe to blow out ice at the
intake. The clearing took about an hour and used 100,000 gallons
of treated water, O'Malley said.
Water
for consumption was pumped from the reservoir, so customers never
were without water, he said. Another blockage occurred Sunday
night, but it was not severe enough to again require the use of
the reverse-pumping system.
The
Palisades plant's water-intake pipe experienced the same restricted-flow
problem early Sunday. The power level of the plant's nuclear reactor
had to be reduced from 100 percent to 90 percent shortly before
3 a.m. Sunday, plant spokesman Mark Savage said.
The
plant uses lake water in the process of cooling, condensing and
recycling the reactor's superheated steam that drives electricity-generating
turbines. Lake water is not part of the closed-loop system of
water used to cool the reactor, Savage said.
"As
we reduced power levels, the draw on the (lake) water was less,"
he said this week.
Plant
operators contacted the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and
declared the occurrence of an "unusual event," the lowest
of four emergency-action levels in the commission's notification
system.
Palisades'
water-intake pipe, which is below the lake bottom except at its
opening, measures 11 feet in diameter and runs away from shore
for 3,200 feet. The water enters the pipe in a 60-by-60-foot structure
that is 11 feet high and 20 feet below the lake's surface, Savage
said.
A
dive crew was able to inspect part of the structure for about
10 minutes on Sunday, but pack ice prevented them from examining
the rest.
When
conditions permit, divers will go back down with a high-pressure
steaming device to clear ice from the intake, he said.
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