This post is the raw footage of the meeting. (Some attendees have offered to write a summary or commentary; stay tuned for that.) The numbering indicates the agenda item for the video section.

• 1&2: Call to order; accept minutes of February meeting
• 3: Treasurer’s Report
• 4: Accounts Payable
• 5: 2019+2020 Audit
• 8: Election
• 9: Lab RFP
• 10: Staffing
• 11: Emergency Response Plan
• 12: System Status
• 13: Capital Projects
• 14: Corrective Action Plan
• 15: Executive Session
• Wrap-Up

While there hasn’t been a lot of fanfare (such as web site postings), the 2021 PIWD election is planned for Saturday, June 19, at Hope Brown Center, from 8am to 1pm. Democracy is not passive… please vote if you are eligible.

PIWD board members serve 4 year terms, but the terms are staggered such that there are elections every two years. The terms for the following board positions are expiring, according to https://www.portsmouthri.com/218/Prudence-Island-Water-District:

Board Member – Currently held by Phil Brooks, who is unfortunately not eligible for reelection, having sold his property on Prudence Island. Chuck Bear has turned in a nomination form and should appear on the ballot; others may be written in.

Clerk – Currently held by Chris Brown, who is rumored to be running as a write-in for reelection. Mike Sheehan is also willing to serve if he wins by write-in.

Treasurer – Currently held by Ann-Marie Lockwood, who is rumored to have filled in nomination papers and will be on the ballot for reelection; others may be written in.

If you, or anyone you know, is running as a write-in candidate for a board seat, please consider letting us know in the comments, or via the contact form. That way, we can update this article and help people get familiar with their options.

Prudence Island isn’t exactly a resort in Riviera Maya, but it got me wondering. How do resorts in places with variable rainfall and mediocre public infrastructure get enough clean water for thousands of guests? Guests who want the sheets washed every day or two? Guests with access to lots of swimming pools and Jacuzzi tubs, and the highest standards for drinking and bathing water?

In many cases, the answer is that seawater is being turned into high-quality drinking water using a combination of equipment, electricity, and a few treatment chemicals. If you have access to the sea (and plenty of money), you can have a steady supply of clean water.

Out of curiosity, I searched the internet to see what these seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) systems cost, what they look like, how much space they take, how much energy they use, and how much they otherwise cost to operate. Bearing in mind that Prudence Island uses 7 million gallons per year, 20,000 gallons per day (with much higher consumption of about 50,000GPD in the summer, of course), it seems that a suitably-sized SWRO system would be relatively compact, being palletized or fitting in a 20-foot (or maybe full-length) inter-modal shipping container. Prices are in the $50,000-$100,000 range, and operating costs are around $4/1,000 gallons (working out to $30,000 per year at PI consumption rates). While this sounds a bit pricey, considering the PIWD has a budget in the $250,000/yr range, it’s not out of the question.

Obviously, this post is just a musing by a non-expert. Prudence Island is blessed with a number of decent freshwater wells, which provide water that is much easier to treat than seawater. Since we’re so much better off than the worst-case scenario of getting water out of the bay, there is real hope that water experts will have a technological solution to Prudence Island’s water problems that is affordable.

It was a monumental effort. On December 9, 2020, after a couple of years of hard work (and at a cost of at least 14 customer connections), the Prudence Island Water District finally claimed success in implementing its cross connection control plan (CCCP).

Unfortunately, on December 13, 2020, a routine test for coliform bacteria came back positive. While the CCCP may have been an important step in protecting the island water system from backsiphonage in low-pressure events, it turns out that backflow could not have been the only way bacteria were entering the water system. (This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has been paying any attention at all.)

So what happens next? The Rhode Island Department of Health asked some follow-up questions, and then simply claimed that the PIWD did not complete its plan in a satisfactory manner, because it cannot be proven that all backflow preventers were installed correctly. Due to the structure of the consent order (see top of the third page, items 10 and 11), PIWD cannot legally argue about this. (And, due to ongoing contamination of the water, perhaps it shouldn’t be argue anyway.)

Because RIDOH has found that PIWD did not complete the CCCP successfully by December 1, 2020, and consistent with the terms of the consent order (see the 4th page of the consent order, item 6, with revised dates), RIDOH has asked that Prudence Island use the same solution as the rest of the country – chlorination of the water, and has offered assistance in developing a plan at no cost to the PIWD. This will ensure that the water is safe from bacterial contaminants, regardless of small leaks, depressurization, maintenance, or other relatively minor problems that tend to plague sprawling networks of old pipes.

As previously mentioned, 2019 was a bad year for coliform in the Prudence Island water supply. In July and August, coliform was detected in the distribution system, and in the Indian Spring #4 well, which supplies the majority of water consumed on Prudence in the summer.

In September, many more samples were positive, including in the Army Camp well, which supplies the remainder of Prudence Island’s water.

Clearly, there was systematic bacterial contamination. Whenever such problems occur, a Level 2 Assessment (L2A) is triggered. This is a fancy way of saying that someone has to come and look and try to establish the root cause of the problem.

In August 2019, Robert Ferrari of Northeast Water Solutions, Inc., performed L2A #6. The assessment found problems or associated action items:

1. Pressure drops due to line breaks
2. Well casing of Indian Spring #4 not properly seated, allowing groundwater intrusion
3. Iron oxide fouling of the vent screens of Indian Springs #4

The report also contained 3 other action items which were unlikely to be related to the bacterial contamination.

Due to the rash of positive samples in September, another L2A (#7) was triggered and was conducted with no new findings.

Astute readers will notice that, thus far, no explanation was proposed for the positive coliform results on Army Camp well. L2A #8, performed by Rob Ferrari, found that the sampling tap had a potential “defect”, and additional corrective actions were proposed.

To summarize 2019, the two important corrective actions proposed to rectify the causes of 2019’s coliform contamination were repairs to the IS#4 well, and the repair of the sampling tap at Army Camp well. By May of 2020, these repairs were complete.

(To satisfy anyone interested in identifying the cause of every positive test result, there was a positive coliform sample on John Oldham Road in March, 2020, taken during a line repair. It is generally accepted that the sampling location was to blame.)

If these defects explained everything, we would be hoping for an uneventful 2020 summer and fall. Unfortunately, that is not what occurred.

Once again, in the 2020 season, coliform pervaded the system, including both water wells. This triggered L2A #10 (if you are wondering what happened to L2A #9, it was a mere process issue), in which it was observed that there are not backflow preventers on the wells. It seems that there will be an attempt to put backflow preventers on the wells themselves, perhaps on the assumption that contaminants entered the well because of backflow or backsiphonage, resulting in the positive well samples. It immediately occurs to me that this explanation is unsatisfactory for the following reasons:

1. The well pump has a check valve in it, which would prevent this flow, unless said valve malfunctioned… and it would have had to occur to both wells to explain both positive samples
2. The water that could have flowed back into the wells is our drinking water. A sufficient supply that wouldn’t defy gravity would have had to have come from the other well or Big Blue, and should be free of contaminants.

So we’re still searching for an explanation of how contamination got into the distribution system in large quantities, yet again. Once again, we’re searching for another mole to whack, another possible way for things too small to be seen to gain entrance to miles of aging pipes.

To be continued…

Short Story?  Prudence Island’s water problems come directly from the wells.

On August 27, 2019, and September 24, 2019 Indian Spring Well #4 was tested and coliform was present.  On September 24, 2019, coliform was also present in the Army Camp well.

As always, the official state records can be found at: https://dwq.health.ri.gov:8443/DWW/

But the most interesting information is in the screen shot below:

When coliform is detected in the water, a “Level 2 Assessment” must be performed to attempt to identify the source of the contamination.  This time, video from the Indian Spring well taken in 2013 was reviewed, and finally the defect was identified.  This means that coliform from Indian Spring well #4 could be the explanation for many of the contamination problems over the last several years. (The full L2 report is available, but see the image below for the relevant excerpt.)

It also means that the boil water order will probably have to extend until the well defects are corrected, or treatment is installed.  (And while the likely Indian Spring defect has been identified, the presence of coliform in Army Camp well remains a mystery… stay tuned for the next L2A…)