Thomas Mackey Water Treatment Plant Annual Maintenance 2024
Gulf Coast Water Authority Thomas S. Mackey Water Treatment Plant
Annual Maintenance
April 8, 2024 through May 6, 2024
To protect public health, all public water systems (PWS) in the State of Texas, such as the Gulf Coast Water Authority, are required to disinfect drinking water before providing it to customers. Many PWSs use chloramine (free chlorine and ammonia), an effective disinfectant that persists over a long period of time, making it particularly valuable in areas with high temperatures.
A water system that uses chloramine may sometimes employ a free-chlorine conversion, removing ammonia from the treatment process and disinfecting the water only with free chlorine. This common practice is used as preventive maintenance to kill bacteria that, though harmless when consumed by humans, can introduce unwanted taste and odor and create issues with maintaining a disinfectant residual.
The TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) will allow a delay in the collection of Disinfection Byproducts (DBP) samples for up to 30 days during a calendar year since water quality during this time does not represent normal operating conditions. If a system continues to use free chlorine for longer than 30 days in a calendar year, the use of this type of disinfectant will no longer be considered temporary, and thus no additional DBP sampling delay will be allowed.
