Water samples from Kalona showed increased levels of manganese in the city’s water supply at the beginning of the month. Results from July 3 showed the city had manganese levels of .347 mg/L, which was above the Environmental Protection Agency’s short-term advisory level of .3 mg/L.

This is especially important for infants under 6 months old, who can experience learning or behavioral problems later in life if they get too much manganese, usually from drinking formula made with manganese-high water.

City Administrator Ryan Schlabaugh said the city has already seen the manganese level go below this threshold. Over the weekend, July 9-11, the city was seeing manganese levels of .08 or .09 mg/L. Schlabaugh said he expects the levels to continue to trend lower.

To address the manganese levels, the city brought in the city engineer and other water professionals to do work within the city’s filtration system.

“We removed all sludge from the system and did a complete power wash and chlorine treatment of our water system,” Schlabaugh said. “We’ve seen the manganese level go down considerably with some of those efforts from city staff.”

Kalona has been actively working with the city’s water for about five weeks, Schlabaugh said, after receiving reports of cloudy and brown water.

The city has taken a multi-faceted approach to dealing with the water quality issue, flushing hydrants, filtration systems and even having the water tower professionally drained and cleaned.

Going forward, the city plans to replace all of the media within the number two water filter system and continue monitoring the water to see if that is the root cause of the water discoloration problems. Then, the city plans to do the same thing to the number one filter system. They don’t want to treat both filters at the same time so they can see clearly how the treatment affects the city’s water.

“There are a lot of moving parts to this issue. Ideally, there’d be a playbook you could go to to pinpoint what the issue is and handle it, but there’s not,” Schlabaugh said. “Matt [Jacoby, of Public Works] and his staff have done a wonderful job of daily testing and making fine-tuned adjustments on that.”

The city has been working with the DNR, Garden & Associates and other water suppliers, tapping into their expertise and what they’ve seen other communities do to mitigate water issues.

“Everybody has been very willing to provide their assistance and their skills to help us get to the point where we are,” Schlabaugh said. “We’re not perfect, but we feel we’re trending in the right direction.”