Ice pigging returns to St. Cloud next week — after a COVID-19 scare on the crew — to remedy discolored water

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City hears Toho Water proposal to manage St. Cloud Utilities

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  • After running for about 3 minutes, this is the 'After' picture of an ice pigging operation. PHOTO/KEN JACKSON
    After running for about 3 minutes, this is the 'After' picture of an ice pigging operation. PHOTO/KEN JACKSON
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In response to the continued problem of discolored water in portions of the city, the City of St. Cloud is working — feverishly in places — on remedying it.

Ice pigging operations — which involve freezing a brine substance and pushing it through pipes to clean resin and other sediment out of pipes that cause the discoloration — have restarted throughout the city.

American Pipeline Solutions began running the operation through residential lines last week, and is scheduled to keep it up for six more weeks. Workers were out in Pine Lake Estates late last week, and a sheet listing further locations throughout the city will keep them busy running cold brine through the city’s water lines well into hot August and September.

Here’s ice pigging in a nutshell: potable water and add food-grade table salt are mixed to make the brine solution, then chill it in tanks to 24 degrees. The result is a “slurry”, or a slushy icy mass that is pushed through the pipes, taking any sediment lying in the pipes with it.

The idea is to get the last of orange MIEX (magnetic ionic exchange) resin out of the pipes that was sent out of a failed treatment facility — you may hear St. Cloud officials talk about “Plant No. 4” — back in 2016. MIEX is an “inert material and not a carcinogen,” said Marjorie Craig, St. Cloud’s Environmental Utility Director, at the first of what the city plans to be weekly press conferences on the subject Fridays at 2 p.m.

“This resin can be sneaky, and hide in places in the pipes that don’t ordinarily get flushed,” she said.

Those who witness an ice pigging see an icy orange or brown-colored wash pushed through the pipes. After a few minutes of high-pressure running, that water becomes clear and the pipe is sufficiently washed.

St. Cloud began the operation in March 2020, when resident water color complaints skyrocketed, right as the coronavirus pandemic was taking hold.

APS bought out the assets of SUEZ, who St. Cloud originally contracted with, within the last year. Paul Treloar, APS’ Director of Business Management and the onsite project manager, said ice pigging is “a very good tool” for cleaning smaller residential pipes.

“It’s harmless, and the salinity is constantly monitored,” he said. “It behaves like a solid as it goes through the pipe. Short-term discoloration is normal during the process, but it is a very good tool, especially for cleaning these residential PVC pipes, which are usually four or eight-inches.”

Despite the salinity, APS says the solution doesn’t hurt the sewer system when it is finally flushed out of the treated pipes.

“Each street we’ve cleared should be getting some nice clean water,” Treloar said.

It’s necessary to shut off the water to homes serviced by the pipes being cleaned for a couple of hours. The city has been providing notice to residents ahead of time, and delivering bottled water to use during the shutoff.

“We want the residents and community to understand what and why we’re doing what we’re doing,” St. Cloud Communications Director Maryemma Bachelder said. “It’s easier to do during the day, when most people are at work.”

St. Cloud Utilities is using additional methods to help clean pipes. Unilateral flushing, a high-pressure “flush” of pipes that can occur at night, and line swabbing, which is cleaning of higher-capacity pipes, have also been carried out in much of 2021.

It’s all part of a commitment to resolve the water coloration issue, City Manager Bill Sturgeon said, once the number of weekly complaints reached double digits again in July.

“We want to make sure it never happens again, period,” he said. “We’ll continue efforts until we get zero calls on it. We also have teams from OUC and Toho Water helping us, to provide some outside eyes on it."

In this latest effort, Sturgeon said Friday the city has ice-pigged 27 miles of pipe, and swabbed 36 and flushed 105 more.

The city wants to hear from residents who continue to have water quality issues. The St. Cloud Utilities Customer Service number is 407-957-7344, or email customerservice@stcloud.org.

“And we’re looking into other ways residents can log their complaints,” Sturgeon said.

Mayor Nathan Blackwell called the issue a “long, painful frustrating journey for all of us,” and said he wants to restore faith in residents that the city can deliver clean and usable water.

“We live inside the city, we drink the water, we’ve all been impacted as a staff,” he said.

This comes at a time when the Toho Water Authority has presented the City of St. Cloud a proposal to assume the management of the City’s utilities system

During a July 26 workshop, Toho Water Executive Director Todd Swingle presented a plan to the City Council that would enable 75 to 85 percent of St. Cloud Utilities customers is an “immediate reduction in their rates,’ and that all current Utilities employees would retain their jobs, their pension, their benefits, and their seniority.

The plan would be for Toho Water to take over management, which would require just a City Council majority vote. One Council member, Keith Trace, wanted to evaluate selling the utility, which would require the Council to agree to put it on an election ballot; it would need a two-thirds vote to pass.

Swingle said fixing the resin-based water coloration issue would be a Toho-managed city utility’s top priority, with the ability to provide additional scale and resources.

City officials stressed that this is merely preliminary conversation at this point, with no deal in place. The Council requested more dialogue with Toho Water, which will make a formal presentation in the future.