More on the water treatment matter

A water quality employee here told me the response has been "slow" to the new city water treatment plant. This is not surprising at all. The path of least resistance is always easiest to follow. People in their busy lives don't wish to disrupt things a lot. Everything isn't always perfect, and our wisdom tells us just to leave well enough alone most of the time. It is simple prudence.
So what if we might be purchasing more softener salt than we might have to? We hear the hectoring talk of City of Morris officials, as they are actually resorting to legal threats. Our instinct is to not take this talk at face value. The threats came through a front page Morris newspaper article about three weeks ago. I don't have the article as reference now - I never expected to be writing more than once on the topic.
I don't buy the paper and can see it in three public places. Therefore I can stay abreast of everything happening in Hancock, what must be a real "going" community now, based on how much attention it gets in the Morris paper. Hancock had its own paper until not long ago.
I just assumed there would be some follow-up or clarification material on the water softener topic, in the week following the "threat" issue. The city council warned in stark terms that people still with "old" water softeners would be in violation of the law. Perhaps people saw this and thought it was a bluff. Keep in mind that a great many people do not buy and do not see the Morris paper. You might say most people "lead lives of quiet desperation." These people have had their water quality responsibilities handled just fine, therefore leave well enough alone. BTW I have seen no follow-up in the paper.
Some time ago, as I explained to council member Kevin Wohlers, I simply had the softener matter on my "list of things to do." I had no idea this would become a hair-pulling matter. Initially I called the company that made the softener that was in our basement. I am no expert and therefore I have to hire people. I guess we had one of those "old" softeners - "old" is an ambiguous term - and thus it could not be routinely adjusted. I paid about $100 for the visit even though nothing was done. I felt I was being a responsible citizen because I at least had it looked into.
The Kinetico rep did not "push" the idea of getting a new softener. I was later told by Eco Water that Kinetico would have quoted a price of $6000 for a new softener. I would not have done that even under threat of legal penalty by the City of Morris.
The people with "old" softeners have not done anything wrong. They had a system that was perfectly acceptable. An irony is that these people have softeners that are over-performing rather than under-performing. The new softeners are called "on demand" and they use considerably less salt. So the City of Morris proclaims this as some sort of huge advantage. That's terrific, all things being equal. Problem is, many people are going to be told they need a new softener. To which the city would say, just go softener-free. Disconnect.
I looked into that but did not feel confident at all doing the disconnecting process on my own. It's not like there was a simple plug-in, at least not one I could see. Instead I saw various hoses, tubes and valves. Heck, I'm not going to dive into that, any more than I would open the hood of my car and attempt a repair. There are many stories out there about disasters from people - almost all men, I'd suggest - who attempt their own car repairs. In the old days, mastery of auto mechanics or at least pretending of same, was a major badge of manliness. Today, take the car to the dealer and have them hook up the computer.
Here's a key question: Why hasn't the city made a clear and loud proclamation for everyone to simply disconnect their softener? Maybe because it has received legal advice not to. There's a good chance some people will allege there are still issues with water quality. I had no desire to start diving into this research. But let's delve in a little. This is an unpleasant complication in my life just before Christmas.
And here's another thought: If a substantial number of city residents are going to have to take some drastic action, the government simply needs to help more. The water treatment plant is a government project - I assume it certainly isn't private. So to help, assuming we want a government that helps us sometimes - questionable in light of how we're in such a "red" Republican congressional district - the government should offer vouchers to at least defray the cost of getting a new softener. Yes, a subsidy. A new softener can easily cost up to a couple thousand dollars. I have bitten the bullet and gotten it over with.
My deliberations on this revealed a conflict between the City of Morris and the water quality companies. Oh my, something is amiss. I shared concerns with Councilman Wohlers and he responded:
Hey Brian, what we're telling people is that the city is providing soft water. It is softened to five grams of hardness. [I believe Kevin means "grains" instead of "grams."] That being said, it is sort of a subjective thing. Some people can live with that while others can't.
  
Rather profound statement there from Mr. Wohlers, a long-time personal friend of mine. A lot is at stake here, the question of whether to spend a substantial amount of money on a new softener. And yet we get these notoriously gray area statements. "Maybe you'll like the new city water, maybe you won't."
Or, maybe the suggestion is that the new city water will be good enough for people on the lower end of the economic spectrum. "Let them eat cake" - oh that's an exaggeration.
Is the "five grains" pronouncement really accurate? There is reason to suggest it isn't. OK so let's look up a March 12 article on MPR News about our Morris water subject. Use "the Internet machine" as Rachel Maddow calls it. There's a big photo at the top, of City Manager Blaine Hill pushing buttons on his softener. I do not wish to know so much about softeners. A water quality business spokesman is quoted in the article saying the new plant "is expected to soften the water down to about five to seven grains of hardness, not remove all of the minerals."
We have Mr. Wohlers saying for the record it's five grains (not grams) flat. Is this important? Well it might be. The quantity of calcium and magnesium dissolved in water makes water "soft" or "hard." Hard water definitely creates issues. Typically, water that contains less than one grain per gallon is considered soft, while water with one to 3.5 grains per gallon is slightly hard. Water in these two categories is, by most accounts, soft enough that it does not require further softening. The grains per gallon for moderately hard, hard and very hard water are, respectively, 3.5 to 7, 7 to 10.5, and over 10.5.
So, if our Morris water is going to flirt with "seven" as the MPR article suggests it might, we'll in fact have "hard" water. Is this passable for the more well-to-do people in our community? Is it being passed off as "just fine" for the less well-advantaged? You have to wonder. Water at five grains would be "moderately hard." Yet Kevin said "the city is providing soft water."
I told him that I had this matter on my "list of things to do," to be handled routinely, and a quite opposite situation developed. I now have a new softener. But perhaps it's "lesson learned" and I ought to put up more defenses in the future to be more cynical and be more demanding of people in government. If I'm naive, I'm sorry. I will certainly strive to be less so.
It's nice having a new softener but the cost of $1500 was worrisome. Is this going to be imposed on a substantial number of Morris residents? We have the legal threat on the record from the city council via the front page newspaper article. I got Mayor Sheldon Giese to comment on that article. Yes you'll see a contradiction here: "Brian, I'm sorry that the newspaper took such a hard stance on that to scare people but I'm kind of glad that they did, because this is very important for the City of Morris."
Sheldon also shared the following with me:
 
We are watching the salt situation because we have to. The state deemed it appropriate to pay for approximately two-thirds of our water treatment system to eliminate or drastically reduce the chloride outflow to the Pomme de Terre River. If those numbers don't come down, and I'm pretty serious about this, we will need to enforce, and be sure that people are following the rules about water softeners and their salt usage. I think Blaine said it pretty appropriately that his new water softener will use, he's estimating, about one bag of salt per year. For anyone that has used a water softener in the past in the city of Morris, one bag of salt per year is a drastic reduction in cost let alone lugging the heavy bags to their softener from the store or paying a delivery fee to have them delivered. I'm a little bit concerned, no I'm a lot concerned, about the cost that is being levied by the water softener companies especially just to check the system - $100 to check your softener seems ridiculous to me. I'm happy for you that you were able to purchase a new more efficient water softener.
 
City Manager Hill has a new softener, yet the party line from the city is to just go ahead and disconnect. He proudly told me that two city council members have disconnected. But why just two?
Why do I ask questions like this? My friendship with some of these people is going to be eroded, probably already has. Very unfortunate. The worst part of the process was the confusion I was subjected to.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com