Quick action by a plant employee prevented contamination from reaching the purification system at the Allen Water Filter Plant so the city’s water supply was never threatened.

The filter plant takes raw water from sources like the South Platte River and puts it through a many-step purification system to provide drinking water for the city of Englewood’s residents.

Stu Fonda, utilities director, said an operator was making a routine check about 1 a.m. Christmas day when he detected a strong petroleum odor in the water coming into the plant from the South Platte River by way of the Union Avenue Pump Station.

“The technician took immediate action, shutting down the flow of water from the pump station to the filter plant,” Fonda said “He then followed the plant procedures as he immediately called for additional plant personnel to help handle the situation plus he notified the Environmental Protection Agency and Homeland Security of what had happened.”

Plant personnel quickly opened the gates to allow flow in the city ditch, which brought a supply of uncontaminated water into the plant. The new source of water provided what was needed to flush all the contamination out of the system plus provide a back-up supply when the plant went back on line.

At the same time, EPA personnel were at work determining the type and, if possible, the source of the contamination.

Fonda said the EPA report stated the contamination was most probably a petroleum-based cleaning solution that probably was illegally dumped into the South Platte River in order to avoid the costly process to properly dispose of it.

Bill McCormick, utilities operations superintendent, said crews worked quickly to restore plant operations.

“We used the water from the city ditch to flush the pretreatment system and the filters so we could restore operations. We had to have EPA approval to start pumping water to the system and we got the approval about six hours after the problem was discovered,” he said. “Fortunately, it is winter so demand is low and we had treated water stored so there was never any interruption in water pressure of supplies.”

However, the cleanup went on long after plant operations resumed. He said, while most of the flushing and cleanup was done in about eight hours, it took about 16 hours to drain and flush the retention pond.