Sharon Water Break Leads to Brown Water

From the Town of Sharon:

A significant water main break on Route 1 on Monday, December 19 near Old Post Road has caused brown water throughout the western part of Town.

A very brief history and chemistry lesson: Sharon was used for bog iron mining during the revolutionary war period, hence the street names like Iron Hollow and Cannon Ball. As a result of the prevalence of iron, Sharon’s groundwater is rich in this mineral. In addition, water in New England in general is acidic with a pH around 6. Because of this corrosiveness, we add potassium hydroxide (KOH) to raise the pH to 8 in order to prevent lead and copper from leaching out of home copper piping and plumbing fixtures. Unfortunately, this causes the naturally occurring iron to precipitate out as iron oxide and when stirred up, makes the water appear to be yellow/orange/brown.

This precipitate tends to settle out in our water mains during periods of limited water use. Generally, this occurs during the winter. This is the reason we do flushing during the spring time. Ironically, because of water use restrictions and bans that were imposed this summer, the settling of precipitates occurred earlier than normal and once stirred up because of the break, resulted in the colored water.

The Sharon Water Department recognizes that our operations are integrally connected to broader water resource and public health management interests and that providing high-quality drinking water for public health is the single most important aspect of our work.

Image: File photo