City water crews will begin the annual, city-wide hydrant flushing program Monday night, Sept. 7.
Typically, we flush the city’s hydrants in the spring; this year, a rehabilitation project at the water treatment facility early in the year delayed the program.
Crews expect this year’s program to last just three weeks. Water staff and their engineering consultant determined they could shorten the program time by adding additional staff, and using a different sequence to flush the hydrants. We expect this will provide better results in fewer days.
Crews will flush hydrants overnight, from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. The overnight work schedule helps minimize the inconvenience to our customers, and allows the water to stabilize in the mains before the regular daily water demand begins.
They expect to follow this schedule:
- Week of Sept. 7 – Area north of Dickman Road, to include Bedford, and the northern part of the Emmett Township water system.
- Week of Sept. 14 – Area south of Dickman, working out to the Fort Custer Industrial Park.
- Week of Sept. 21 – South to Beckley Road, and the end of Capital Avenue SW.
Maps will be posted to the city’s website next week, battlecreekmi.gov/publicworks. Click Water & Wastewater, then Hydrant Flushing.
The flushing process often results in cloudy or discolored water. Please keep this in mind when doing laundry, or other potentially affected tasks. Crews do what they can to limit this, and the water is safe during the process. You could see discolored or rusty water in the area crews are flushing, as well as in adjacent areas. If you have discolored water, we recommend running water at the cold taps in your home or business.
Flushing hydrants and water mains provides several benefits. Regular flushing provides water of the highest quality to our customers. It also allows our crews to verify that our water system is operating properly, and identifies areas that require maintenance and/or repairs. This process also ensures that fire hydrants are ready for use, should the Fire Department need them.
We appreciate everyone’s patience as we perform this work on our infrastructure.