SUMMIT TWP — Pennsylvania American Water on Thursday released its plan to keep Butler County’s drinking water clean.

The company, which provides about 12 million gallons per day to about 47,000 customers in Butler County, released its Source Water Protection Plan for Lake Oneida and Thorn Run during a presentation at the company’s office.

Lake Oneida and Thorn Run are the raw water sources for Butler County’s drinking water.

“Our team expended considerable time and resources to develop this Source Water Protection Plan,” Kristine Donaldson, Pennsylvania American’s water quality supervisor, said in a news release.

The plan’s goal is to create protection zones, identify contaminants, create protection strategies and plan for the future.

The water company created three zones — labeled “A”, “B” and “C” — which are watershed management areas, to protect waters from contaminants, she said.

Once a contaminant enters Zone A, it will take five hours to become hazardous to the water source. For Zone B, it will take between five and 25 hours, and for Zone C it will take more than 25 hours.

Common contaminants can come from farms, including animal waste and sediment; from roads, including dirt, salt and vehicle fluids; or even from residential areas, including garden chemicals.

Areas that were mapped for protection are underground coal mines and abandoned surfaces, she said.

Once the contaminants are identified, protection strategies can be used, such as Pennsylvania American forming partnerships with other water systems and environmental groups. The company also can provide public outreach programs and promote homeowner awareness of water safety.

Signs can be put up to alert people of watershed areas, either locally or on major highways.

When planning for the future, the company will review land use to ensure future sources’ water protection.

The company also demonstrated its use of WaterSuite during the presentation.

WaterSuite is geographic information system software that provides images of potential sources of contamination within a watershed.

This system also is able to share and import water-quality measurements, and can track water quality and chemicals’ movement during emergencies.

Also valuable to the company is its Supervisory Controlled Data Acquisition (SCATA) technology.

Ron Bargiel, Pennsylvania American’s water quality manager, noted that SCATA is an oil and water probe, and measures temperature, pH, conductivity, and has oxidation reduction potential.

“It’s good to go out and take a sample every once in a while, but that’s a snapshot,” he said. “The real-time data is what you need.”

There has been increased awareness in water safety recently, particularly after the issues with lead in drinking water in Flint, Mich.

However, Pennsylvania American external affairs manager Gary Lobaugh said that is not the reason for the protection plan.

“This was not a knee-jerk reaction to anything that happened recently,” he said. “We have been out in front as a company for quite some time.”