PETROLIA — A long list of water concerns haunting Petroleum Valley Regional Water Authority officials might further complicate water issues plaguing the Bradys Bend area.

PVRWA officials filed a barrage of Right to Know requests seeking information on the East Brady Water System. Sitting beside the resulting paperwork, PVRWA board Chairman Jeff Shumaker succinctly described his agency's position.

“There's something wrong, but we don't know what it is,” Shumaker said. “We don't know if it's malicious intent or incompetence. But we know there's something wrong.”

Bradys Bend Water and Sewer Authority had to put many of its customers on a boil water advisory last month after a Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection inspection found its system out of compliance.

An emergency connection is being established between Bradys Bend and PVRWA to resolve the problem. The Bradys Bend community would switch its system over to buy water from PVRWA, rather than producing it itself from a limestone mine.

However, PVRWA in turn gets its water from East Brady.

As Shumaker noted, PVRWA and East Brady are not enjoying a happy relationship. PVRWA officials say they're hoping to leave East Brady in the coming years, throwing further uncertainty into the evolving situation.

The Petrolia-based PVRWA was founded in 2002 to provide drinking water to an area without any of its own.The area hosted years of heavy industrial use, and groundwater that ordinarily could be tapped is widely polluted.Instead, the agency bought and continues to buy its water from East Brady, as does Rimersburg.In 2016, East Brady upped the cost of water it sells to PVRWA by about 79 percent, from $1.82 per thousand gallons to $3.25. This hike largely triggered many of the disputes between the organizations.Barbara Mortimer, president of East Brady Borough Council, said the council wanted money for capital projects.“We wanted to start a capital improvement fund,” Mortimer said. “We've been doing capital projects, but we wanted to start setting aside money each year for those improvements.”PVRWA fought back.Nicholas Kerr, the authority's general manager, claims the contract doesn't justify a rate increase for such a reason.Kerr's group also argued that East Brady had been artificially inflating the cost of producing its water by not accounting for leaks in its system.PVRWA lost arbitration over the rate increase, but its officials still maintain their old arguments.Today, they're also convinced East Brady is selling them water with quality issues without disclosing them.

The biggest concerns aired by PVRWA center on those two points: water loss and water quality.Using various DEP reports, Kerr deduced East Brady is withdrawing significantly more water than the amount it reports to be selling. He estimates the group is losing about 80 million gallons a year, well above the amount DEP would seek to investigate.“If my pipe breaks, do I get to charge you for the water I didn't get to sell?” Kerr asked.The other claim deals with recent water-quality problems that PVRWA claims are East Brady's fault.Within the last year, PVRWA had two rounds of water sampling that exceeded the DEP's lead action level limit.“This is not a violation in and of itself,” explained DEP spokesman Tom Decker. “It just means the next step for Petroleum Valley is to submit a corrosion control feasibility study.”However, Kerr argues such issues couldn't be caused by their system because it was built in the early 2000s, long after lead use was discontinued in water systems.Instead, he thinks East Brady is selling water to PVRWA that isn't being adequately treated.“This system was created without any lead pipes,” Kerr said. “It's a new system. When they say there's lead in our system, it's incredibly misleading.”In older systems that still have some lead pipes or fixtures, water authorities use certain chemical treatments to mitigate related problems. One way is by adjusting the pH level of their water, as certain levels won't pull lead from its containers along for the ride.Another, more expensive option is to treat water with an inhibitor, a substance that essentially coats the inside of pipes, protecting the water.In March, the DEP issued East Brady a citation for not treating its water with caustic soda, a pH adjustment specified in the plant's permit.Kerr believes the facility hadn't been using the treatment for much longer than that, citing various documents that led to a pipe corrosion control study in East Brady's system in 2018.He and Shumaker assert the lack of treatment must have caused their own system's lead readings.

Mortimer directed all technical questions about East Brady's water system to Rick Barnett, a Senate Engineering engineer who handles the facility.Barnett confirmed that when his firm took over East Brady in 2016, caustic soda wasn't being used. The facility failed water sampling tests for copper levels that same year.Two of 20 samples, he said, came in over the DEP action level of 1.3 milligrams of copper per liter. The two failed tests' average is recorded at 1.376 milligrams per liter.Barnett wouldn't comment on the health implications of such an exceedance, as his expertise is in engineering, but he noted that they followed DEP instructions and timetables to deal with such a level.In 2018, at the request of the DEP, East Brady conducted a study to decide “if replacement of the caustic feed equipment was the most economical solution to address the copper issue.” The study eventually determined so.The caustic feed equipment was ordered, but wasn't installed during the March 2019 inspection, causing the violation. It was, however, installed and working as of April 18, according to the DEP.As for the water loss, Barnett said Kerr's figures don't show the massive leaks Kerr sees. He reported a 16 percent loss, below the 20 percent mark at which the DEP starts wanting greater intervention.“It all depends on what numbers you're using,” Barnett said. “And I believe that the numbers East Brady is using and reporting to the state are accurate to what their loss is.”

Decker said DEP records generally reflect East Brady's take on the situation.Water loss at East Brady hasn't risen above 20 percent for the past decade, according to Decker.He also noted the group is no longer under violation for the copper readings, and lead readings in PVRWA are not yet causing a violation.On Tuesday, DEP officials are meeting with PVRWA officials to discuss lead levels. PVRWA folks believe they're going to be made to perform expensive inhibitor treatment on water they're buying from East Brady.

Whatever the situation, PVRWA officials seem to have lost confidence in East Brady. Accusations aside, they're worried more price increases are on their way, although Mortimer said there are no such plans.Kerr and Shumaker confirmed they're actively seeking an alternative water source to develop. Their contract with East Brady expires in 2024.In the past several months, they were looking into buying Bradys Bend's water system and switching over to it as their source. Its recent issues halted those talks, Kerr said.The men still see Bradys Bend in their own future plans, however.“If we get our own water source, and Bradys Bend doesn't do anything to fix their own source, we could acquire them or something similar,” Shumaker said. “But we have to get away from (East Brady). We're at their mercy.”