EAST BRADY, Clarion County — Borough council voted Tuesday to publicly respond to allegations of impropriety leveraged against its water treatment system.

Council voted unanimously to send a letter to the editor of the Butler Eagle responding to statements made by officials of the Petrolium Valley Regional Water Authority.

PVRWA officials believe East Brady, which sells PVRWA its water, is responsible for water quality issues that are requiring the Petrolia-based authority to conduct a corrosion study of its system.

East Brady board members did not have the letter available for sharing Tuesday night, but Council President Barbara Mortimer said they may send it as soon as Wednesday.

The letter should appear in the Butler Eagle shortly after.

PVRWA officials have been outspoken, but only Mortimer has offered comment on PVRWA's accusations, and she commented only in a limited fashion. She previously directed most questions to engineer Rick Barnett of Senate Engineering.

Barnett referenced the water quality work that is the subject of PVRWA's main claim during Tuesday night's meeting.

“The pH levels have been stabilized for a couple months, since early May,” Barnett said. “They've been in the range they should be.”

East Brady began treating its water with a pH controlling substance in April after being served a Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection order for not doing so in March.

The DEP revoked the violation after East Brady began the treatment.

Later in April, PVRWA conducted routine sampling of its water for various contaminants.

Too many samples returned lead levels over the action level, so now the authority must pay for a study to see how to address it.

PVRWA manager Nicholas Kerr believes East Brady is to blame for that failed test, as his system was created in 2002 and doesn't contain lead. He thinks a test conducted later after East Brady corrected its problem may not have returned such a sample. The pH adjustment in question is a means to control the corrosion of lead pipes and fixtures.

The complaints between PVRWA and East Brady arrive as a third entity — Bradys Bend Township Water and Sewer Authority — grapples with its own problems.

The authority is seeking to connect its entire system to PVRWA's after a DEP inspection put most of Bradys Bend on a boil water advisory in June.

Bradys Bend would then be buying water from PVRWA that PVRWA is buying from East Brady.

Mortimer noted that she and another council member, Joe Hillwig, attended a community meeting last month in Bradys Bend about the advisory, but nothing else pertaining to that situation was discussed Tuesday.

Bradys Bend Township held its regular meeting Monday night, but nothing regarding the water advisory was discussed. That community's water board meets at 7 p.m. Thursday.