ST CHARLES, Mo. — The City of St. Charles is fully relying on St. Louis for drinking water after it shut down the Elm Point Water Treatment Plant on Sunday.
In a Monday announcement, the city said the level of free ammonia in the raw groundwater, which is vital for disinfecting the water, had suddenly dropped for an unidentified reason. The plant has run for 70 years by using the water's naturally occurring ammonia to react with chlorine, which produces mono-chloramines that act as the water distribution system's primary disinfectant.
"Everyone deserves clean drinking water no matter where you live," said Kara Elms with City of St. Charles Clean Water Advocates.
It's why she is ringing the alarm.
"I've been asking about how this site is being monitored," she said.
She's referring to the St. Charles Wellfield, where the EPA ordered Ameren to remove cleaning solvents from decades ago that led to contamination. At the time, St. Charles closed six of its seven wells as a result. Monday, city leaders announced they now have to close the remaining well.
"What we suspect is Ameren and their process of cleansing the substation has released a lot of chemicals in the soil which stripped out the contaminants, thank you. But it stripped everything else out too," Mayor Dan Borgmeyer said.
Borgmeyer says that includes ammonia, a vital solution for keeping drinking water clean. Now the city is paying more to purchase more water from St. Louis for people who live in St. Charles.
Over the weekend, city leaders discovered unusually low levels of ammonia in their wellfield.
"The ammonia level we are currently at is approximately a third of what it should be. It's too low for us to be able to produce safe drinking water," said Utilities Superintendent John Phillips.
A timeline for when the plant could be reactivated was not given.
An Ameren spokesperson on Monday gave the following statement:
"We have not received any data or analysis indicating that a report of an issue at the Elm Point Water Treatment Plant is connected to Ameren.
"We remain focused on remediation efforts at our substation. All work has been approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and is done under the agency’s supervision. We are committed to continued transparency, and further information is available at AmerenMissouri.com/StCharles."
This month, St. Charles was preparing to turn its water wells back on. The city had purchased an $8 -10 million water system upgrade to accompany Ameren's cleanup efforts. Then this problem surfaced.
For now, the options are to continue purchasing ammonia and/or continue to buy more water from St. Louis -- both coming at a cost to taxpayers.
"We'd like to source our own water, not be depending on someone else," Elms said.