HARRINGTON, Del. - Residents of Harrington are complaining of dirty water on and off over the last few weeks.
A viewer sent us a photo of a bathtub full of dirty brown water from this week. Dean Helsel, a former city councilman who lives in Harrington, tells us it's concerning to see the water like this, and these issues happen regularly.
"My fiance and I have resorted to buying bottled water a lot of times for drinking water just for the fact you know it was brown, but god knows if it has anything in it that we don't see," said Helsel. He told WBOC that the water has been this way for the last ten years, since he moved into city limits.
"You know there's people who go to wash their clothes and they have brown water. They've had white towels ruined, a guy down the street, he actually had a grime or a grit in the water. When he flushed his toilet you could see it, and when he turned on his faucet it's like sandpaper," he said.
We called Harrington's City Council, and Councilman Eric Marquis SAID the water was brown due to hydrant flushing. Marquis acknowledged that there is a part of the city hit harder with dirty water when flushing the hydrants, and that public works would be closing that loop in the future.
We reached out to the city's public works department; on the city's web page it says hydrant flushing is done on the third week of the month. A public works employee who answered the phone Thursday would not comment on when the hydrants were flushed in the city.
Police Chief and Acting City Manager Norman Barlow said by phone late Thursday afternoon it's an infrastructure issue that he hopes they will be able to resolve in the future.
For now, neighbors will be keeping an eye on their faucets.
