CHARLESTOWN, Ind. (WDRB) -- After decades of dirty water and wondering when it's ever going to be fixed, neighbors in Charlestown, Indiana, could soon get the answers they desperately need.
Many neighbors have suffered through years of brown water running through their faucets in their homes.
“Do you have clean water at home?” WDRB asked Charlestown resident, Nicole Edmonson.
“No I do not,” she replied. “I have brown.”
“It turns brown,” Charlestown resident, Carl Booth said.
“Most of the time it's black, sometimes its brown,” Charlestown resident, Doug Musgrave said. “It's never clear.”
“I buy bottles of water,” Edmonson said. “I won't even give it to my dog.”
“Matter of fact, I’m here to get [my dog] bottled water now because he's out,” Booth said.
A WDRB investigation last winter revealed the cause. Manganese in the water turns it brown. A different company, Indiana American Water, recently took over Charlestown's water. Neighbors are now looking for answers to their questions.
“I'd like to know when they're going to start repairing these lines that are so bad,” Booth said.
“I want to know how long it’s going to take until the water is clean,” Musgrave said.
Indiana American Water scheduled an open house meeting for all 3,000 affected homes accounting for more than 7,800 people on May 22 from 5 p.m. until 7 p.m. Neighbors can arrive anytime during that window to ask their questions.
Company officials will answer questions about plans to update infrastructure and billing and payments.
City leaders will also be there to answer questions on sanitation and sewer bills and credits to people's water bills.
“I just hope we get very good clean water out of all of this because my bill has gone up,” Edmonton said.
Copyright 2019 WDRB Media. All rights reserved.
