Pioneer water quality complaints subside

Pioneer Rural Water has gone three weeks without a water quality complaint, and district officials are hoping it’s a sign that, at least for now, taste and odor issues are behind them. The Oconee-Anderson supplier last summer switched to Lake Hartwell raw water, drawn from the lake, and treated at the first-year treatment plant. Soon thereafter, however, sporadic complaints cropped up, prompting a corrective investigation. “Our water is better,” Oakway’s Mark Holbrooks said this afternoon. Holbrooks is a Pioneer board member who, personally, couldn’t tell any difference in water quality pre-treatment plant and post-treatment. But Holbrooks’ wife could. He says she now considers the water normal. Pioneer is taking no chances. It has embarked on a series of periodic tests to monitor the water for quality and will search for any kinds of algae blooms within the vicinity of Pioneer’s lake water intake.