Germantown water crisis: What an independent review concluded about diesel contamination
A non-finalized independent review of the Germantown water contamination was presented Monday night at the Germantown Mayor and Board of Alderman meeting. James Lewellen, former Collierville Town Administrator, was selected in August to conduct the independent review.
Lewellen was tasked with conducting a review in addition to an after-action assessment of the water contamination in Germantown. He said that the water crisis that occurred was a "black swan" event and that Germantown was as prepared as could have been.
"Everyone involved including regulatory agencies, consultants ― they all had no experience with this kind of contamination of water," Lewellen said. "Everyone had to learn and had to decide to incorporate types of response during the event."
On July 20 at the Southern Avenue Water Treatment Plant, approximately 300 gallons of diesel spilled after an employee error. The diesel leaked into the soil surrounding the pipes that lead to the underground reservoir. While the city attempted to mitigate the error by removing the contaminated soil, they did not realize a pipe had a leak in it and was feeding trace amounts of deiseal into the water.
It was only after the leaky pipe was patched, and new soil was placed into the ground, that diesel was no longer contaminating the water supply.
In the presentation, Lewellen said that the problem was a "well-hidden problem," and there was nothing that could have been done to shorten the time "except for maybe by a few hours."
While their response to the emergency and reaction to it was standard, Lewellen said the communication to the public could have been better.
In Lewellen's report, he said there was a lack of clear and concise communication with residents in Germantown. Lewellen suggested in the presentation that communication about emergency situations be improved in the future by developing a communication system that will aid in understanding.
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During the span of the crisis, Germantown would release all the water testing information but did not explain the metrics until days after they were initially posted.
"We (did) a great job of distributing information, but we don't have the systems in place to ensure our understanding. That's closing (of) the loop is making sure that our information is received, understood the context that we're going for it to be understood," Lewellen said.
Wrapping up the presentation, Lewellen made sure to tell the board and the mayor that the work that employees who were on the front lines did was commendable. Lewellen listed the names of some employees who worked overtime for days in order to solve the contamination.
"We're fortunate that there are people out there who still think that hard work has its own reward, and they just have to go out and do it every day in order to be able to sleep at night," Lewellen said.
Brooke Muckerman covers Shelby County Government for The Commercial Appeal. She can be reached at (901) 484-6225, brooke.muckerman@commercialappeal.com and followed on X/Twitter @BrookeMuckerman.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Germantown, TN water crisis: review points to communication shortcomings
