Lyons, Nebraska Hanging on While Water Filter Parts Linger in Supply Chain

Lyons, Nebraska, an 800-person town in the east-central part of the state, continues to wait for materials to repair its temporary water filter.

Terry Uding is the utilities manager for Lyons and says West Tech, the company who delivered the mobile filter, expects the necessary parts to arrive Friday.

Nebraska’s Department of Environment and Energy is discovering more information about the damaging effects of high levels of manganese in drinking water and asks municipalities to test for the toxin. Uding said fixing that issue and the like can be problematic.

“If they’re going to mandate some of these changes to regulations then they have also got to figure out a way to finance it,” Uding said.

Andy Kahle is the drinking water field services supervisor at the Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy. He said more funding wouldn’t have helped the situation and Lyons did everything they could to keep the water safe.

“This wasn’t a case where they didn’t take the steps to avoid, potentially avoid this,” Kahle said. “It was a planned activity. They arranged for the temporary plant to be there, and a component of that plant failed.”

The town determined it was time to replace the permanent filter system, so they scheduled to bring in a temporary filter. Unfortunately, supply chain issues have bogged down repairs on both filters.

The city of Lyons said the water is safe to drink. However, a message on the city’s official website says plastic water bottles are better for drinking.