Water is running in the town of Killian again without the 'water shuttle' that was costing Livingston Parish $30,000 a day, a parish official said.
But a two-week-old boil water advisory remains in place. And it's still not clear what exactly is wrong with the town's sole well, leading to brown silt and dirt in faucets for roughly 1,000 people.
Meanwhile, officials are offering packages of bottled water for drinking and cooking.
The Killian system serves a rural corner of eastern Livingston Parish near the Tickfaw River with around 330 customers and close to 1,000 people, town officials have said.
Town and parish officials say they are trying to understand why Killian's only water well has been producing water fouled with brown silt and dirt since April 22.
Bruiser Bryson, Livingston Parish Homeland Security's logistics deputy, said the contracted engineers are reviewing the data from a camera sent down the 550-foot well during the inspection last week and could have their work finished by the end of business Monday.
"They've been working all weekend trying to get it together for us," he said.
He said parish and other officials would then have to review those conclusions to understand what the engineers have found.
"I'm sure we'll be in talks late this evening trying to figure out what we got," Bryson said.
Konnor Kosa checks inside the hatch of a large tank carrying potable water at Killian’s water well near Town Hall on May 1, 2024.
Killian's sole water well was drilled in the early 1990s. Two backup wells failed in 2014 and haven't been replaced.
State health officials said towns are allowed to have just one well as long as they notify residents each year that no backup source is available.
For last week's inspection to happen, Killian's contractors had to disassemble the well's upper area, including where the original pump is located, to open up access to the well hole.
Without that pump, the well can't produce water, leading town and parish officials to start shuttling in drinking water with 18-wheelers early Wednesday afternoon to maintain pressure in the Killian system.
The 24/7 effort, however, was costly, racking up bills of $30,000 per day for parish government.
Since then, Bryson said, workers were able to install a temporary submersible pump down inside the borehole to begin using well water again to fill the town's water tank and maintain pressure for customers.
Rust colored gunk sits inside dissembled piping for the town of Killian's drinking water well, as shot Thursday, May 2, 2024, by Livingston Parish Councilman Dean Coates. Coates represents the Killian area, where problems with the quality of water have led to questions about the town well, temporary outages and a lengthy boil water advisory. Town officials have recently had the well inspected to determine why it sending silty, brown water to customers.
Late Monday morning, the town hall and the next-door well site were quiet, with little evidence of the trucks, equipment, and workers and officials who were there last week, except for a "road closed" barrier that was no longer blocking one of the site's entrances off La. 22.
Killian's roadside marquee reminded residents of the continuing boil advisory and the town council meeting on May 14.
Town officials have previously warned that, depending on what problems the well has, more interruptions of the well's operations are possible.
They said that the well could have problems with a screen deep down in the borehole or with the well casing around it — or the well simply could be failing.
All the fixes, including the worst-case scenario of needing a new well, are costly and could take weeks of work or longer. It's also not clear how the small town and parish would afford the costly fixes.
The town and parish have each declared emergencies over the well problems and met with local legislators on possible funding and solutions, but the state hasn't yet issued an emergency declaration.
Parish President Randy Delatte and other officials have been working with Gov. Jeff Landry to have that declaration made, Bryson said.
The results of the well analysis could play into that decision. A state emergency declaration would open up emergency resources and potentially reimbursement cash for the parish.
"The governor's helping us all he can, and, like I said the other day, we just got to get our information in line to give it to them," Bryson said. "Everybody from the local level to the federal level is on this."
The Governor's Office has not responded to repeated requests for comment.