Charlestown residents say water quality has not improved

CHARLESTOWN, Ind. (WAVE) - After decades of brown water flowing from their faucets, people living in Charlestown got an update on the effort to clean it up.

The brown water has been an issue for the past 50 years.

One resident who spoke to WAVE 3 News, who’s lived in Charlestown for more than 40 years, said nothing has changed.

“All we’ve accomplished so far -- American Water’s accomplished so far -- is that they’ve raised the water bill and they’ve done some superficial things to the infrastructure. But that hasn’t solved the problem," Loren Christman said. “So all we’ve got so far is paying out more money and we don’t have any better water. We’re looking for better water.”

Indiana American Water officially purchased the city’s water system in March.

Since then, the company has invested $700,000 into wells, the water plant and control systems.

“We’ve heard some people have a lack of confidence in us and maybe being the new guys that could be fair,” Bill Reedy, of Indiana American Water, said. “We’re asking them to be patient as we work to implement solutions and some people don’t want to hear that -- you know the time is now to fix it. And we are about fixing it.”

In a couple of months, the company plans to flush out the system, which should improve water quality in the short term.

Long-term solutions will be explored over the next few years.