At the regular November meeting of Middleburg's Town Council, Town Administrator Martha Semmes reported further progress on getting Middleburg's troubled Well 4 Treatment Plant back on line and spoke to recently expressed concerns about what appeared to be "dirty water" flowing once more through pipes in the Middleburg system.

It wasn't "dirty" water at all, she explained, it was just "discolored as the result of iron and manganese deposits that are in the Town's water lines."

The discoloration she noted, could be directly linked to heavy use of water by the local fire departments fighting "the large fire that occurred just outside of town"

According to Semmes, "because Well 4 has not been in operation since January, the Town had to bring Well 3 on line." The water from that well, she noted, contains high concentrations of iron and manganese. While there were expensive treatment plants at Well 4 and at the well at Stonewall Avenue designed to address that problem, she continued, there was not one at Well 3. Once Well 4 is back in production, Semmes said, the Town would reduce its use of Well 3.

Semmes also noted that whenever the Town experienced a major event requiring heavy water use, such as a fire, the deposits already in the pipes were also stirred and ended up in homes.

Well 4 is expected to be back in operation soon.

Sewer

Kent Bean, 406 E. Washington Street, appeared before Council to report that, on October 21st his house suffered an overflow of what he estimated was "between two and three hundred gallons of raw sewage due a root blockage in the seams in the pipes."

Bean requested the Town reimburse him out-of-pocket expenses related to the incident not covered by his insurance, totally roughly $1,000.

Mayor Betsy Davis assured Bean that the Town "would take care of this and apologized for the back-up."

Noise

Amanda Scheps of 801 Stonewall Avenue appeared before Council to complain about the noise generated by a tented event held on Salamander Resort property.

In a letter to Town staff describing the event Scheps noted that "her front door faced the Salamander property; and, even though she was located a third of a mile away, it was extremely loud."

Scheps had "reviewed the Town's noise ordinance, as well as Loudoun County's," she said, and "had noticed there was a difference in the limits allowed by the County versus the Town.

She requested that Council "consider these sorts of issues before they became a pattern."

Police Chief Panebianco later reported that he had been working with Salamander to address such concerns and was highly pleased with their responsiveness.