A pool full of brown water

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During her nearly 20 years in Malverne, Crystal Leas has never seen her swimming pool look like this.

After refurbishing the 16- by 32-foot pool with a new liner, Leas began filling it with 22,000 gallons of water from her outside faucet. When the pool was partially filled, she noticed that the water was iron-colored. Since New York American Water had already changed the water main on her street, Wolf Avenue, she kept the water running, and hoped it would clear up.

Six days later, however, she was still trying to rid her pool of the brown color, caused by iron deposits the tap water had left behind, she said. Leas used three bottles of Metal Out — which causes iron deposits to sink to the bottom of the pool, and then she vacuumed the bottom. And vacuumed and vacuumed.

“I’m a single mom, and I try to keep property nice,” Leas said of the pool, which has been used by residents and neighbors since before she bought the home in 1996. “But unfortunately, I can’t go out and choose another water company.”

She said she contacted customer service at New York American Water several times before hearing from Anita Glisci, a water quality and environmental compliance specialist for the utility, who told her that the only reason she found Leas’s complaint in her computer was because a separate complaint was submitted on her behalf by Patricia Fitzpatrick, the village’s deputy mayor. Calls to Glisci and to New York American Water’s public relations office were not returned.

Paul Jessup, superintendent of the village’s Department of Public Works, also stepped in to assist. “I asked them to send someone over and give the lady whatever she needs to clear it up,” Jessup said of the water company, adding that the iron problem isn’t life-threatening — just off-putting. “The water company is working on it. It’s not going to happen overnight. We’re tapping the water more than ever before. Almost everyone has an irrigation system, and the system is getting used harder and harder.”

New York American Water has often said in the past that clearing up the water is a two-pronged approach that involves not only the changing of mains, but the creation of a new filtration plant, which it is seeking to build on property it owns on Cornwell Avenue in the village. The company is scheduled to meet with village officials on July 21 to discuss what may be the plant’s final plans. Once those plans are approved, it will take three to four months to build the plant, company executives said at last month’s architectural review board meeting in Malverne.