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Lake Charles tour shows how city treats and tests drinking water
Summary
A City of Lake Charles video tour of the North Ryan Water Treatment Plant walks residents through intake, filtration, disinfection and testing procedures, with plant superintendent Charles Guillory citing daily output, sampling results and a conservation reminder.
Katie Harrington, public information officer for the City of Lake Charles, hosted a City Shift segment at the North Ryan Water Treatment Plant that showed how municipal water is drawn from the aquifer, treated and tested before reaching customers.
Charles Guillory, the plant’s water superintendent, took viewers through the treatment sequence, saying water comes from the wells into filtration and passes through chemical injection points for chlorine and potassium permanganate to promote flocculation and remove particles. “We have injection points for chlorine, potassium permanganate...it mixes, and what that does is cause flocculation and get all of the particles out of the water,” Guillory said.
Why it matters: The segment aimed to reassure residents the city regularly monitors treatment parameters and to encourage conservation because the aquifer feeding local wells can develop low or dry spots if demand is high.
Guillory described plant operations and capacity in detail. He pointed to a 30-inch intake line supplying six filters — “Each filter can filtrate 2.5 million gallons per day,” he said — and explained backwash and recovery processes that settle solids for at least six hours before sludge is pumped to the wastewater plant. He also described two 1.5-million-gallon ground storage tanks at the George West site, about 3 million gallons total, that feed the distribution system.
On power and redundancy, Guillory showed the plant’s MCC room and said the site ties to multiple feeders; “If Broad street goes down, we have a 2-meg generator outside that takes care of everything,” he said (generator unit described in the segment as “2-meg”).
The video included operational readings meant to demonstrate ongoing compliance and water quality. Guillory said operators pull influent and effluent samples about every three hours to check parameters “for LDH compliance.” He read a free available chlorine value of 1.82 and cited an LDH range of 1.5 to 2.5. He reported a turbidity reading of 0.101 (the segment cited an LDH limit of 5.0) and said the plant’s pH was about 7.6, inside the stated target range of roughly 7.5 to 8.2.
Guillory also offered household context: a typical three-person household uses an estimated 100 to 200 gallons per day, he said, and urged conservation during peak demand to avoid pressure drops or advisories.
Harrington and Guillory closed the segment by praising plant staff and inviting residents to call the plant to schedule tours; the video lists a contact number as 4911487 (no area code provided in the segment). Harrington said the City Shift series will return to show the water distribution side of operations and a future visit to the public works streets division.
The segment conveyed operational detail rather than policy changes or formal decisions. There were no motions, votes or regulatory actions in the video; it functioned as public information about water treatment, quality monitoring and conservation guidance.
