Lakewood Water District Response to Statewide Chlorine Shortage

Last week, Lakewood Water District was made aware of a situation impacting the supply of chlorine gas, sodium hypochlorite, hydrochloric acid, and caustic soda to drinking water and wastewater utilities throughout Washington. Chlorine gas and sodium hypochlorite are used in drinking water treatment processes to disinfect water, helping ensure its continued safety. This supply situation is the result of the loss of a primary electrical transformer, which temporarily halted production at the chemical manufacturing plant in Longview. The supplier’s estimated date for resuming production is Monday, June 28. Lakewood Water District is in a fortunate situation since we produce all our own sodium hypochlorite. With 16 production sites, Lakewood Water District has both capacity and redundancy to maintain normal operations to both our retail and wholesale customers and is unaffected by this adverse supply situation.

DOH and the largest water utilities in the state have been assessing the situation. At this time, Lakewood Water District can produce enough chlorine supply on-site to last more than 30 days.  We will continue to monitor and manage this situation closely, explore operational alternatives if necessary and provide regular updates.