The rain ran serpentine paths down the windows of the rusty, blue Ford as Herbert Henry Oxidane, P.I., CWT, sat waiting for Johnny Chelant to open the side powerhouse door at Pork Bellies Processing. When the lanky man’s shaggy head popped out, the water detective made a run for it, dodging raindrops best he could.

Shaking buckets of water from his coat, Detective H₂O said, “I’m here. So what’s going on, Johnny? I got here as fast as my bald tires would slide me.”

“Glad you made it, Detective H₂O. Those boilers aren’t doing good right now. The conductivity is through the roof! Higher than my grandma that time she ate those special brownies!” replied Johnny.

“How high?”

“Well, she danced on the tables at the nursing home,” said Johnny.

“Not your grandma, the boiler conductivities.”

“They’re over 10,000 microsiemens! The conductivity meter is pegged out!”

Detective H₂O whistled. “That is high! What’s happening? Any idea?”

“None, but the RO Permeate Storage Tank is at 1,500 microsiemens too! How’s that possible? City water is only a few hundred microsiemens, and the RO drops it down to less than ten typically. It’s a real head scratcher, this one is.”

“And you don’t feed any alkalinity booster or anything to the RO Permeate Storage Tank, do you?” asked Detective H₂O.

“No,” replied Johnny, “nothing like that.”

“How about your dechlorination feed up stream of the RO? Is it malfunctioning and grossly overfeeding?”

“No, I thought of that already. It has the same setting as always. I even watched and listened to the pump. Seemed the same as always as it pumped away. Checking the RO feedwater conductivity after the prefilters was same as always too. It’s a mystery!” said Johnny, wide eyed.

“Don’t you return condensate to this RO Permeate Storage Tank too? I’ve always said you should rename this tank to the RO Permeate & Condensate Storage Tank.”

“Y…e…s! We do!” said Johnny as the thought slowly dawned upon him.

“Follow me, Johnny!” said the water detective as he led the way through the maze of pipes and equipment. Two minutes later, they stopped in front of the condensate polishers. Picking up the water treatment log sheets, Detective H₂O saw that Unit #2 had come online just a few hours ago.

“What is it, Detective,” asked Johnny?

“Can we put this unit into manual regeneration right now?”

“Uh…yes…but it just came on line this morning. It shouldn’t be anywhere near time for a regeneration,” replied Johnny.

“I realize that. Just humor me a little,” said Detective H₂O.

“Ok…here goes…Unit #1 coming back on line…Unit #2 going off line and starting the backwash sequence.”

The water detective stood there beside Johnny watching the regeneration water flow to the drain. The backwash stopped and the brine draw started. The brine level dropped as expected. Then the slow rinse step started.

“Aha!” exclaimed the Detective H₂O, uncharacteristically. “Quick, go get that conductivity meter you use!”

Johnny ran off quick as a whip and returned shortly after with a black, analog conductivity meter. “What are we going to measure? There’s no water coming out?”

“I know,” said the water detective. “That’s just as I suspected. Just wait.”

Several minutes later, water flow to the drain started again as the fast rinse step started. Detective H₂O took the conductivity meter and measured the fast rinse each minute for the 15 minutes of the rinse.

“That’s it. Fix that valve right there. That’ll fix your boiler conductivities.”

“Wait, what? Why that valve? How will that fix the boilers?”

“As you saw, no water was flowing during the slow rinse step. The valve must not be functioning properly. Since the condensate polisher did not go through a slow rinse, all the salt and any exchanged ions did not get rinsed out of the polishing vessel. Even though it went through a fast rinse step next, the conductivity only got down to 3,000 microsiemens at the end of this regeneration. When Unit #2 comes back on line, it will be feeding this high-conductivity water straight to the RO Permeate Storage Tank with the next stop being the boiler system. We found our culprit,” explained Detective H₂O.

“Wow, Detective H₂O! Let me check out that slow-rinse valve!”

Sure enough, the valve was not functioning properly and was rebuilt. With increased blowdown and a little time, the boiler conductivities and RO Permeate Storage Tank conductivity returned to normal.

* * *

A week later, as Detective H₂O was sitting as his oak desk, listening to the rain and thunder, his phone rang once, twice, three times before he answered, “Detective H₂O here. The best water treater this side of the Ohio, solving water problems drop by drop. Whatcha got?”

“Detective, this is Marty Cochrane down at Pork Bellies Processing. I’ve got a bone to pick with you. This bill you sent us is outrageous! Johnny tells me you were here for only an hour, stood looking at one piece of equipment, took a few readings, and left. Why would you charge such an outrageous fee for only that?”

“Well,” replied Detective H₂O, “$10 of the bill was for the gas to get to your plant. See, my old Ford is a little gas hungry. The rest isn’t just for standing there, as you said. The rest is for knowing where to stand. You’re welcome.”

* * *

In the underbelly and penthouses of the metropolis of Waterville, where the boilers percolate and cooling towers fog, there is one man who works tirelessly to end corrosion, stop scale, fight lowlife microbes, and conserve water. That man is Detective H₂O. Best water treater this side of the Ohio. Solving water problems drop by drop.