A friend in Eau Claire, Wisconsin said today that they have been warned via radio not to drink untreated tapwater, but instead to boil or purchase bottled water. Apparently there are contaminents in the water, but they weren't specifically named. I haven't been able to find anything online about this. The fact that this happened on July 2 is interesting. Has anyone else heard anything?

-- T. Rae (tammrae@aol.com), July 02, 1999

Answers

I work in Eau Claire. This has been going on for a couple weeks --- "Unsafe" samples over that period (if a certain number are "unsafe", increased chlorination is required by state, if tests still show "Unsafe", a "Boil Water Notice" is issued.

Nothing to do with 7/1/99, but water systems even for this 60,000 person city are fairly complex --- things just seem to happen. So when Y2K "happens" --- who knows?

-- Jon Johnson (narnia4@usa.net), July 02, 1999.

Okay - so educate us elsewhere:

What's the process for notification of unsafe/safe water?

Who tested the samples? How were sample transferred to the lab? Who takes the samples? How many places and "dead legs" through the system must be "flushed" and sampled at what rate to declare the water "safe" everywhere?

Who has handled the tests themselves, and what is the status (year 2000 respect) of their lab and their preparations and contingency planning? Alt power, pure water, lights, sample treatment, contamination safeguards, and sample handling equipment cleaning and maintenance?

You may not know these answers - but see if you can get these specific questions to the public's attention. If/when you get answers - you can then tell us how easy "recovery" might be.

Example - to sample and test a water supply, the lab itself must have sterile testing gear - if there are problems (power, water itself, pure water distalltion units or pure water distribution centers, lights, sterilizers, sinks, drains, microsope controls or growth medium "ovens", etc.) and if any of these problems could last several days - how can the lab keep itself operating? If there are transporation, water pressure or sewage losses, or regional social problems, how can samples and flushes be made?

How will it get its "safe/unsafe" message out?

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), July 02, 1999.

Robert A. Cook:

Your post sounds unduly harsh, unless you misunderstood me. I was just saying that Emergency Chlorinations and Boil Water notices are not that uncommon. I wasn't saying Y2K will be nothing. In fact, as I said, the Unsafe samples have been going on for at least 2 weeks and no answers have been found, hence the chlorination/boil water. That would indicate to me that if the water supplies aren't 100% Y2K compliant, there will be massive long-lasting problems --- corrections take a lot of time, and all the factors you mentioned would have to be dealt with. I was also indicating the dreaded 7/1/99 date didn't have anything to do with this particular case.

As for your other questions --- I'm tired of being nice so will let someone else "educate you".

-- Jon Johnson (narnia4@usa.net), July 02, 1999.

No - if I was unclear, I'm sorry.

What I'm interested in wsa the "process" of what they are doing now. The "things" the water system is doing up there to get service back up are exactly what 'everybody" elsewhere has to do to get reliable service back.

In that light, what you are experiencing now is wha tI would like to learn FROM. Knowing how the recovery up there proceeded, and what it required, lets me make sure the emergency procedures down here can apply those "lessons learned" to my water supply.

I'm absolutely NOT trying in any way to "criticize" what is going on: what I'm trying to is analyze what is going on "critically" and "carefully" so I understand the real problems are - and what might have been a problem, but really wasn't.

I made several assumptions about things that could fail - consider them things to ask about to find out how I should ask questions down here.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), July 02, 1999.

These water things are not uncommon. It has happened in New York in the past. Systems are fuull of glitches. Two transactions I did today had glitches. It's the nature of the beast--the normal accident that that was referred to in a link a while ago. The question is what will be normal for complex systems under stress.

-- Mara Wayne (MaraWAyne@aol.com), July 02, 1999.

I'm also interested in this question: IF the water is bad and a boil water issue is ordered, or needs to be ordered, and IF the power is down, and IF the radio stations are down, how will we know whether water coming out of our taps is good or not? How would they notify JQP? Would it be wise to just use bottled water right at rollover till we see how it shakes out?

-- Mommacares (harringtondesignX@earthlink.net), July 02, 1999.

Granted - the City of Atlanta sewage plant upriver from our water plants had two "clarifier" failures two days ago - dumped 2.8 million gallons of chlorinated but unfiltered water in our drinking water. Garbage, trash, sewage "clumps", old filter flush residue, anything else that can floats - did keep right on floating down river.

Our water (Cobb County) remained okay - because our treatment plant stayed "up" though the problem. But if it - or any other plant downriver - had any kind of problem at the same time......

It opens your mind to the very real potenial for chlorea and dysentery, any other water-borne diseases.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), July 02, 1999.

Robert Cook is one poster who is logical, explanatory, interesting, refreshing, and polite. He can be counted on to make clear the obtuse technical problem. He has remained above the infantile bully playground remedial romper room mean-spirited misbehavior which insidiously infiltrated the Forum. We are thankful Robert is still here!

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), July 02, 1999.

with all the myriad threats regarding unsafe drinking water, especially related to y2k, i don't understand something. it is soo simple for a person to effectively 'treat' his water so as to remove all traces of virus, bacteria, etc using a katadyn or big berky-type ceramic filter ... all for $50-$250 depending on one's budget.

seems like a no-brainer to me .. either purchase one or take your chances.

-- lou navarro (lanny1@ix.netcom.com), July 03, 1999.

Yup! I second that...

We bought a "Berkey" a couple months ago, "for Y2K", and decided to try it out early. What a difference from "city" water! Well, ALL of our drinking/cooking water comes through the Berkefeld, and always will.

Whay wait? C'mon in, the water's fine!

-- Dennis (djolson@pressenter.com), July 03, 1999.

Sorry, Robert A. Cook, obviously I was oversensitive.

The process is very involved. Under the Safe Drinking Water Act, administered by the EPA or delegated to states that "qualify", no one sample proves a water supply is unsafe. The point is that the science of detecting unsafe water is not exact. The indicators for bacterial unsafe water are coliforms. Not disease causing, but indicate the water is being affected by an outside (non-groundwater) source. If a system uses surface water, it will have coliforms present in the "raw" water and MUST undergo treatment (groundwater doesnt necessarily need it). There are no standardly run tests for virus or cryptosporidium (which killed a few hundred people in Milwaukee a year or two ago).

So the number one thing is proper construction of the well and pumping equipment. Most Unsafes are never really tracked down to a specific cause -- sampler contamination is the most common. With todays pressurized lines, actual contamination is rare in drilled wells that are properly constructed and maintained (dont leave the caps off drilled wells, distances from contamination sources manintained).

Now - fixing an unsafe situation - difficult. If its just one well in a municipal system, its taken off line and chlorinated to high heaven. Eau Claires were all "distribution location" unsafes. As you already indicated the followup is heavily communication dependent. The city calls the lab, brings in rechecks, the lab calls the city and state ageency, the agency calls the utility and lab and probably central office. We (stae agency) once counted 40 phone calls from our office regarding one boil water notice in a small (1000 pop) city.

So to get to your question about fixing an unsafe water supply - besides the electricity you need, chlorine, transportation, the lab and its supplies and personnel, ability to pump out lines, possibly install new equipment (such as if a cross connection is found - these still occur even in the utilities themselves sometimes), and all the points you mentioned.

For a single well - relatively easy (average well - you mix maybe 3 gallons of bleach in clean/new/washed trash cans - need enough water to dislace water in well - dump in well, recirculate, hose interior well casing, cap, etc with chlorinated water - put cap back on well, leave sit 24 hours - pump it out). For a municipality - almost impossible except for heavy long term chlorination, or tracking down the cause - which is seldom successful.

Hope that gives you some idea. The fact is Unsafe water samples seem to often come and go with no real reason found. Good construction and chlorination if a problem is suspected are about it (for routine water supply).

-- Jon Johnson (narnia4@usa.net), July 03, 1999.