UPDATE 3:45 — According to the City of Healdsburg, the first round of tests that test the city’s water has come back clean and there are no signs of contamination.
The second and final round of water testing will be complete tomorrow, Aug. 27, at 10:30 a.m.
At that time, and with a good test result, the boil water notice will be lifted, according to the city.
The city is required by the state to complete two separate rounds of testing of the city drinking water. Each sample is required to sit for 24-hours before confirming can be made that no-contamination of the city’s drinking water has occurred.
“We understand this is a large inconvenience for residents and businesses. To meet State requirements, the City needed to issue the Boil Water Notice to ensure your health and safety,” according to a statement that was issued by the city of Healdsburg around 3:45 p.m. on Thursday.
The city of Healdsburg is working with the State Water Resources Control Board – Drinking Water Operations Branch to determine whether a water main break early Wednesday morning at the Mill District affordable housing construction site contaminated a portion of the city’s drinking water.
The main break occurred around 3 a.m. Wednesday morning at the Mill District construction site on Healdsburg Avenue, according to Healdsburg City Manager Jeff Kay.
“I don’t know the exact location but it is part of that construction site,” Kay said of the main break. “My understanding is that it began overnight. There was no work going on, but something failed, and of course we’ll look into what that was, and it was resolved by early morning.”
By resolved, he said the break was sealed and was no longer leaking by the early morning hours of Aug. 25.
The main break triggered a precautionary boil water notice for a large portion of the city east of Healdsburg Avenue.
Kay said as of today, Aug. 26, there is no evidence that there is anything harmful in the drinking water.
“The status right now is there are two routes of testing that are required per state regulations just to confirm that everything is OK and I do want to underscore is that we don’t have any evidence that anything harmful is in the drinking water, but due to the loss of pressure it is possible something could happen so that is why we issued that noticed as a precaution,” Kay said.
He said they do not have the testing results back at this time and the required time for results.
Terry Crowley, the city’s utility director, said there are two rounds of sampling.
A sample for the first round of testing was collected yesterday afternoon and samples for the second round of testing were collected early this morning, according to Crowley.
“Two samples are sort of a double confirmation that there is nothing in the water, but they have to sit in a culture for 24 hours. What we expect and what typically happens, is we have nothing and no contaminations. We issued a boil water notice out of an abundance of caution,” Crowley said.
Kay said they expect to have testing information coming soon. He cautioned that there is a chance that the incident and boil notice could run until Aug. 27.
The boil water notice was issued to residents via Nixle yesterday, Aug. 25 at 3:44 p.m. and it was posted on the city of Healdsburg’s Facebook page the same day at 3:41 p.m.
Calls were also made to residents, according to Kay, and paper notices were delivered to residents and businesses in the affected areas.
The notice, which as of Aug. 25 is in effect for 24 to 48 hours, advises folks to not drink the tap water and to boil any non-bottled water that they want to use.
Boiling kills bacteria and other organisms that may be in the water. To reiterate, only the residents and folks in the highlighted yellow area of the map are affected.
So why did it take awhile to get the notice out?
Kay said the city had to work with the state water board to determine what actions were necessary.
“Not every leak necessitates a boil water notice so there was some time required, and the factor here was there was a loss of pressure in the system to determine that that had taken place and necessitated this. It was also necessary to work with the state department of drinking water, which ultimately provides guidance on what action is necessary. I understand that there are different tiers (of response) that include ‘do not drink the water at all,’ which is more severe and was ultimately not necessary. Beyond that, we had to do some analysis to determine what geographic area was impacted,” Kay said.
Kay said the city will work with the Mill District to determine what went wrong.
“It is imperative that we understand what happened. Our priority number one is getting good information out to the community to make sure we are erring on the side of caution in terms of water safety, but we will absolutely be looking into this,” Kay said.
Josie Gay Carroll, the marking director for the Mill District, said the developer behind the affordable housing project is working with city to determine how the incident occurred.
“Currently, Eden Housing, the developer of The Exchange, is in close communication with the City of Healsburg to determine the cause of the situation,” Gay Carroll said in a statement.
Kay said the Healdsburg Chamber of Commerce was notified of the break as well as some individual businesses.
“We believe restaurants, with some change in operation and some disruption, should be able to operate. We’ve been in touch with some of them,” Kay said.
He suggested restaurants and eateries rinse their produce with either boiled water or bottled water and to not serve tap water.
As the notices went to folks yesterday afternoon and as it was circulated on social media, residents expressed concern, mainly on social media, about drinking the tap water prior to the boil notice being issued.
“At this time I don’t think people should be concerned,” Kay said.
He said he understands people’s concern. “I’m pretty sure I drank the tap water during that time. We are not recommending any follow up for people at this point. We don’t have any indication that the water is or was unsafe, so we are not recommending that they do anything at this point. We will put information out as we learn more.”
Crowley said the boil water notice was issued as a precaution and he said with drinking water it is better to be overly cautious.
If the boil water notice continues longer than expected, Kay said the city could look into providing water to residents.
“My first hope is that it doesn’t last much longer. We have been in touch with the grocery stores and understand that they are working as fast as they can to replenish supplies. We don’t maintain a supply on the city side, but if this were to run longer we would look into what we could do to get water out to people. We are working on contingency plans, but my hope is this will be over pretty quick,” Kay said.
Crowley said updates on the situation will be issued via Nixle and on the city’s social media channels.
“The city will work with the developer to identify what the root cause was, how this happened and work with any remedies that are necessary,” Crowley said.
