By Jason Klaiber
Staff Writer
From Oct. 4 to 6 DeWitt townspeople and businesses dealt with a weekend-long boil water advisory.
The households and buildings affected during the advisory receive water from either Skaneateles Lake or Lake Ontario, depending on their exact location within the DeWitt area.
While DeWitt does purchase water from the Onondaga County Water Authority (OCWA) and the City of Syracuse, the town operates its own independent water system.
“We take care of all our own repairs,” Mathew Reynolds, the water superintendent for the Town of DeWitt, said. “We do our own billing. When we replace mains, we don’t go into the water authority or the city. All we do is strictly buy water from them.”
The water passes through treatment facilities before being distributed by the town and tested the first and third Tuesdays of every month.
Normal testing the first week of this month revealed repeated samples had tested positive for coliform bacteria, at which point Reynolds phoned the Onondaga County Health Department.
The boil water advisory went into effect the night of Friday, Oct. 4, with area residents and businesses finding out through reverse 911 calls, news media sources and word of mouth.
Thousands of residents had been instructed to boil their tap water for drinking and cooking purposes.
Businesses like the Chipotle Mexican Grill on Erie Boulevard temporarily closed their doors during the advisory.
The town’s water department continued flushing mains through the hydrants and taking samples of the water through the rest of the weekend.
“In the test, if there’s total coliform in water, it will turn a yellow color and the color has to have a certain depth to it,” Dr. Joseph Jeraci, the lead technical director at Life Science Laboratories in East Syracuse, said. “When it reaches that color, it’s positive for total coliform. If it doesn’t do that within 24 hours, then it’s negative.”
Jeraci said total coliform by itself might not make a person sick.
However, he said coliform exists in an environment that attracts other, more harmful bacteria.
“The coliform isn’t anything but an indication that the environment is ready for other bacteria like E. coli to exist in the water,” Jeraci said. “That’s why they treat it as non-drinkable water.”
The samples collected in sealed bottles on Oct. 4 and the repeats the following day showed up negative for contamination after sitting for the required observation period.
As a result, the boil water advisory was lifted the night of Sunday, Oct. 6.
At press time, the town had not yet discovered what caused the presence of coliform.
“I’m still not sure how we ended up getting the positive samples,” Reynolds said. “Our sampling procedures are pretty thorough. We wipe the faucets off with alcohol wipes and let the water run. Generally we would’ve had to have a break where we cut out a piece of water main or something, but that didn’t happen in this case.”
Reynolds said this month’s boil water advisory had been the town’s first since he started working for the water department 26 years ago.
He said the town residents need to be better notified in the future about such advisories.
“We learned through this that the notice that got sent out definitely did not reach everyone,” Reynolds said. “We had a lot of concern that there was nothing on our website about this during the course of the weekend. We will try to use that to keep people better informed next time.”
The town’s website is townofdewitt.com.
To sign up for Onondaga County’s reverse 911 calls, visit the website ongov.net, select the “Departments” tab at the top of the page and click on “Emergency Communications, 911.” Tabs on the side and bottom of the resulting page titled “Emergency Notification Registration” will appear.
The county’s system notifies residents via landline, cellular phone or email.
