Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
January 4, 2008
4. Water Quality
County lifts advisory on Yolo water; Officials believe contamination was freak event
Woodland Daily Democrat – 1/4/08
By Luke Gianni, staff writer
An advisory on drinking tap water was rescinded Thursday for the town of
The small community located just north of Woodland had been under a "boil water" advisory after coliform, a common bacteria, were discovered in the town's water system around three weeks ago by the Yolo County Health Department.
"We had some re-testing done and everything is OK," said George Anaya, president of the Cacheville Service District Water System, which administers water service to the area. "Most of the people in the town have been very patient and wonderful about the whole thing."
Officials at the Yolo County Health Department aren't sure how the bacteria made its way into the system, but concluded its presence an isolated incident and not a global contamination of the area's water supply.
"We really just don't have any good way of knowing," said Bruce Sarazin, director of environmental health for
Sarazin said coliform bacteria can easily be introduced into a water system and incidents such as these are no cause for alarm.
"It's so common," Sarazin said. "Any ant that manages to crawl in there, or leaf, or piece of dirt will give us these results."
Bacteria contamination in an urban water system, Sarazin said, which are typically larger and more sophisticated, occur almost daily. However, urban systems like that in
A rural system like Yolo's, is not routinely chlorinated, so bacteria contamination, although not nearly as common as in the city, has a greater chance of festering.
"We have this in every system," Sarazin said. "This is not uncommon. Anytime you have a broken pipe and you go to fix it, you introduce some bacteria into your water system."
Clean lab results for Yolo's water system started coming back after the health department flushed the system's pipes last week. During the flushing process, it was discovered that the town's water system did not have chlorinating equipment, which, Sarazin said, is presently being installed.
There were no reports of illness as a result of the contamination and no other contaminates were discovered during the testing process. #
http://www.dailydemocrat.com/news/ci_7881139
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