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Plainville DPW employees Tommy Hammann, left, and Tom Helm load a case of water into a resident’s vehicle Friday at the town’s DPW Yard.
North Attleboro DPW employees load cars with cases of water Thursday at the distribution site on Smith Street.
Plainville DPW employee Tommy Hammann stands near pallets of bottled water to be distributed at the town’s DPW yard on Friday.
Residents of North Attleboro lined up on streets approaching the DPW yard Thursday to collect their complimentary case of bottled water after a boil advisory was issued due to bacteria.
A North Attleboro DPW employee loads a vehicle with a case of water as residents lined up Thursday on streets approaching the DPW yard after an advisory was issued to boil water.
Plainville DPW employees Tommy Hammann, left, and Tom Helm load a case of water into a resident’s vehicle Friday at the town’s DPW Yard.
North Attleboro DPW employees load cars with cases of water Thursday at the distribution site on Smith Street.
Plainville DPW employee Tommy Hammann stands near pallets of bottled water to be distributed at the town’s DPW yard on Friday.
Residents of North Attleboro lined up on streets approaching the DPW yard Thursday to collect their complimentary case of bottled water after a boil advisory was issued due to bacteria.
A North Attleboro DPW employee loads a vehicle with a case of water as residents lined up Thursday on streets approaching the DPW yard after an advisory was issued to boil water.
A little over a day after it was imposed, North Attleboro and Plainville officials on Friday canceled an advisory for residents to boil their tap water.
The advisory was imposed Thursday morning after routine testing found bacteria in water coming from one of North Attleboro’s wells into a town treatment plant. It was lifted Friday afternoon after testing over the past two days did not detect bacteria.
“We would like to thank our residents for their cooperation and understanding since the boil water order was issued,” North Attleboro Town Manager Michael Borg said in a statement on the town’s website. “We assure our residents that the water has been thoroughly tested and has been deemed safe for public use.”
The notice that the ban was lifted appeared on both town websites about 4 p.m. An alert went to cellphone users about 15 minutes later. A reverse 911 notification went out just before 6 p.m.
The boil advisory was issued after samples collected on Wednesday tested positive for E. coli. It was detected in the raw part of the water system and treatment facility that North Attleboro shares with Plainville.
Officials contacted the state Department of Environmental Protection, and a boil water notice was issued. The cause of the contamination is not known, but E. coli bacteria is found in animal waste and officials speculated that fecal matter may have been moved by recent heavy rains. That may have impacted Plainville 4, the affected well.
Officials emphasized that the sample that originally tested positive for bacteria came from water checked before it entered the treatment plant. Treated water did not test positive.
The boil advisory was issued “out of an abundance of caution,” officials in both towns said, using a phrase repeated often over the past 24 hours.
Contact with E. coli-contaminated water can cause gastric upset and diarrhea. While usually mild, the symptoms can be serious for the elderly, the very young and people with compromised immune systems.
Both towns set up bottled water distribution stations at their public works yards Thursday and Friday.
“Officials from our respective towns worked diligently to address the issue that was discovered earlier in the week and we thank Mass DEP for their support while the issue was resolved,” Plainville Town Manager Brian Noble said. “We would also like to thank everyone who helped distribute water over the past two days for residents in need.”
The advisory forced some restaurants in both towns to close for the day on Friday. Water fountains at public schools were shut off.
About 360 households in North Attleboro receive their water through the City of Attleboro’s system. They were not affected by the boil advisory, nor were any other city users. But, according to Kourtney Allen, the city’s water department superintendent, her office fielded hundreds of calls from concerned residents Thursday.
Allen said some may have just seen “Attleboro” on reports of the boil order and not realized it covered only the neighboring town. “Some new residents may not realize Attleboro and North Attleboro are different communities,” she said.
Water department customers in Mansfield and parts of Foxboro connected to the Mansfield water system were under a boil advisory for several days last week due to bacterial contamination of their water supply. That advisory was issued Sept. 11 and lifted Sept. 14 after a series of tests detected no bacteria in water that was going to consumers.
Mark Hollowell, head of North Attleboro’s public works department, said Friday that North Attleboro was able to resolve its issue sooner since bacteria never made it into its distribution system.
The DEP has suggested some measures it wants the town to take to prevent a recurrence. “We are going to go out and do a ‘sanitary survey’ and make sure we have no cracked seals” on town wells and inspect all five wells, he said.
Hollowell says that is something the town does on a regular basis.
Two wells have been taken off line as a precaution. “They have tested negative and we are confident we are not putting E. coli into the system,” he said.
The town is also looking at procedures to ensure that water stays in contact with chlorine long enough to make certain it’s bacteria free.
“It’s been an interesting couple of days,” he said.
Plainville officials said on the town’s website that after a boil water advisory is lifted, Mass DEP advises residents to run cold water faucets for one minute or more before drinking, brushing teeth or using for food preparation. To clear hot water pipes and water heaters, turn on hot water faucets and flush 15 minutes for a 40-gallon hot water tank and 30-minutes for an 80-gallon tank. After flushing hot water pipes, run dishwashers empty one time. Flush refrigerator water dispensers with one-quarter of water capacity.
The agency also says to discard food and baby formula prepared with water on or before Wednesday, as well as ice cubes, including those made by automatic ice dispensers, during the boil order. Run the ice maker through a 24-hour cycle and discard that to ensure clearing of the water supply line.
Water in humidifiers and medical and health care devices should be discarded and the device rinsed with clean water.
Residents with questions can contact the North Attleboro Department of Public Works at 508-695-7790 and the Plainville Department of Public Works at 508-699-2071.
Tom Reilly can be reached at 508-236-0332 or treilly@thesunchronicle.com. Follow him on Twitter @Tomreillynews.
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