Water safety scare raises questions
by Virginia Bruce
On Saturday, November 28, area residents were alarmed to hear that water customers west of the Willamette River should boil their water because of potential E coli bacteria contamination. Most reports neglected to emphasize that it was only customers of the Portland Water Bureau that needed to be concerned.
Even though our addresses read Portland, we’re not part of that city and we all get our water from Tualatin Valley Water District (TVWD). Most of it in eastern Washington County comes from the Bull Run watershed on Mt. Hood, but it crosses the Willamette in a separate pipe from the one that goes to Portland.
However, some TVWD customers who phoned to get information about water safety were told that they should boil their water. The TVWD website (tvwd.org) was updated on Saturday evening with correct information, but it was only available from a link from the main page, rather than being prominently displayed.
TVWD Public Information Officer Frank Reid was on vacation during the holiday weekend and the following week and unavailable for comment. Todd Heidgerken, Community and Intergovernmental Relations Manager, said that the message from the Portland Water Bureau came into their 24-hour emergency line, but was not picked up immediately due to the holiday. “Our call center was slammed, and because we didn’t have enough information, people were initially told to follow the instructions for Portland rather than take a chance,” he said.
Some restaurants, bars and coffee shops closed during the emergency to avoid spreading disease. Dinners were thrown out and bottled water flew off grocery store shelves as confusion reigned. Seniors, who are at increased risk from intestinal infections, were particularly worried.
I was able to confirm the correct information from the Portland Water Bureau, and sent out an email message to the 1200+ Cedar Mill News subscribers, many of whom expressed gratitude for the information. (To sign up for the list, visit cedarmill.org/news/signup.)
“We’re talking to Portland about improving our communications,” says Heidgerken. “And we’re going to be changing some things on our website so emergency information will be easier to find.”
We were lucky this time, and hopefully communications and information systems will be improved so if a real emergency hits our water supply, we will get the right information.
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