Source of Clinton City’s water contamination traced to cross-connection at single home

CLINTON, Utah — Clinton City’s public works department said they’ve discovered the cause of last week’s city-wide culinaary water contamination was a single home where someone created a cross connection between the culinary and secondary water systems.
Residents in Clinton were on a boil water advisory for nearly a week after the city detected coliform in the water.
Officials with the public works department said they were able to locate the problem fairly quickly, and they lifted the boil order last Thursday.
“Pretty early on in the process, the contamination was ended, but the testing process goes on for quite a while afterwards to verify that the water is clean,” said Michael Chad, who is the Clinton City Public Works director.
Chad said it is very important that the two water systems stay separate in order to prevent contamination from happening. Culinary water is treated for drinking while secondary water is used for things like irrigation.
The city is now considering system changes to prevent a contamination from happening again. Anyone who believes their system may be cross-connected should call Clinton City Public Works.

Clinton Police investigate Clinton water contamination

Cases of bottled water are stacked around the Clinton City Fire Department on Monday, June 8, 2015. Clinton discovered E. coli and coliform in the city water supply over the previous weekend and encouraged all citizens to begin boiling water. The city also offered free bottled water to any residents.
Cases of bottled water are stacked around the Clinton City Fire Department on Monday, June 8, 2015. Clinton discovered E. coli and coliform in the city water supply over the previous weekend and encouraged all citizens to begin boiling water. The city also offered free bottled water to any residents.
CLINTON — The drinking water in Clinton may be safe. But the individual or individuals who contaminated it with E. coli and coliform may not be if there was criminal intent involved.
The city has turned the incident, appeared to have been caused as a result of a culinary and secondary cross connection on a 20-year-old home in the city, over to the police department for further investigation, according to Clinton City Manager Dennis Cluff.
“I believe in justice, absolutely, and we are going to pursue it,” Cluff said.

E-coli found in Syracuse water; boil notice in place

SYRACUSE -- A positive test for water contamination of E-coli and Chloroform was discovered Friday in Syracuse.
According to a public announcement from the city manager Brody Bovero, the sample was taken in the area of 700 South and 2500 West.
“The City’s Public Works Department worked diligently throughout the afternoon and evening to investigate, discover, and isolate the source of contamination,” Bovero said.
Due to the possibility of residual contamination throughout the system, the City is issued a water advisory or “Boil Notice” for the entire city until further notice.
In conjunction with the Davis County Health Department, the city is provided instructions that outline the steps residents will need to take through the weekend to ensure proper safety.
Here are some precautionary measures that should be taken:
• Use boiled or bottled water.
• If planning to boil your water, bring it to a rapid boil for 1 minute.
• Throw out ice cubes from refrigerators
• Boiled water or bottled water should be used for:
     • Brushing teeth, washing hands before food preparation, and for food preparation.
     • Showering or bathing is permissible in un-boiled water if there are no open sores on the body and it doesn’t enter the mouth.
     • After the water from the water provider is declared safe:
     • Drain and flush all icemakers, water heaters, purifiers, water softeners, and reverse osmosis systems. Follow manufacturers’ recommendations when cleaning or replacing filters or screening devices.
     • Let chlorinated cold water run through every faucet in your home or business for 20 minutes followed by two minutes of straight hot water.
Replace filters.
     • Throw out ice cubes or other water stored in refrigerators that have connections to culinary water sources.
Although there is no longer a cross connection, the city has scheduled contractors to permanently remedy the lines where the cross connection occurred. That work is expected to be completed by the early part of next week. Once the water has been determined to be safe, the city will issue another notice for residents to flush their home water systems as indicated in the attached instructions from the Health Department.
Again, this will likely occur the early part of next week.
We encourage residents to notify neighbors of the advisory.

The city has set up an after hours hotline at 801-643-5775 for any questions. During normal business hours (Monday-Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.), the city may be contacted at 801-825-7253.