Water, Water Everywhere

 

The town has issued a breaking news alert, unusual in that it really is breaking news, warning of bad things found in Amherst water.  No they have not issued a "boil water" alert, and the problem seems to be isolated to a small section of the system in the southern end of town.

DPW Chief Guilford Mooring confirms, "The heat (weather) is a factor and we will probably have to chlorinate the south side of Town for a while."  But he also pointed out reassuringly, "We had very low counts of total coliform colonies in the failed samples."

Back in late October, 2010 the public water tested worse than this time around and the town came within a drop of declaring a "boil water" alert.  At the time UMass was hosting a pair of sold out Phish concerts at the Mullins Center.

The town fired up its Emergency Operations Command to deal with the potential crisis, but follow up tests showed the problem went away.