The Story Behind The Boil Water Advisory

By John Severance

SOCORRO -- It was a long and stressful weekend for Socorro residents.
They were forced to boil their water for five minutes after an advisory was issued by the New Mexico Environment's Drinking Water Bureau on Friday, July 16.
The advisory was lifted Monday afternoon.
The city's Wastewater Superintendent, Dixie Daniels, says her department conducts routine sampling on a monthly basis at different areas around the city. But on Tuesday, July 13, a sample was taken from a home on Granada Street in Socorro.
Twenty four hours later, the NMED called Daniels to inform her that the sample came back positive for coliform but negative for E. coli.
“That meant we had to resample,” Daniels said. “We had to resample upstream and downstream from where the positive test was detected.”
Daniels said the city had to abide by the groundwater rule that required the sampling of a water source prior to any disinfection or treatment. On Thursday, the city was required to sample all five sources prior to disinfection. Those sites were Evergreen Well. South Industrial Park Well, Eagle Picher Well, Socorro Spring and Sedillo Spring.
“That water (at Sedillo Spring) is 82 degrees Celsius,” Daniels said. “I knew where we going and it didn’t surprise me..”
On Friday afternoon, NMED delivered the news. The samples upstream and downstream from the original routine sample site was free of total coliform. But the water taken from Sedillo Spring was positive for coliform and E. coli, which caused NMED to issue a boil water advisory.
Sedillo Spring provides water to the western part of the city as well as New Mexico Tech. Jim McLain, assistant director of Facilities Management at Tech, said the west and north sides of campus draw water from sources other than Sedillo Spring. The south side of the main campus draws water from Sedillo Spring.
Meanwhile, Daniels mobilized her staff and some volunteers to get the word out to the public. Councilors handed out information sheets at different locations around the city. Daniels’ staff manned the phones from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., giving residents information.
Daniels also got in contact with Mario Gonzales of the New Mexico Rural Water Association.
“He acts as a neutral party between the city and the environment department,” Daniels said. “He arrived Saturday morning and evaluated our site to see if there were any breakdowns. He tested our site and we needed to score above a 4. We scored a 121. He was in contact with Mike Huber (compliance operations manager) of the environment department in Santa Fe and he said if it is as good as you say it is, we will lift the advisory on Monday.”
Before noon, Daniels was on a conference call with Huber and the advisory was verbally lifted. Daniels still had to send a written copy which she eventually was able to do after 2 p.m. after figuring out a computer glitch.
At the city council meeting Monday night, mayor Ravi Bhasker said, “I just want to stress to the public that the water coming out of the taps here in the city was never compromised.
“…It’s obviously a concern there was an advisory but we did everything the environment department told us to do. We took this very seriously.”
Daniels said the positive sample result from Granada Street could have been "a lab error or a sample error. We could have contaminated our own sample.”
The wastewater production department continues to take chlorine level readings every four hours and Daniels said they will update equipment around its system so something like this will not happen again.
“Chlorine residual will be monitored at each of our sources,” Daniels said. “If chlorine residual is below a certain level or we have equipment failure, we immediately will be notified. That’s our corrective action plan.”
Daniels said her department will continue to sample water at their various distribution points. “We want to provide the safest drinking water possible,” she said. “At no time was there E. coli in our drinking water."
Most strains of E. coli are harmless and live in the intestines of healthy humans and animals. However, a positive test for E. coli in the drinking water supply may indicate the presence of dangerous strains of E. coli or other disease-causing organisms. These types of organisms may cause severe gastrointestinal illness and, in rare cases, death. Children, the elderly and immuno-compromised individuals are at an increased risk for illness.

The Story Behind The Boil Water Advisory