Arapahoe put on boil notice after E. coli detection

Considering the kind of year that 2020 has been, receiving a Boil Water Notice the week of Christmas shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Arapahoe residents were notified on Saturday, December 19th of the detection of E. Coli bacteria in its water system. Per the states regulations residents were advised not to drink the water without boiling it first. Boiled or bottled water was to be used for drinking, making ice, brushing teeth, washing dishes and food preparation.

City Superintendent, Greg Schievelbein, shared a timeline for events leading up to the Boil Water Notice. On Friday evening December 11th there was a failure with the jockey pump at the wells. Schievelbein and another city employee worked on the pump that evening. The pump had failed to reset. The following day on Saturday, December 12th Schievelbein spoke with Sargent Irrigation and discussed the situation with them. A jockey pump is designed to maintain pressure, Arapahoe’s system is designed to maintain pressure even without the pump. With this conclusion, it was decided the system would be ok until further inspection. On Monday, December 14th, after careful inspection of the system, Sargent Irrigation decided the pump was bad and needed to be replaced. The next day Sargent Irrigation pulled the well, replaced the motor as well as sanitized and disinfected everything and put the jockey pump back into operation. Wednesday, December 16th the city ran a water test. Schievelbein stated it takes 24 hours to get the results back from the tests. The city received the results from the test on Thursday, December 17th. There was one clean test and one positive test. The state required the city to test again on Friday, December 18th. This time four tests were run. One upstream, one downstream, one at point of entry and back to the original site. Again, it took 24 hours to receive the results from the tests. Saturday, December 19th Schievelbein received the results from the four tests. It showed there was E.Coli present. Schievelbein stated that around noon on Saturday, December 19th they received the Boil Water Order from the state. The city crew promptly printed the flyers they are required by law to post notifying the residents as well as posting it on other sites such as Facebook, television, and radio. All the flyers were passed out by Saturday evening. Clorination of the wells begin this day as well.

The following day December loth the city took more well samples and sent those in to be analyzed. The state requires the city to pull five samples from each of the wells. These 10 samples were pulled on Monday, December 21st. Schievelbein was happy to report to the city council at their regular meeting on Tuesday, December 22nd that all 10 tests came back clean. They were all E. Coli free.

The next step for the city is on Wednesday, December 23rd they will take five samples from two different sections of town. If those 10 samples come back all clear 24 hours later on Thursday the city will be advised to lift the Boil Order.

When asked if there were any theories as to what caused the contamination Schievelbein shared the jockey pump, the pressure tank and the pipe going into the ground were all in very bad shape. As they were replacing the motor something was dislodged and got into the system.

Schievelbein shared that because of the rusting and condition of the pipe it was just a matter of time before something happened.

Schievelbein is hopeful that everything will be cleared up by the holiday weekend and everyone’s plans can go on without disruption.