Up to 70 percent of
the city was affected at some point.
LEWISTON – Cooperation between public utilities and fire departments in Lewiston and Auburn kept water running in most Lewiston homes Sunday, despite a failure at a communications tower that affected the amount of chlorine feeding into the city’s drinking water.
“We picked up on it before it got into the drinking system,” said Capt. Larry Morin of the Lewiston Fire Department. “It left people with low pressure or no pressure at all.”
Morin estimates that about 65 to 70 percent of the city was affected at one point.
Kevin Gagne, of the Lewiston Water Division, said the Auburn Water District assisted by supplying an interconnection across the river with hoses supplied by the fire departments. Most residents retained water service during the crisis.
“We were operating off that for about a half hour,” said Gagne. “Either city could provide water to the other in an emergency.”
The crisis started, Gagne said, when a radio repeater station stopped transmitting information between computers that monitor the pump stations for the water system. As a result, the Main Street pump station was feeding too much chlorine into the water supply and went off line automatically.
City workers began flushing the system at about 1 p.m., and the level of the reservoir on Webber Avenue became very low.
“We’re up and running now. Some residents are out of water,” Gagne said at 5 p.m. “I don’t have an accurate record of that now. I’m guessing a couple of dozen.”
He said most of the residents without water in the late afternoon were located at higher elevations, several on Pleasant Street hill.
“We’re flushing in the distribution system and trying to bleed off any air pockets we may have,” Gagne said. “We’re waiting for the system to stabilize.”
He added that no one was at risk from the increase in chlorine levels. “Main Street (pump station) did its job. No over-chlorinated water or under-chlorinated water got into the system.”
Staff Writer Julie Kachinski contributed to this report.
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