PARIS – Paris Utility District Manager Steve Arnold said Friday that one of the district’s wells may be the source of E. coli bacteria detected in the system this week.
“We are not 100 percent certain, but we think we may have pumped it into one of the wells,” Arnold said Friday. “We found one colony of bacteria in well No. 6.”
On Thursday, a sample from the well – one of two the district uses – came back positive for a largely benign bacteria called total coliform, suggesting a possible opening for E. coli.
Arnold said the recent heavy rainfall, combined with greater pumping of water to make up for a temporary lack of a Paris Hill water tower that is being renovated, may have drawn surface water into the well.
Typically, water percolates down through the soil, where it is cleansed of its bacteria before it makes its way into the ground water supply, which is used for town water, Arnold explained. But if there is a heavy draw from a pump, the surface water may be sucked prematurely into the water system.
Arnold said the well that tested positive for bacteria has been turned off, leaving the town with one working well. The unused well will be inspected, sterilized, then turned on and tested to see if it will be usable again. If not, the district may have to abandon it, Arnold said.
As the boil-water order carried into its third day, townspeople continued to pick up donated water by the caseload from the fire station or boil water at home, and the utility district continued to push chlorine through the water supply to clean it.
By Monday, Arnold expects the water system to be permeated with the desirable level of chlorination, between 0.5 to 1 parts per million, which will effectively sanitize it. To achieve this, the utility district has been pumping eight gallons of chlorine through the system a day.
“It’s small, but enough to kill bacteria,” Arnold said.
At that point, the district will test for E. coli, and if the 24-hour analysis comes back clear, the state will lift the boil-water order.
After that, it is up to the state to determine when the utility district can stop chlorinating, a decision that will depend in part on whether a source of contamination is identified and remedied.
Meanwhile, bottled water is being distributed to the utility district’s 1,000 customers.
Paris Fire Chief Brad Frost said Friday that he worked 10 hours with a crew of 14 Fire Department volunteers to dispense the water Thursday, and he said he was looking at working another 10 hours Friday and again today.
“Oh my word,” he said when asked how many people were coming by. “It has been steady. Plus what we deliver to the elderly and people who don’t have vehicles.”
Frost asked Poland Spring Water Co. for help Wednesday night after the state issued a boil-water order in response to a positive E. coli presence in a routine water test.
Katie LaVine, a Paris resident, was at the fire station picking up cases of water recently. “I think it’s awesome. It’s good, with everything else we have to pay for, that we don’t have to pay for this. I think it’s extremely generous,” she said.
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