Follow-Up Tests Show Tap Water Safe to Drink
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Hold the kettle, hold the Perrier.
After three routine samples this week came back positive for unhealthful bacteria in Fillmore’s domestic water supply, follow-up tests Wednesday deemed the city’s tap water safe to drink.
The city lifted an alert that was issued Tuesday suggesting residents take their own preventive measures to boil water or use bottled water.
“The tests all came back 100% clean,” City Engineer Bert Sapp said. “But better safe than sorry.”
The water threat in this often scorching agricultural valley began Tuesday after routine weekly sampling showed that three of four samples tested positive for coliform bacteria.
City officials immediately flushed the system and stepped up chlorination of the water supply in an attempt to kill the bacteria.
Nine additional samples were taken Tuesday and sent to a laboratory, where officials Wednesday gave the water supply a clean bill of health.
Rapp suspects the scare may have been the result of faulty testing, or the recent flushing of silt from one city water line.
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