South Hills wades through boil-water advisory
Harry Funk / The Almanac
A sign announces the status of a Peters Township restaurant.
Harry Funk / The Almanac
A potable water tank is set up outside of the Upper St. Clair Community and Recreation Center.
Harry Funk / The Almanac
A sign at a South Fayette business announces it status during the advisory.
A line from Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” rang true in the South Hills last week: “Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.”
That is, unless you boiled it.
From the early evening of Nov. 6 through afternoon on Nov. 8, Pennsylvania American Water issued an advisory for about 100,000 people to boil their tap water before drinking, making ice, brushing teeth, washing dishes or using it in food preparation.
The announcement prompted a run on bottled water at local stores, including Giant Eagle Inc., which has several locations in affected municipalities Bethel Park, Peters Township and South Fayette.
“As soon as we learned that an advisory had been issued, we began the process of coordinating multiple same-day shipments of water to our stores located in the affected areas,” the grocery store chain’s statement read. “Our store teams worked diligently to make sure that water was being replenished as quickly as possible, and that product was located in the front of the store to maximize convenience for our customers.”
At Whole Foods in Upper St. Clair, the selection of prepared foods was limited during the advisory.
“Our team members at Whole Foods Market South Hills responded swiftly and followed Allegheny County Health Department guidelines as well as company policy to ensure customer safety,” the company stated.
Other purveyors of food and beverages were closed during the advisory, which ended when two samples of water taken at Pennsylvania American’s Aldrich Purification Plant in Union Township came back clean.
The advisory began after tests showed high turbidity, or cloudiness, levels for water in much of the company’s service area in Washington and southern Allegheny counties. Turbidity can indicate the presence of organisms, including bacteria, parasites and viruses.
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Residents were welcome to draw clean water from a water tank set up at the Upper St. Clair Community and Recreation Center.
Melissa Walters, a spokeswoman for the water company, said a preliminary investigation showed that a malfunctioning filter at Aldrich caused the turbidity. One of eight filters at the plant, it later was fixed.
The state Department of Environmental Protection issued a field order requiring Pennsylvania American to flush all contaminated water from the entire distribution system, which Walters said has been completed. The department also required the water company to sample the water at 11 locations throughout the system, and continue sampling until the results were clean on two consecutive days.
Water tanks for those residents were set up at the Bethel Park Community Center, South Fayette Township Library, Upper St. Clair Community Recreation Center and Peters Township Municipal Building.