Video Shelburn – In the past six months the city of Shelburn has issued four different boil orders.
The number of boil orders has jumped in recent years but that isn’t necessarily because they are having more issues, but rather because the current officials are being particularly cautious.
"Lately we have had very little trouble actually," That’s how Shelburn Town Council president, James Ward, is describing Shelburn’s current water situation.
Before that the town experienced a water main leak, a car hitting a fire hydrant, and a bad sample which all resulted in a minimum of a three day boil order to allow proper testing.
"If you don’t do it you are going to get sick, so you have to do it," says Shelburn resident Debbie Madewell,"there is nothing that we can really do about it.
I mean, you can complain but who are you going to complain to?"
Before the current staff took over residents had issues with officials ignoring the need for boil orders when they were actually necessary.
"I have been on the board here for almost 30 years and I have seen a lot of things come and go," says Ward.
Shelburn samples the wells seven days a week on their own with a second party company testing cleaning the wells twice a year.
If at any point a sample comes back bad a boil order has to be placed and depending on the circumstance, water could be shut off to up to 11 hundred customers until officials can get 3 clean tests over at minimum of a three day period.