The extreme cold has been blamed for repeated water main breaks.
Officials at the Illinois American Water headquarters said their teams have been very busy with repairing water main breaks, collecting water samples and completing necessary testing.
The utility will notify customers when the boil order is lifted.
There were signs posted outside various business and restaurants throughout the metro east as customers remain under a boil order.
"We are asking our customers to boil their water before they drink it and before they ingest it for five minutes.
They will notify customers once the boil water order has been lifted.
The frigid temperatures and river levels are causing a number of problems for water systems in the metro east.
A conservation request will remain in effect while crews continue to battle frigid temperatures and the effect on its systems.
If they need to wash their clothes, they should wait until they have a full load, etc.
These are the impacted communities: Belleville East St. Louis Centreville Brooklyn Fairmont City Sauget Shiloh Washington Park Alorton Cahokia (from Commonfields of Cahokia PWD) Swansea Canteen Township St. Clair Township Stookey Township Smithton Township Also, sale-for-resale customers (wholesale) include: Scott Air Force Base O’Fallon – (O’Fallon provides water to Fairview Heights) Caseyville Millstadt Metro-East Municipal Joint Action Water Agency (Commonfields of Cahokia Public Water District & City of Columbia) Waterloo

A small number of Irish Water customers in Co Leitrim are currently experiencing disruption to their water supply as a result of power outages caused by Storm Eleanor.
Approximately 10 homes in the Geaglom area of North Co Leitrim are currently without water due to a power outage at a local booster pump station.
Irish Water is delivering bottled water to these customers.
Customers in the Annamacullen area of South Leitrim may also notice a reduction in their water pressure due to a power outage affecting a local pumping station.
Irish Water will continue to monitor the situation during the day and liaise with the ESB to restore power to all pump stations as quickly as possible.
Irish Water thank customers for their patience while they work with the ESB and Leitrim County Council to restore the water supply to all impacted customers.
Customers can contact Irish Water on Twitter and the customer care helpline is open 24/7 on ‪1850 278 278 if they have any follow up questions or queries.
#IWLeitrim: Essential works may affect supply to South Leitrim and surrounds until 5pm today, please retweet.
#IrishWater — Irish Water Care (@IWCare) January 4, 2018 s

BELLEVILLE, Ill. (KMOV.com) – All Illinois American Water customers in the Metro East are under a water conservation and boil order until further notice.
Download the KMOV app for breaking news notifications Illinois American Water officials said they will also be switching treatment to “free chlorine,” which does not contain ammonia.
“We want to thank our customers for adhering to these important water service changes.
The cold weather has posed challenging to our team and we are working around the clock to limit the impact to our customers.
It truly means a lot,” Cooper said.
Several restaurants around the Metro East are impacted by this boil order, causing some to shut down while others operate through the water restrictions.
said Teresa, a Fairview Heights resident, sarcastically on Wednesday when she learned about the boil order from Smoothie King.
"I’m easy to please," said John Turner, a customer who was not inconvenienced by the boil order affecting the drinks served at Tavern on Main.
"At the moment I can’t live in my house because the pipes in the ceiling broke and flooded it," said Turner.
Terry Mackin with Illinois American Water said the boil order is a precautionary measure when water pressure drops and is also a conservation effort to save water for fire emergencies.

Image: Facebook Threats of legal action by the Ugu municipality on the KwaZulu-Natal south coast in response to a social media post on “dirty tap water” backfired when residents produced photographs of muddy tap water on Thursday.
The municipality expressed "concern and dissatisfaction" after a photograph of muddy water coming out of a bathroom tap went viral on social media on Wednesday.
It maintained that while the district continued to experience water woes‚ it was "certain that no area during this period has been provided with such water".
On Ugu Complaints‚ a Facebook page where disgruntled residents share their frustrations‚ residents posted pictures of muddy water coming out of their taps.
One resident from Oslo Beach said her toilet bowls were stained and she had to buy bottled water to brush her teeth and cook.
Meanwhile at least 6‚000 people have submitted affidavits and signed a petition to criminally charge and sue the municipality and its staff for alleged sabotage and vandalism of water services and infrastructure last year.
The municipality said it had received death threats against repairmen sent to fix the damage.
The sabotage was blamed on water and sanitation workers in the municipality who had been on an unprotected strike.
The KwaZulu-Natal government accused workers of “deliberately damaging the infrastructure” and at the time Weziwe Thusi‚ the acting MEC for co-operative governance‚ said the sabotage was “wrong and illegal” and must stop.
She said that the water supply would return “to normal with immediate effect” and that an agreement had been reached with the strikers.

“The neighbor next door actually told us that there was a main water break in the park,” Ash said.
In a statement, the New York State Department of Health said, "…the Malta Gardens Apartments and Mobile Home Park water system has a water main break on one of the water lines leading from their treatment plant."
Ash’s son, Tracey Ash, said he overheard staff in the Malta Gardens management office discussing a plan to turn off the water to find the leak.
“They’re going to turn the water off to find the break, that’s kind of stupid because all the lines are going to freeze,” Tracey said.
“Everyone’s going to run into troubles.” Possible troubles include hefty repair bills if the water is shut off and the pipes do freeze.
Malta Gardens Management is giving out 2 gallons of water per family per day.
The Ash family said that is not enough.
Over 48 hours after the problem began and Malta Gardens management still has not said when the water will be back on.
“I’d like to see my water back ASAP…I want to be able to shower,” Ash said.
Malta Gardens management also has not indicated how long the repairs will take.

WINBURNE – A water main break in Clearfield County has left thousands of customers with little to no water.
Secretary Sapphire Burnisky with the Cooper Township Municipal Authority said the break took place in Munson around Christmas, when the temperatures started to drop.
Burnisky said crews have yet to locate the break.
"The guys have lost a lot of sleep.
Burnisky said 2,500 to 3,000 people in Cooper Township, including Lanse, Drifting and Grassflat, have little to no water.
"They tell us to conserve water but you don’t have any to conserve."
The American Red Cross dropped off cases of bottled water Wednesday at the Cooper Township Municipal Building on Kylertown Highway.
Folmar said he is doing whatever he can to get by.
"When that’s gone, I’ll go back up there and get some more."
Clearfield 911 said officials will be handing out bottles of water Wednesday at the Winburne and Grassflat fire departments until 11 p.m.

DONALDSONVILLE – Officials say workers have made significant progress in restoring water to residents in Donaldsonville.
Parish officials are cautiously optimistic that water service will not be shut off at 10 p.m.
The few customers who have not yet had service restored will not have it turned on until 4 am.
WBRZ.com first reported a total water outage in Donaldsonville Wednesday morning.
Following the report, Parish Utilities of Ascension released additional details – reporting “water was being used faster than it was being made” available, the agency said through a statement.
The local hospital, rehabilitation and retirement center were among the locations without water.
The agency said it was prioritizing the medical facilities and hoped to have water returned there by midday or early afternoon Wednesday.
Additionally, water will be shut off at 10 p.m. Wednesday to replenish the system, the department said.
Full service is expected to be returned to all customers by 4 a.m. Thursday.
Customers served in unincorporated West Ascension by ACUD #1 are not impacted by the issues.

The residents don’t want to wait for their water anymore.
"It’s been off since 8 a.m. and it’s still off," resident Tyrone Bowman said.
Bowman says he started yet another day without the simple option of turning on his faucet for fresh water.
He says City View Towers is full of senior citizens, many of them are amputees or wheelchair bound, who get around with a walker or have more serious health issues.
Many residents say they’ve been told to just buy bottled water until the issue is fixed.
They say that’s not going to cut it.
Some residents are putting water bottles in the microwave, and that seems to alleviate the problem.
Aretha Johnson says the building is working to fix the problem.
"I know about putting the pot on the stove and getting some hot water," Johnson said.
If you have no water, however, you can’t put a pot of water on the stove.

We all have our favorite drinking water, whether it’s bottled or from the tap.
The New York Times did a story about Silicon Valley’s recent obsession with "raw water” and people paying as much as $60 for a few gallons of it.
Municipal water experts Waunda Barcus in St Petersburg and Chuck Weber in Tampa both recommend not drinking raw water.
Remember, just because water is clear doesn’t mean it’s safe to drink.
"With bottled water, sometimes it’s just city water that’s been bottled, sometimes it’s just spring water, raw water, and sometimes they label what treatment process they’ve used, if any.
But you really don’t know for sure," Weber said.
Bottled water is also regulated by the FDA, not the EPA.
According to Weber, the FDA has different regulations, doesn’t test as often and its criteria aren’t as strict as the EPA’s.
Experts also say don’t always trust what’s printed on the water’s label because labels are essentially advertising meant to grab your attention in an aisle filled with competition.
Instead, double check the label by researching the company online or calling to try and find where the water is sourced from and how it is treated, if at all.

Some local stores in the metro-east are quickly running out of water.
As of Wednesday afternoon, store supplies were low at Walmart locations in Belleville and O’Fallon.
Supplies at local grocery chains were also moving quickly.
Paul Simon, spokesman for Schnucks, said the company puts special plans in place when a boil order is issued.
He said the grocery chain planned to replenish supplies in the metro-east.
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Meanwhile, the Belleville Humane Society issued a call for water: they’re running out.
A boil order has been issued for St. Clair County.
We’re in need of some gallons of water for the duration.
If you have any and can stop by to drop them off, we’d appreciate it!