“The Boil Water Advisory is lifted and customers in Columbus City Utilities service area can resume using tap water for all purposes.
City water elsewhere in the system showed no signs of contamination, Reeves said.
The advisory had also affected customers outside of the City of Columbus.
—————- Story published in Saturday’s edition of The Republic: The city has issued a boil-order until Sunday morning for all customers on Columbus city-provided water after tests detected E. coli in the distribution system and a city well.
Hinton said she learned of the boil order from The Republic’s Facebook page, then contacted Columbus City Utilities Director Keith Reeves, who had issued the order late Friday afternoon.
The boil order, a first for the city utilities in many years, was required after city workers doing routine testing on Wednesday discovered a sample from the city’s distribution system pipes that tested positive for E. coli when results were returned on Thursday.
As a precaution, the state requires a test of all the city’s water supply wells and that test showed a positive E. coli reading Friday in one of Columbus’ 15 wells, Reeves said.
That well, located in the Bartholomew County Fairgrounds area on the southwest side of the city, was immediately taken offline and is not supplying city water at this time, Reeves said.
If you do not want to boil the water, city officials advise using bottled water until the boil water order is lifted.
If you have a severely compromised immune system, have an infant or are elderly, you may be at increased risk from drinking contaminated water and should seek advice from your health care provider about any symptoms.