NARRAGANSETT – Three days after the Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH) issued a boil-water advisory for parts of Narragansett and South Kingstown due to E. coli contamination in the local water supply, Narragansett Town Manager James Manni updated residents on the situation at a regularly scheduled Narragansett Town Council meeting Monday night.
He also said that local businesses had been hit hard by the boil-water advisory over the weekend, and the decision to issue the measure came from RIDOH, not the town.
“The Town of Narragansett did not have any of its own tests come back with any type of result indicating bacteria during that same time period.” The positive test result at Suez’s testing sites a town over, according to Manni, “triggered” the need for a second test to be conducted the next day, on Thursday, Aug. 30.
When the results of that test also displayed positive, Suez notified RIDOH, who in turn notified the towns.
“Again, it was in Narragansett and not in South Kingstown.
On Aug. 14, we had a water test done and the town engineer came to me and said we had a water sample test positive for bacteria growing in it and RIDOH had been notified.
Five of the testing sites contain water that is Suez water.
One of the testing sites is from North Kingstown Water Supply.
“So when we buy water from North Kingstown, and we buy it from Suez, it flows through these booster stations which supply it with chlorine.” Manni said one of his initial questions to RIDOH was, if the water supplied from SUEZ was contaminated with E. coli but then supplied with chlorine on its route to Narragansett customers, why did Narragansett also have to issue its boil-water advisory?
And looking at it in totality, you have to support that decision.” Manni also mentioned a water expert from the RIDOH explained that chlorine injected into the water supply at boosting stations was not enough to eradicate the presence of bacteria completely, but was enough to stop it from growing.