The boil water advisory, which was put into effect for the Bradford City Water system Thursday evening, will continue through mid-week.
The Bradford Area schools, however, will be set to return to school Monday.
“We do plan to have school on Monday. We will have enough drinking water for all of the students and to meet the needs of the school cafeteria by the start of the day,” Superintendent Katie Pude told The Era staff. “We were also originally concerned about hand-washing and sanitation (especially since it is flu season), and are relieved to know that it is safe to use the water for those purposes.”
A post to the water authority Facebook page on Friday afternoon explained the plans moving forward.
Per the Bradford City Water Authority’s website, “This current event is a precautionary measure which means customers should consider boiling water for one minute prior to washing dishes, food preparation, brushing teeth, making ice or consumption, or simply use bottled water.
This resulted from a reduction of the pre-treatment process which caused turbidities to rise above normal levels. The DEP will not allow the boil water advisory to be lifted until a sufficient amount of water has passed through the entire distribution system, which will be in excess of 8.0 million gallons which will take us into Sunday.”
While the water will run through the system by Sunday, that does not mean the advisory can be lifted. Instead, that is the point when testing can begin to ensure the water does not contain bacteria.
The post also notes that “Once the distribution system has had a full 100% replenishment of new water, the DEP requires two consecutive days of systemwide testing to ensure bacteria is not present. Those results will not be known until sometime Wednesday afternoon.
“So the boil water advisory will remain in effect at least through some point on Wednesday. As soon as we have results on Wednesday afternoon, we will provide immediate notification on whether to lift the advisory or to continue with the boil water advisory.”
The boil advisory is in effect for Bradford, Foster and Lafayette townships as well as Lewis Run Borough.
