City Manager Barry Atkison released a public notice related to the water boiling advisory issued Tuesday for the Ohio Drive water tank area, where water tested positive for coliform.

Specifically, the notice relates to a small area in the southwest portion of the city contained within Prior Station Road on the north, Hwy 100 on the south, Adamson Road to the east, and the end of the city limits along Prior Station to the west.

Atkison said that the City of Cedartown has been aggressively rehabilitating water storage tanks in 2002 and 2003. To date, both tanks on Gibson Street, and the Ohio Drive water tank have been totally rehabilitated inside and out, according to the city manager.

He said that the problem that occurred over the past couple of weeks is inconsistent water quality testing around the area of the Ohio Drive water tank. When work on the Ohio Drive tank was completed one month ago, the American Water Works Association and the Environmental Protection Agency accepted methods were used to decontaminated the inside of the tank. This method involved a complete spraying of the interior of the tank with a high strength chlorine solution.

Upon completion of this decontamination process, the tank was filled. Daily testing of the water quality inside the tank was then initiated. Throughout the entire testing period, an appropriate residual chlorine concentration existed inside the tank. Two weeks ago, the water lab confirmed drinking water quality existed within the tank. Therefore, the tank was placed back in service. Unfortunately, during follow-up testing in the Ohio Drive area, some water quality samples tested positive for total coliform. Total coliform in drinking water can produce stomach and intestinal distress. All residents and businesses where these positive samples were taken were notified by letter and/or in person.

As normal procedure, a wider area of sampling was initiated to determine the limits of the contamination. No additional coliform samples were found, Atksion stated in a press release.

In response to these findings, the tank was drained and re-chlorinated with a very strong dose of chlorine.

Currently, the water tank is off line. Also, city crews are flushing water mains in the affected area. “Once our water lab determines five consecutive days of no additional coliform in water samples taken from the area’s water mains, and determines five consecutive days of no coliform from water tank samples, the boil water advisory will be removed and the tank placed back in service,” Atkison said.

Atkison stated that citizens should be confident that boiling water before drinking kills all coliform bacteria. Tap water can be used as normal for all other non-ingestion uses without boiling. The boil water advisory does not apply to any other part of town other than that area described previously. The City of Cedartown is said to be in close contact with representatives in the Environmental Protection Division. City officials say that on March 17, EPD representatives approved of the method of response to the problem.

He went on to say that, for citizen confidence going forward, residents should be advised that the City of Cedartown Water Quality Lab performs routine water quality testing throughout the city’s distribution system on a daily basis. The City of Cedartown has exceptional water quality at the source and at the customer’s tap,” he said.

“Sometimes, systems will experience water quality problems due to line and tank repairs. We are certain that the rehabilitation work on Ohio Drive caused this current problem. The City of Cedartown will always notify our citizens whenever we find quality concerns.”

Those customers who have been notified of water quality concerns should continue boiling their water before consumption until such time as the City of Cedartown removes the boil notice.