CUC calls cops after water tank hatch is found open

Speaking before members of the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. board, CUC water/wastewater division manager Kevin Watson provides an update about an incident at the Dandan Water Tank that prompted CUC to issue a precautionary “boil water” notice last Thursday. (FERDIE DE LA TORRE)

A hatch on top of the Dandan Water Tank was discovered open last Thursday, prompting the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. to call the police to investigate and for the agency to issue a precautionary “boil water” notice, according to Kevin Watson, who is the CUC water/wastewater division manager.

Speaking at the CUC board meeting last Friday, Watson said it was discovered during the CUC water crew’s routine operations that the hatch on top of the Dandan Tank had been opened, which is concerning.

Using best management practices, they isolated the tank to prevent any of that water, if it had been contaminated or somebody had fallen in, from reaching customers, he said.

“We also made provisions to route water from another service area as much as we could to limit the affected persons or fast affected customers,” the manager said.

He said they contacted CUC’s Compliance and Safety Department and the Department of Public Safety to investigate.

Watson said their laboratory personnel took samples of water from the surface of the reservoir and did multiple chemical analysis on it. The manager said the results of the bacteriological tests take 18-24 hours to get, so they left the tank isolated during that time.

He said the results of one of the tests indicated that everything was good. Watson said they investigated the inside of the reservoir and determined that there was no sign that anything had been introduced into the water, which is another good sign.

“But we didn’t want to take any precaution. So we let the analysis play out,” he said.

The following day, Friday, the results came back from samples at the base of the tank going out into the distribution.

Watson said the results of the test for coliform was negative, which means there was no coliform bacteria in the samples. Watson said the samples taken the day before the discovery and all those results were without coliform bacteria as well.

“The water was safe. No coliform bacteria [was found] in our distribution system,” he said.

They did detect the presence of coliform on the surface water samples.

“And just to try to explain the process of sampling, you have to drop a sample into the water from above and draw it up,” he said.

Watson said the presence of coliform from the surface could have been caused by something blown in through that open hatch or even in the process in taking a sample itself.

He said when they got that positive result for the presence of coliform, they followed up with a confirmation sample.

“And we are waiting for that results now,” the manager said.

He said they contacted the Bureau of Environmental and Coastal Quality to get their confirmation on how CUC should proceed. Watson said that BECQ agreed with him about the other steps they were taking and that CUC didn’t need to issue a boil water notice.

“But we thought it was prudent to do a precautionary and precautionary means it’s basically up to the customers. Even if the risk is very slight, there is still a possibility,” he said.

Watson said the tank is secured and the hatch is closed and has been padlocked.

Last Friday at noon, CUC announced that the precautionary boil water notice is no longer in effect.