Questions Linger from Boil Order

By Justin Foss, Reporter

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By Justin Foss

Story Created: Nov 22, 2007 at 8:42 PM CST

Story Updated: Nov 22, 2007 at 8:42 PM CST

Cedar Rapids - Early Thursday morning Cedar Rapids city workers lifted the boil order on parts of the town.

"We understand the inconvenience this caused, but when it comes to public health, we'll always be on the cautious side," said Pat Ball, Director of Utilities.

If you lived in the affected area, Wednesday night Cedar Rapids city officials said the water in your tap might not be good.

"The bacteriological tests show that there was no problems, there still may be some cloudiness in some area because of all the flushing we did, but the tests show there are no health hazards there," said Ball.

A lot of people called in to KCRG TV9 wondering why the water line could have been contaminated in the morning, yet they didn't know about it until the afternoon.

Ball says they called the Iowa Department of Natural Resources for advice right away. Ball says they ended up leaving a message.

"We had not heard back from the DNR, so we called them back and after some discussions they recommended we do a boil advisory to err on the side of caution, and we did so," said Ball.

Next week the city will sit down with the contractor to find out who will pay for the incident, and who is at fault.

"They were digging in an area where they were laying some new pipes and hit a pipe," said Ball. "Why that happened is part of what we're going to be discussing."

Early cost estimates for the thousands of gallons blown out of city lines and the staff to take in more than 500 phone calls Wednesday night will run into the thousands said ball. He added they'll have a better idea next week.

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