After almost two weeks, the boil water notice has been lifted from Bethel’s Trailer Court neighborhood. Last month a routine sample revealed E. Coli present in the pipes of one home. Cliff Lindroth is the manager at the neighborhood’s water processing plant.
“We got the green light from the Department of Environmental Conservation. They came out here on Tuesday, we got the results back from the YK lab, all tests came back negative," Lindroth said.
The tests confirm what Lindroth has said for the last week - the containment was isolated to one home and not a system wide problem.
“I apologize to people for the concern and inconvenience they’ve had during this period of reacting to what was kind of a false turd in the punch bowl," said Lindroth.
Lindroth blames unorthodox piping systems inside the contaminated home for the scare.
“It’s not uncommon for somebody to just put a piece of hose in there and clamp it on with some hose clamps. And maybe that was the same hose that was lying out in the yard. The same hose that’s been lying in the bottom of somebody's boat," he said.
City workers volunteered their time to help identify the problem. The Trailer Court water system is independent from the city’s system.
Lindroth says that as a result of the scare, the plant will be doing more regular testing to make sure everything is normal moving forward.