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SOMEBODY FLIPPING ONE FUCKING SWITCH WOULD HAVE KEPT AUSTIN IN WATER

Hagbard Celine

By Hagbard Celine
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Anastasis
Anastasis

Lol. It’s gonna be hilarious when y’all all need Ivermectin to treat your parasitic infections. 

Borachio
Borachio

Some of y'all didn't grow up drinking water out of a green hose in the front yard during the summer months and it shows. 

Brisketexan
Brisketexan

I think we can all rest easily knowing that we’ll appoint a special commission to look into this, and after a couple of years they’ll release a report recommending a simple solution to our water treat

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zman13

zman13 180

Posted
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Austin Water waited 12 hours before issuing boil water notice. (statesman.com)

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Austin Water waited 12 hours before issuing boil water notice. It's not clear why.
Ryan Autullo
Austin American-Statesman

Nearly 12 hours lapsed Saturday between the time Austin Water officials say they learned of an issue affecting the city's drinking water and the time they alerted customers in a citywide boil water notice.

It's unclear whether that response was unreasonably slow and, if so, whether it put anyone in danger through exposure to water with high levels of turbidity, or cloudiness. 

Those are among the questions the utility has not answered publicly as the boil water notice moves into the fourth — and probably final — day Tuesday.

On Monday evening, Austin Water responded to an inquiry from the American-Statesman sent earlier in the day but didn't directly explain the lag between detecting the problem and telling the public.

Lance Stacy picks up a case of water at the Kelly Reeves Athletic Complex in Williamson County on Monday. Austin Water issued a boil water notice Saturday night.


"They're a fair set of questions, and I've asked the same questions," City Council Member Alison Alter said.

Alter said she intends to bring forward a plan for an independent external audit to probe not only what happened in this instance but a pattern of issues at Austin Water.


The city's water department has issued three boil water alerts since late 2018. In addition, there was an incident in early 2019 in which the city's water supply was drinkable but smelled and tasted funny because of the presence of dead and decaying zebra mussels in some raw water intake pipes.

Alter's call for an independent audit generated support from four of her council colleagues, a sign that it has a good chance of getting approved when she brings it forward for a vote.


But Alter said she isn't willing to wait for the completion of that audit to learn more about why the city took most of the day Saturday before alerting customers to the problem. Alter, who represents District 10 in Northwest Austin, said she has asked City Manager Spencer Cronk that question and others and has requested that the answers be disseminated to the public through Austin Water's communications team.

"I share in the frustration that many in the public have expressed about the most recent boil water notice and the frequency of these events," Alter wrote in a message board post. "While I appreciate the efforts our staff are making to restore water and distribute assistance, our community expects and deserves better."

At a press conference Sunday, Austin Water Director Greg Meszaros said the issue resulted from human error and not a mechanical breakdown. When water in the system first tested high for turbidity, the operational staff should have reacted immediately but did not, he said.

Meszaros, the director since 2007, said the error had never happened before and is "not easy" to make.

"We have many controls in place," he said.

Asked if people might lose their jobs because of the error, Meszaros responded, "all actions are on the table."

More:Austin issues emergency boil water notice, expected to last 'a couple of days'

If all goes according to Austin Water's plan, the current boil water notice will be lifted by the end of the day Tuesday and residents will again be able to enjoy water straight from their taps. The utility was set to sample the quality of the water Monday, a day after the Ullrich Water Treatment Plant returned to normal production levels.

Meszaros said that at 8 a.m. Saturday he was notified of a turbidity spike at the Ullrich plant and responded by shutting down the plant. He said the affected water went out to the public for about 30 minutes and that it was due to a breakdown in oversight by the operating staff.

Per the state administrative code, Austin Water is required to notify the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality "as soon as possible to determine if there is a threat to public health and if a BWN (boil water notice) is necessary.”

Austin Water provided verbal notification about 2 p.m., according to TCEQ spokesman Gary Rasp. That was six hours after the high turbidity levels were discovered.

TCEQ requires that a boil water notice be issued as soon as possible, but in no case later than 24 hours after the condition occurs.

"They notified us well within the timeframe that our rules require," Rasp said.

The boil water notice went out a little after 7:30 p.m. Saturday.

In a Monday evening response to the American-Statesman's questions, an Austin Water spokesman said the boil water notice was issued preemptively — as a precaution — and that the utility is confident that water quality remained safe for all customers. The spokesman also confirmed that the Ullrich plant serves customers in South Austin.

The plant "was taken offline immediately and water production was increased at our other two plants," the spokesman said in a statement. "While the plant was offline, in coordination with TCEQ, we evaluated the system condition and it was determined that a boil water notice was required. Water disinfection parameters have remained consistent and within regulatory standards. With the boil water notice in place, operators were then able to begin restarting water treatment operations at Ullrich Water Treatment Plant."

Alter's audit proposal followed a plan from Council Members Paige Ellis and Natasha Harper-Madison to arrange a specially called council meeting to examine the issues. That request, made Sunday, was met with pushback as some council members thought it was too soon and that all of the answers might not be available.

Ellis and Harper-Madison are the only two council members up for reelection this year.

"It seems like the answers we need should be pretty straightforward, and I appreciate my colleagues offering their perspectives on the best path forward as well," Ellis said.


 

 

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Guest Lobo

Guest Lobo

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Posted

To be fair to the plant operators, the button to alert the media about a water boil notice is behind the same panel that has the emergency generator backup button.   They both were designed by Nakatomi Center security engineers, both take 12 hours to initiate, and nobody except Theo is trained on them.  And Theo’s toast.  

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TexArcher

TexArcher 37777

Posted
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22 minutes ago, Lobo said:

To be fair to the plant operators, the button to alert the media about a water boil notice is behind the same panel that has the emergency generator backup button.   They both were designed by Nakatomi Center security engineers, both take 12 hours to initiate, and nobody except Theo is trained on them.  And Theo’s toast.  

You asked for miracles.  I give you the C...  O...  A...

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Updawg

Updawg 2266

Posted
Posted
This may be just risk aversion fatigue but I’ve been drinking the water without incident since the start of the notice.  If there are parasites hopefully they will help me hit my New Years resolution to lose five pounds.  

Shit. A good parasite should help you lose 50 easy
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Paper_jam

Paper_jam 831

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Posted

I don't know WTF happened at Ullrich, but if unclean water did enter the citywide distribution system, as was my understanding, how does me running my cold water taps for 1-5 minutes flush all that out? It seems like there could be a huge volume of potentially-tainted water still lingering in the system. Even if certain locations tested clean, how do we know whether those samples are representative of conditions along the whole system?

Or should I just be quiet and have faith that our municipal leaders and institutions have really fixed it?

 

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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 89675

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, crash_davis said:

Sure why not. Haven't heard or read any reports of people getting sick from drinking unboiled water during so...

Only 1-2% of Austin drinks out of the tap - the rest are drinking artisanal hand-made rain water that was bottled by virgins.  The 1913 batch is fucking expensive, but worth every penny.

Wait, I meant they are drinking art is anal water, which means they have the shits no matter what.

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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 89675

Posted
Posted (edited)
2 minutes ago, Paper_jam said:

I don't know WTF happened at Ullrich, but if unclean water did enter the citywide distribution system, as was my understanding, how does me running my cold water taps for 1-5 minutes flush all that out? It seems like there could be a huge volume of potentially-tainted water still lingering in the system. Even if certain locations tested clean, how do we know whether those samples are representative of conditions along the whole system?

Or should I just be quiet and have faith that our municipal leaders and institutions have really fixed it?

If they fixed it when they say they did (Sunday/Monday morning), that was 24+ hours of us running clean water through the system to get water to boil, take showers, water lawns, wash stuff, etc.

The 1-5 minute thing is for the folks who completely shut down the usage of water in their homes/businesses and they needed to flush out that bit of water in the home pipes.

Edited by atomheartbevo
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Guest Lobo

Guest Lobo

Posted
Posted (edited)
45 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Welcome back to modern civilization, Austin. 
 

 

And just like the last time I had tequila Steve............"AND THIS TIME, I MEAN IT!" 

What a corruptly incompetent asshat.  Just shut up, finish out your term, count your cash, and choke on a dick.

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Guest Lobo

Guest Lobo

Posted
Posted (edited)

Yeah, no CR...I despise Adler and Austin Water more than most since I've been involved with the sausage making.  And I'm not necessarily supporting single-payer health care...but I don't really get the connect between a municipal water administrator and health care in the United States?  

I mean yeah, if the Austin Water director got shitcanned today and then got hired to run Texas Medicaid tomorrow, I'd be the loudest citizen.  But short of that, I don't get the connect.  

I have dire, dire concerns with the Affordable Care Act...but the whole "You want the DMV running your health care" thing never rang true for me.  Nobody wants a JuCo dropout clerk who can barely spell your last name for your license renewal administering anesthesia to you before major surgery.  Which is why...ya' know...we have 3700 barriers between those fucking idiots and your health care delivery.  

Back to Austin Water...I love that last year's 8 days with no water didn't trigger Adler...but this did.  I wonder why?  Yes, surly Lobo is on the case...

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