The boil water order for Oak Bluffs was lifted Wednesday morning, and officials said they had shut down the offending Lagoon Pond well and started adding chlorine to another well closest to the town's water tank.
The boil water order for Oak Bluffs was lifted Wednesday morning, and officials said they had shut down the offending Lagoon Pond well and started adding chlorine to another well closest to the town's water tank.
A boil water order in Oak Bluffs was extended late Tuesday evening after test results from town water samples came back from the state Department of Environmental Protection.
Two out of five water samples tested positive for fecal indicator bacteria, interim water superintendent Paul Provost said. The DEP is slated to send a representative to the Island Wednesday morning to meet with town and water district officials. The main source of the problem is the Lagoon Pond well.
The town of Oak Bluffs remained under a boil water order Tuesday, as the water district waited for the mandatory 48-hour water sample testing to be completed.
Paul Provost, superintendent at the Oak Bluffs water district, said he was surprised that the Department of Environmental Protection imposed the boil water order Monday morning because while the water did contain a background coliform bacteria, the sample did not come up positive for fecal matter.
“The water is safe,” Mr. Provost said. “Just boil it, and that boiling is really a precaution. The state wants to protect all the Oak Bluffs customers like they do every other town. This is why we sampled, because if we do have a problem in the well, you want to know and you want to deal with it.”
Eight months after town health officials first detected a contaminated plume running beneath Edgartown Meadows subdivision, they are turning their attention to installing clean drinking water in the neighborhood instead of pinpointing the cause.
"This has dragged on for more than half a year. It's obviously more of a long-term problem," said Matthew Poole, Edgartown health agent.
"The most important thing is for people to have safe drinking water regardless of whether the source is septic systems or the golf club or something we haven't even considered," he added.
