State lifts boil order for Earle after test
A boil order for customers of the Earle water system was lifted Friday after water samples taken last week were found to be free of contamination.
The Arkansas Department of Health issued the order on Wednesday after two earlier samples tested positive for bacteria.
One sample, taken during routine monthly testing in late June, was found to contain E. coli, an indicator of fecal contamination, Jeff Stone, director of the Health Department’s engineering section, said last week.
Another sample, collected on July 2, was negative for E. coli but positive for total coliform bacteria, he said.
In a letter to the water system on Friday, Health Department Environmental Health Specialist Savannah Riddle said that samples taken Wednesday and Thursday were found to be free of bacteriological contamination and that “a satisfactory disinfectant level has been established throughout the distribution system.”
“The water is therefore considered ‘Safe’ for human consumption and the ‘Boil Water’ notice is hereby lifted,” Riddle said in the letter.
Stone said Thursday that the reason the bacteria was found in earlier tests wasn’t clear, but could have been due to contamination that occurred where the samples were collected.
Health Department staff reported that “the only problem observed during field visits was the spigot at the site that had shown bacteria was low to the ground and presented difficulty in proper collection of the samples,” Health Department spokesman Meg Mirivel said in in email Friday.
The amount of disinfectant in the water was normal, “so they did not need to do anything out of the ordinary in that regard,” she said.
Mirivel also said the department had not yet received a written response from the system’s operator, Danny Clark, to the department’s request on Wednesday that he surrender his licenses to treat and distribute water.
The department made the request after an investigation found evidence that Clark submitted false information on testing for lead and copper in the city’s water, according to the letter it sent Clark.