Floods recede, revealing new problems
Worries raised over Acampo drinking water as area braces for more storms
As the floods receded on Tuesday, the dry weather brought a new worry for a few Acampo residents: Is their water safe to drink?
Boiled water notices were sent to Houston Elementary School, A M Market, and a handful of homes on Acampo Road on Tuesday.
The move was taken as a precaution, said Rodney Estrada, program coordinator with San Joaquin County Environmental Health Department.
Over the weekend, flood waters covered the well head at Houston Elementary, he said.
“The well itself was under the flood water, so they were put on a boiled water notice,” Estrada said.
The notice means that water should be boiled before drinking, or bottled water should be used instead. In most cases, no action would be taken until the county had a chance to sample and retest the water.
Then, if it was contaminated, it would be treated, resampled and retested.
Boiling kills any bacteria that may have gotten into the well water from flood waters.
In Houston Elementary’s case, however, they’re skipping straight to treatment.
“They were given the goahead to chlorinate and then they’re flushing the system out,” Estrada said.
That process should take a day or two; testing the water will take another 24 to 48 hours.
At A M Market, where nine homes are connected to the well, it may take a bit longer.
“Theirs is mostly precautionary because we don’t know that (the well) went underwater,” Estrada said.
But Environmental Health Services suspects it did. What’s more, there’s a good chance it will be covered by flooding again in the storm expected to hit this evening, Estrada said. If it is, they’ll have to start the whole process over again.
So the department is asking the market and those homes to wait it out and stick to boiled or bottled water until the next storm passes.
“If it stays dry at the well, we’ll ask them to go ahead and resample it,” he said. “We don’t want to have to keep redoing it.”
More storms on the horizon
With another storm series bearing down on the Lodi area, residents are bracing for more flooding and damage.
“There’s two storms headed our way. One is a cold front that will be coming in, probably spreading some rain, late (tonight) into Thursday,” said Ken Clark, a senior meteorologist with private forecasting service AccuWeather.
That first storm is expected to bring heavy rain late tonight into early Thursday morning.
A lull with a few scattered
showers will likely bring a break on Thursday afternoon until Friday afternoon or evening, Clark said.
Then, more showers are expected through Saturday morning, he said.
“I think we’re looking at least an inch or two of rain,” Clark said — probably closer to two inches.
The storm will also bring some rain and warm temperatures into snowy areas of the Sierra Nevadas, with snow melt as a result.
“Is that bad? Yeah. You’ve had way too much rain,” Clark said. “There is going to be more localized flooding going on because of this.”
The storms themselves won’t be the largest to hit the area this winter, but the water
is still likely to be more than Lodi can handle right now, he said.
The rain could also cause new problems up at Lake Oroville, where officials are scurrying to shore up the dam’s badly damaged spillways before the rain begins again, he added.
And while it’s too early to be certain, there could be a third storm early next week.
“It has a pretty darn good chance of rain Sunday night and Monday,” Clark said.