City’s 2nd boil-water alert angers residents
For the second time this week, the city of Columbus has issued a boil advisory for at least 24,000 water customers in a large section of Downtown, the South Side and parts of the Short North and Grandview Heights.
A power outage at the Dublin Road Water Plant is once again to blame for the advisory.
Water users in the Downtown area from King Avenue south to Interstate 270, and then on the west side from Dublin Road east to Parsons Avenue, are asked to boil water for at least one minute before consuming it.
The boil advisory will run through at least Saturday, when the city expects water-test results.
Matt Steele, the city’s water-supply and treatment coordinator, said he has worked for the city for 25 years and has never seen power-related boil advisories — yet alone two separate problems within days — affect so many customers.
“That these happened back to back is not a typical event,” he said.
As was the case earlier this week, people on social media were upset that the city’s Department of Public Utilities does not have a text alert or email system set up to immediately notify residents in such situations.
Public utilities spokeswoman Laura Young Mohr said in an email that utilities department leaders will talk with Franklin County Emergency Management and Homeland Security, which had sent out text alerts about the Downtown protests and curfews earlier this year. The leaders also will look at other notification options.
A not-yet-named 6-week-old Masai giraffe calf makes his public debut at the Columbus Zoo & Aquarium on Friday. The calf is the son of 10-year-old giraffes Zuri and Enzi, who in 2018 lost a calf
— one of two calves to die at the zoo in a span of three weeks.
Families considering adopting through the foster-care system now may peruse a state website with online profiles of some of the more than 3,000 Ohio children in need of permanent homes.
“All children need and deserve forever families, and we hope this addition to our website will help achieve that for more of them,” said Kimberly Hall, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
Darrel Koerber, deputy director of the county’s emergency management system, said the county sent the protest alerts at the request of Columbus police.
He said the county has the capability through a federal system to send out text alerts to all wireless devices in the county. But Koerber said it is unclear whether federal criteria for use of that system allows the county to send text messages about boil-water advisories.
“Civil disturbance is one category through that system that allows us to go through emergency wireless alerts,” he said.
But another part of the county’s emergency-management alert system could allow the city to set up boil-advisory text alerts and emails for people who subscribe to that. Those discussions have begun, Koerber said.
Dr. Ashley Lipps, an infectious-disease specialist at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center, said potential risks for customers who are unaware of an advisory and are drinking water that is not boiled include gastroenteritis, which can be caused by bacteria, viruses or parasites.
Symptoms include fever, diarrhea, abdominal pain and nausea.
People at risk include those with weakened immune systems, the very young and the elderly, she said.
City officials said the system failures on Tuesday and Friday were separate events.
On Tuesday, an electric-power distribution system failure that originated near Columbus State Community College affected operations at the plant, a power sag that caused a temporary reduction in water pressure, Steele said.
The city is required to issue an advisory when pressure drops below 20 pounds of force per square inch.
The failure on Friday involved a capital-improvement project at the plant to provide standby generator power. Tests being conducted as part of that work led to Friday morning’s power outage, which lasted up to a minute and cause a temporary reduction in water pressure.
Steele said the standby generator project is costing $11 million. lsullivan@dispatch.com @Dispatchsully mferench@dispatch.com @Markferenchik