City lifts E. coli warning, defends timing of notification

UPDATE • Mayor says a false alarm could have been disruptive

The Portland Tribune, Nov 28, 2009, Updated Nov 29, 2009 (21 Reader comments)

Portland’s Water Bureau lifted Sunday afternoon its warning about possible E. coli contamination in drinking water from a Washington Park reservoir.

But city officials had to answer some tough questions about why it took so long for residents west of the Willamette River to be told that their water could be contaminated.

Water bureau officials signaled the all-clear late Sunday afternoon saying new tests on the reservoir and its distribution system did not turn up evidence of more E. coli.

Warnings went out Saturday afternoon for about 50,000 Portland Water Bureau customers to boil their drinking water because E. coli was discovered in a Washington Park reservoir.

The boil-water warning affected customers in the Valley View, Burlington and Palatine Hill water districts. Bureau officials sent notices to the water district customers late last week.

Click here to see a new, updated map of the areas affected by the water bureau warning.

The bureau discovered the contamination on Thursday, nearly 24 hours after a routine test of the water Wednesday. It took nearly a day for the sample to show possible E. coli contamination, bureau officials said.

A second test came back positive on Saturday, which is the day the city began publicly warning people about the possible contamination.

"This is the first time [a second positive sample] has ever happened," said David Shaff, water bureau director.

On Sunday afternoon, Mayor Sam Adams and Water Bureau Commissioner Randy Leonard defended the agency for not immediately notifying Portlanders about the first positive E. coli result, saying it would have disrupted lives and businesses unnecessarily it was a false alarm.

Adams and Leonard told reporters that false results happen about once a year on average. They praised the bureau for its prompt response once the second sample tested positive. Federal and state drinking water rules call for the two-test system.

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