Water is safe to drink again in this Fort Worth neighborhood. Here’s what happened
Waterline construction in Fort Worth’s Como neighborhood likely led to cloudy drinking water testing positive for bacteria.
Residents living along Farnsworth Avenue between Horne and Prevost streets were told Saturday to boil water for cooking and drinking. Several drinking water samples had tested positive for coliform bacteria, officials said.
The water was safe to use again by Monday morning.
The most likely culprit for the bacteria is soil that made its way into the new waterline in the neighborhood, Fort Worth water director Chris Harder said. The boil water advisory was largely done as a precaution and affected 86 lots on along Farnsworth Avenue.
“We don’t like to do it,” Harder said of the advisory issued asking people to boil their water. “It affects consumer confidence, but we want to put public safety and public health at the highest priority.”
Coliform bacteria live in plants, soil and water, and include the E. coli strain of bacteria. Most forms of the bacteria aren’t harmful, according to the Centers for Disease Control. No E. coli was found in water samples in the neighborhood.
A new waterline on Farnsworth was put into service in late October. New lines are treated with chlorine and then flushed through the fire hydrant or another valve. Two tests in October showed no signs of bacteria, but this past week a resident on Farnsworth complained about cloudy water.
Testing at the house’s outdoor hose line repeatedly tested positive for cloriform, something Harder said is rare for Fort Worth.
Sometimes testing on a windy day could cause a false positive. The bacteria might also have been in the outdoor faucet only, not in the rest of home’s water, but at least one other resident reported cloudy water.
Harder said he couldn’t recall another time when the department voluntarily issued a boil water advisory.
“I consider this a success,” he said. “We got the call, we investigated and when we had troubling results we escalated to boil water advisory even though we weren’t required to.”
This story was originally published November 19, 2018 at 11:22 AM.
