Henrico's Chan: County’s boil water advisory could be lifted by Saturday
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News Thursday afternoon that the city of Richmond has restored full water pressure citywide means that Henrico residents who have been dealing with little or no water pressure are closer to a full return to normal.
Already Thursday, most of the 23,000 Henrico customers who did not have water started to get at least some water pressure back, Henrico Public Utilities Director Bentley Chan told the Citizen, and the city was supplying water to Henrico at the rate of about 6 million gallons per day (slightly more than half the 11 million gallons it supplies during a normal day).
“It may be kind of a little bit lower on the pressure and flow, but from everything that we’ve been seeing, it’s actually moving a lot quicker than we had projected,” Chan said of service restoration throughout Eastern and Northern Henrico.
On Wednesday afternoon, the city conducted its first bacteriological test of water in its drinking water facility, and that test came back clean. A second clean test today would put the city halfway to ending its boil water advisory.
The other half of the process – tests of water within the city’s distribution system – began with testing between 11 a.m. and noon today. If today’s tests are clean and follow-up tests conducted 16 hours later are too, the city’s boil water advisory would be lifted sometime Friday.
But Henrico’s boil water advisory, implemented Wednesday afternoon, likely will extend until Saturday, Chan told the Citizen. That’s because Henrico is conducting its own tests on its water system, primarily in the areas that are being served by the city’s water supply, Chan said.
“We think that we’ll be pulling second bacteriological sample tomorrow,” he said. “If all goes well, we think that boil water advisory can be lifted on Saturday.”
On Wednesday, officials had indicated that 24 hours needed to pass between the first and second tests in both Richmond and Henrico. But on a call Thursday morning, Virginia Department of Health officials told both localities that that window could be shortened to 16 hours, Chan said.
