E. coli scare tests Amherst

By Mary Carey
Staff Writer

Published on September 05, 2008

With more than 20,000 students preparing to return to Amherst over Labor Day weekend, a water test that showed evidence of E. coli bacteria had town and campus officials scrambling to prepare for a potential public health emergency. In the end, there was no emergency, but Amherst officials say they were ready - efforts were well-coordinated and the system for alerting residents in an emergency worked well.

"Generally, I was really pleased with how the town, the colleges, public safety and schools all interacted," said Robert Pariseau, the town's water director. "We tried to get the word out early without alarming people."

Pariseau notified residents last Friday that a "boil-water" order might be necessary after a test for the bacteria showed an initial positive in a Village Park Auto water sample.

Further tests that day proved negative, and by Saturday afternoon Town Manager Larry Shaffer announced via automated phone calls and on the town's Web site that, "Amherst drinking water is fine."

Select Board member Stephanie O'Keeffe described on her blog the scene at the Department of Public Works Saturday, as officials awaited word on whether follow-up tests proved positive for the potentially harmful E. coli. Officials gathered there included the health director, police chief, Senior Center and Information Technology directors, Shaffer, Assistant Town Manager John Musante, O'Keeffe and Select Board member Diana Stein.

"Impressive bunch of knowledge, organization and dedication - all assembled on a Saturday afternoon of a holiday weekend, looking out for Amherst," O'Keeffe wrote. "Thank goodness this turned out to be a non-issue, but had it been otherwise, the Town was prepared, and I felt we were in good hands."

Former Select Board member Hwei-Ling Greeney got a call from a concerned resident Friday afternoon wondering whether it was safe to drink tap water or take a shower. Not knowing who to call because it was after business hours, Greeney called the police and was told that it was OK to drink tap water and shower until further notice.

"In my mind, these 24/7-type agencies, such as fire or police, should be armed with the basic facts (in an emergency) to disseminate," Greeney said. "So they did their job."

Among the first to disseminate information to the public was the school system, which sent emails, automated phone calls and notes home with students alerting families that further water tests were being done and that information about a possible boil-water order would be known on Saturday. Interim Co-superintendent Alton Sprague said probably "hundreds of staff hours" had been spent responding to the situation.

<h4>Possible factors</h4>

Pariseau guessed the E. coli was the result of a flawed sample and is not likely to reoccur. Meanwhile, the town has boosted chlorine levels in the water. "We're going to leave it higher for a while," he said.

It is not unusual that two samples tested positive for coliform bacteria, which is not dangerous in itself but an indicator that dangerous bacteria might be present, according to Pariseau.

"They're a fact of life," Pariseau said. Coliform has recently been detected in Hadley, South Hadley, Granby and Williamsburg as well as in other communities across the state.

Coliform was most recently detected in South Amherst in May and residents were alerted through the Consumer Confidence Report the town publishes.

But it was the first time in Pariseau's 20 years working in Amherst that E. coli had been detected, triggering the possibility that the state Department of Environmental Protection in conformance with federal guidelines would issue a boil-water order. A nearly two-week-long boil-water order was recently lifted in the town of Pembroke, following a positive E. coli result there.

Late August and September is the season for boil orders and it's been an active year, DEP spokesman Edmund Coletta said this week.

"It's the time of year that you start drawing down the water in whatever source and that sometimes pulls in contamination. It's also the time of year when the water is warmest and tends to percolate more bacteria."

Another possible factor is that fewer people are using the town's water system in the summer. It could create "dead spots" in the 130 miles of pipeline connecting users with Amherst's five wells and two reservoirs, contributing to lower chlorine levels, as chlorine is not stable when there isn't a lot of movement in the water. Coliform was found in samples taken near the Southwest residential area of the University of Massachusetts and in the Campus Center.

"Obviously, there's not as much water being used in those areas during the off-season," Pariseau said.

The reason it took almost a full day after the revelation that there had been a positive E. coli result for officials to announce that the water was fine is that it takes 24 hours to incubate a sample before it can be read.

"If a community came up with eight E. coli positives, I'm sure the DEP would have jumped right on that and said (issue a) boil-water order right away," Pariseau said.

DEP spokesman Coletta said he has heard complaints that the DEP waits too long to issue the orders. Sometimes, a community will get an initial positive reading followed by negative ones, as happened in Amherst, in which case a boil-water order would have been unnecessary.

"If that happens, enough people are going to stop listening to you," Coletta said.

"The EPA and the federal government have come up with this system, and it has been working for many years."

Mary Carey can be reached at mary.carey@att.net.