LANCASTER, Ohio — Lancaster water customers were advised to boil their water since Saturday due to emergency maintenance on one of the city’s wells.
“We’re being extra careful, yes. For us not to put one [boil order] in would be a sin against the city,” said Darren Drumm, Lancaster Water Plant superintendent. “One of the reasons there’s a precautionary boil notice in effect, because we want to ensure the water we provide is safe and we meet all Ohio EPA requirements and code.”
Drumm said Monday that problems at the city’s South Water Plant started to arise earlier in 2024, but the issue in one of the wells got large enough that city water employees had to shut it down for emergency maintenance.
“We started fouling some of the reverse osmosis skids so frequently, I couldn’t replace the cartridge filters and couldn’t get some of the equipment in. I needed to do emergency work to the well,” said Drumm. “Good news is, we did this work and our skids are no longer fouling and we’re up and running well.”
In order to put the well back in service after the maintenance, a boil advisory had to be issued while a sample of the water was sent to a lab in Circleville for quality testing.
Lancaster lifted its boil advisory around 4 p.m. Monday when samples sent to a testing lab returned clean.
Drumm said the South Water Plant, while it’s significantly newer than the North Water Plant, is starting to show its age. It opened in 2003 and pulls from four wells to pump about 8 million gallons of water per day. Drumm said some of the equipment is two decades old and it’s showing its age.
Construction is currently underway to replace the more than 70-year-old North Water Plant with a new $95 million plant to keep up with the city’s demands. It’s expected to come online in 2025.
Drumm said it will also provide some support for the South Water Plant and may help reduce the chances of a citywide boil advisory in the future.
“It will help balance things out. It will give us more redundancy,” he said.
The city’s water office was inundated with calls Monday. Most of them were people inquiring about the boil order and wanting to know more. Social media saw the circulation of personal opinions on what had happened over the weekend. 10TV asked Drumm about these posts.
“We are doing everything here we can. The employees we have here at the water plant care about the water. I have five grandchildren that drink this water,” he said. “We eat in Lancaster, we have a good time in Lancaster, so I’m drinking this water.”