Boil water advisories can happen because of water main breaks, equipment outages or planned maintenance or expansion. But whatever the reason they’re in place, the intention is to make sure no one is drinking water out of the tap that might not be safe.
So here are the guidelines from the Georgia Environmental Protection Division on boil water advisories, when it’s OK to use tap water and answers to other questions.
There’s a boil water advisory in my area; when is tap water OK to use, and when should I use bottled or boiled water?
Use either bottled water or boiled water for:
- Drinking
- Brushing teeth
- Washing food
- Cooking
- Making ice
- Refilling water for pets
- Preparing baby food, with some extra explanation: The Georgia Environmental Protection Division says it is safe to use boiled tap water for baby food, and the agency confirms its guidance is up-to-date. For infants, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends either breast feeding or using ready-to-use formula if possible during a drinking water advisory.
It’s OK to use tap water without boiling for:
- Showering or bathing, just be careful to not get water in your mouth
- Washing hands (use soap)
- Washing clothes
- Using the dishwasher if the final rinse temperature reaches 150 degrees or if it’s set to a sanitizing cycle (you can check the manual or ask the manufacturer about the water temperature)
- Washing dishes by hand; the CDC recommends adding a bleaching step
- Watering plants, including plants you eat
Basically, you don’t want to ingest tap water when there’s a boil water advisory unless it’s been boiled first.
How long does my water need to boil?
Boil tap water at a full, rolling boil for at least a minute.
How long is this boiled water advisory going to last?
It depends.
Whatever caused the boil water advisory, whether it was a planned outage or a busted water main, needs to be put back together or repaired first. The utility needs to confirm there’s disinfectant in the line and it also needs to confirm there’s no harmful bacteria.
OK, so what’s that whole process?
Once the line has been repressurized, flushed, and in some circumstances disinfected, the utility takes samples from pipes below the break or repair — how many samples depends on the size of the outage and the number of customers who were affected, and is dictated by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division.
Those samples are brought to an EPD-certified lab. The samples are collected and analyzed following standards set by the state. The samples incubate for 24 hours, and are then checked to see whether harmful bacteria is present.
So, in most cases, a boil water advisory is in place for however long it takes to get the system operating as it should and water pressure back up, for a minimum amount of disinfectant to be present in the water lines, plus for the time it takes for the bacteriological testing.
It can sometimes take longer if the samples get collected over a weekend and the lab isn’t able to begin testing until Monday.
Why do boil water advisories happen?
Almost all boil water advisories happen because water pressure is dropping below a certain level, whether because of scheduled maintenance, mechanical failure or a water main break. These are considered “precautionary.”
Chances are, if you’re reading this because you got a notice from your utility or local government, or heard on the news that your area is under a boil water advisory, it comes down to water pressure.
Water pressure might drop because of a failure affecting pumping equipment. It might drop because there’s a planned outage, for instance to conduct scheduled repairs, to move water mains, or to expand or improve the system.
“We have a lot of construction and that’s probably the primary reason we end up with boil water advisories,” says Scott Adams, director of Forsyth County Water and Sewer.
And then there are the unplanned water main breaks, when “That pipe just, boom, goes,” says Chris Impellitteri, director of research and development at the Water Tower, a water industry research and training institute in Buford.
“It tends to happen in a lot of municipalities throughout the United States during cold weather,” Impellitteri says. “But it’s also really a function of the age of the infrastructure. And we know that a lot of water infrastructure in cities throughout the United States is getting a little long in the tooth.”
That includes some parts of the metro area with 80 or even 100 year old pipes still in use.
“Trying to keep up with that is a huge, huge task,” says Adams, who adds he considers himself lucky, since his county has developed more recently, and most of the infrastructure he manages is 30 years old or younger.
Much more rarely, a utility might issue a boil water notice, rather than advisory. This happens when E. coli or another indication of a threat to public health is detected.
My boil water advisory is lifted now! Is the water already in the pipes OK to drink?
If you’ve been using water all along (flushing toilets, showering, using the tap for water to boil), you don’t need to flush your system, your water is all good to go.
“Understand that there is an at least 24-hour lag between the sample collection and the lab results during the timeframe the water would have already been circulated thru the pipes,” EPD spokeswoman Sara Lips wrote in an email.
If you were away during the boil water advisory, or if your business was closed, then EPD does recommend flushing your system.
