The Tooele County Health Department is testing samples from Stansbury Park’s public water system to determine if bacterial contamination detected earlier this week is still present.
The Stansbury Park Improvement District was notified on Tuesday afternoon that five of nine samples of culinary water collected on Monday tested positive for coliform bacteria.
Myron Bateman, director of the Tooele County Health Department, said that maintenance cleaning of one of the system’s water tanks could have introduced the contamination.
Since the positive test result, and in response to standard state protocol, the health department took an additional 15 samples earlier this morning.
The improvement district began chlorinating and flushing the system shortly after the positive test result on Tuesday. Bateman said today’s new samples should indicate whether the bacteria are still present in the system.
However, it will take 24 hours for the lab to return those test results, Bateman said. In the meantime, all Stansbury residents have been instructed to boil their water for at least one minute before drinking.
The contamination is restricted to the Stansbury Park area. Neighboring communities, such as Tooele City, are not impacted by the boil water order, according to a press release issued by Tooele City earlier this afternoon.
Additionally, Bateman said, Stansbury-area schools have been notified of the contamination and have been instructed to post “do not drink” signs on school water fountains.
According to the Tooele County School District’s Twitter account, the district has arranged to bring in bottled water for Stansbury students.
Coliform bacteria are not generally harmful to humans in low quantities, but are associated with fecal material and are sometimes indicative of problems within a water system’s pipes or purification processes.
The bacteria are also considered an early indicator that water may be contaminated with disease-causing organisms such as E. Coli. Symptoms associated with drinking contaminated water include diarrhea, cramps, nausea, and possibly jaundice.
The Tooele Transcript-Bulletin will continue to monitor the situation and will post updates as more information becomes available.
elpenrod@tooeletranscript.com