Lodge Hill residents face brief water interruption

People on upper Lodge Hill could be without water service for up to nine hours Wednesday, Feb. 24, so workers can install an isolation valve on the services district’s Fiscalini Ranch tank at the top of Top of the World.

Water system supervisor Justin Smith said the work scheduled to happen between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. that day is a forerunner to a future project to replace the aging, 320,000-gallon tank that’s had several leaks and infrastructure problems in recent years.

A notice about the planned interruption of service is posted on the Cambria Community Services District website at www.cambriacsd.org. District customers within the affected area have been notified by mail.

According to a map included in the notice, the outage will affect connections along nearly all of Pineridge Drive; from Londonderry Lane to Norwich Avenue; Arliss Drive; a short stretch of Ardath Drive, most of Pierce Avenue, upper Berwick Drive and other streets in between.

How to respond

The notice also includes recommendations about actions customers should take during the water outage or periods of low pressure. Among them:

▪ Stop using water during the outage/low-pressure incident. That will minimize the possibility that your system will run out of water or that cloudy water will foul or clog such appliances as automatic icemakers or household reverse osmosis systems. (Turning the icemaker off during the outage also is a good idea.)

Smith said that during the service interruption, “the less water people use, the better. (That way), the system will stay mostly full of water. Then you don’t have the recharge event that can stir up sediment in the line.”

▪ Don’t drink water that’s cloudy or dirty. People concerned about water quality or who are unsure that it’s safe can add eight drops of household bleach to each gallon of water, and let it sit for 30 minutes. Or, if possible, bring water to a rolling boil and continue boiling it for 60 seconds.

▪ Use of home devices to treat or filter water does not guarantee the water supply is safe after low-pressure situations.

▪ When water service goes back online, flush each hot- and cold-water line until the water runs clear and water quality returns to normal. In the aftermath, the water may have higher-than-normal chlorine concentrations because state regulators advise utilities to increase chlorine residuals in areas subject to low pressure or outages.

Smith said in the notice that the district will follow “American Water Works Association disinfection procedures and performing a thorough water-sampling plan to verify water quality after water service is restored.”

CCSD also will increase water-quality monitoring of the distribution system in the affected areas, as required by the State Water Resources Control Board. Customers are to be notified promptly if a sampling reveals a water-quality problem.

Another interruption

While all those recommendations definitely apply during the planned water shutoff, the actions also would be appropriate in any emergency situation that affects the flow or quality of water delivered through district pipes and mains.

Smith said a similar interruption to water service in the area will happen in a month or so when workers are scheduled to install a bypass valve that will be used when the district installs temporary tanks to be used during the replacement project.

This story was originally published February 10, 2016 at 10:05 AM with the headline "Lodge Hill residents face brief water interruption."