https://www.blacksburg.gov/Home/Components/News/News/11200/304#!/
The Virginia Department of Health in conjunction with the Montgomery County Health Department, and NRV Regional Water Authority Water System are advising residents to use boiled tap water or bottled water for drinking and cooking purposes as a safety precaution. This precaution is necessary due to historic flooding on the New River creating challenging water quality conditions and finished water turbidities exceeding 1.0 NTU.
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Thank you. Making my daughter aware.
Both Blacksburg Krogers and the Food Lion on North Main (as well as the cburg Kroger) have lines out to the street/are running out of water jugs and bottles. Checked in at a couple of DG's and they are also running low on supplies as well
Camping filters should work as well if you have one.
Glad I am on the well.
But seriously the Peppers Ferry Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant was under water to give you an idea of the height of the New. The turbidity is so high in the water that the NRV Water Authority couldn't turn up the alum feed high enough to get the solids to settle out. Another day will really start cleaning up raw water quality.
Man, I just had a flashback to my time designing boxes around water/wastewater plants. If you'd thrown the word flocculate in there, the trip down memory lane would have been complete.
For you way back notes... Posted elsewhere.
Category: General
Author: William Knocke
Topic: Boil water notice issued for Blacksburg/Montgomery County
Message:
I wanted to add a few background comments in relation to the Boil Notice.. One of the various "hats" that I wear is serving as Chair of the New River Valley Regional Water Authority Board of Directors. As such I am informed on the situation that led to the need to issue a Boil Order. The technical aspects of the situation are "above and beyond" the purpose of this posting. Instead, I just want to make a few key points that will hopefully calm a few concerns.
1. One concept important to understanding the situation is the notion of "water age". "Water age" with respect to drinking water has to do with the average time that it takes for water to leave the water treatment plant and make it to a customer's home. Depending upon where someone is located in Blacksburg the average "water age" is between 1-2 days, meaning that any water that someone consumed earlier today was produced at the water plant over the weekend and is not affected by the Boil Notice.
2. The event that caused the Boil Notice to be issued first occurred this morning. Prior to that time all water leaving the water treatment plant met applicable drinking water regulations.
I mention these two points simply to indicate that if someone drank water from the tap so far today then you are at no risk of illness due to that water consumption. The Boil Notice affects future use, and should not be interpreted to raise concerns about any consumption that took place prior to that pointof notification. Again, based upon "water age", the current water coming from our taps right now was treated sometime over the weekend, when everything was completely in compliance at the water treatment plant. So no one should be wondering if they are going to get sick from having drank tap water before now.
Municipal drinking water systems like ours are required to do daily bacteriological testing to assess whether or not there is any indication of bacterial contamination in the drinking water system. If such contamination does occur then this would result in a Boil Notice being issued. I want to be perfectly clear - today's Boil Notice is NOT the result of any positive bacteriological testing in the drinking water distribution system. Rather, it is a required notification that must go out if there is a violation of the Turbidity standard at the treatment plant, which is the situation we are in.
I wanted to post this notice to alleviate any concerns about someone having drank tap water earlier today and prior to when the Boil Notice was issued. Residents are strongly encouraged to follow the Boil Notice going forward until the Boil Notice is rescinded, which will hopefully be in a few days. Further, the Boil notice relates to water used for direct human consumption (drinking or food preparation). Using the water for other purposes (e.g., showering, etc.) is not restricted by the Boil Notice.
Thanks! Bill Knocke
Would a RO filtration setup negate the need to boil water in this situation?
bacteria are definitely not transferring through an RO filter, which are designed to prevent the transfer of small compounds and ions. It could cause harm to your filter and clog it up, but I would assume your RO system would be multi-step, inclusive of microfiltration for microbes prior to the RO filter.
Yes, but the high turbidity is going to clog it up potentially. They are going as fast as they can to turn over everything multiple times to flush out the lines and tanks.
Honest question, because my wife and I were just wondering this over the weekend.
Given Blacksburg is so far downstream of where the worst flooding was, what is the expected timeline on when things would get worst, and what is it going to look like? My understanding is that the New River was already incredibly high during the storm, but will the worst be yet to come based on essentially the tsunami from the Asheville area cycling through? Or will that be negligible?
Just spitballing a timeline, I'm guessing the peak is probably in the 24 hours after rainfall upstream.....
https://waterdata.usgs.gov/monitoring-location/03171000/#parameterCode=00065&period=P7D&showMedian=false
And looking at this, seems the peak was early am Saturday, just after midnight.
And here's the one for Asheville...
https://waterdata.usgs.gov/monitoring-location/03451500/#parameterCode=00065&period=P7D&showMedian=false
Saw reports that the New reached its highest levels recorded since a flood in 1940. The scarier piece is that the next storm appears to be on exactly the same track as this one so these areas could get a second dose in short order.
We are getting more rain now. I don't think it's going to do anything major, but it's not helping.
Lived there for 26 years and the time I was there for school. Lived in a flood plain with a spring creek 20' from the house, but never had the flooding they're getting now on the New. As I have been informed, the main flooding is there, at least in Giles, and the creeks aren't flooding much.
As for not drinking the tap water, I definitely miss the privilege of being able to do that now that I live on the coast and have to haul my drinking water from a church 20 miles away. One thing the mountains will provide, it's good water.
The boil water mandate has been extended through next weekend (Oct 12th and 13th)
Which is going to be fun with a football game next Thursday night.
BC is on the 17th, so hopefully things are better by then. I would still be a little leary if I was going.
Public Works routinely flushes lines and ensures that the water is safe. They've already said the levels at the plant are better than the standard, and the remaining efforts are to fully ensure nothing decided to take up residence in a corner somewhere to contaminate down the line. By the time they drain and refill all tanks on the 12th, you'll be 99.999% good to go unless another disaster happens between now and then.
Ah I thought it was on the 10th.
Seems that the solution is just to skip the water and go straight to beer.
Yeah, and if you just have to have a drink of water, you can always pop a can of Coors Light.
Here are the details:
https://montva.com/homepage/2024/09/30/new-river-valley-regional-water-authority-issues-boil-water-notice
"All water samples tested since October 1 at the water treatment facility demonstrate water quality meets or exceeds Virginia Department of Health - Office of Drinking Water (VDH-ODW) requirements. However, water quality tests throughout the entire water distribution and storage systems must pass established VDH-ODW standards before the boil water notice can be lifted.
The next step is to flush all local systems. That process will begin upstream in the Town of Christiansburg, continuing downstream in the Town of Blacksburg, Virginia Tech, and then Montgomery County. We anticipate that sequential process will begin sometime today, October 3.
In addition to flushing each system, per VDH-ODW requirements water storage tanks must be disinfected before final samples can be taken. To ensure continuous water capacity throughout the process, the disinfection of tanks must be staggered. In other words, all the tanks cannot be drained, cleaned and disinfected at the same time. This process takes a minimum of 74 hours per tank, which means the boil water notice will continue at least through next weekend (Oct. 12-13).
While flushing takes place, water customers may experience discoloration in their water but they should simply follow the boil water notice for cooking and consumption. Again, the water is safe for showering, bathing, cleaning, and washing clothes or washing dishes by hand or with a dishwasher."
They have to partially or fully drain all the water tanks while still keeping up the disinfectant levels and providing fire protection. Not to mention making enough water to do all this.
For example, Christiansburg by itself has almost three million gallons of water in their tanks.
Shout out to Bull and Bones in Blacksburg. They are providing clean water to those that bring in containers.