Col. Falls issues water health advisory
Break-in attempted at city storage tank
Columbia Falls and Montana Department of Environmental Quality officials issued a drinking-water health advisory Wednesday evening after discovering an unsuccessful attempt to break into the city's water storage tank.
The 2 million-gallon concrete water storage tank is located at the Cedar Creek Reservoir north of town.
Test results are expected early today, showing whether the city's water supply was contaminated from the vandalism. In the meantime, the city flushing and chlorinating the water tank and city supply line.
The health advisory is not an order to boil drinking water.
Under a health advisory, the elderly, infants and those with compromised immune systems may want to drink bottled water until the system is certified safe. Or residents may choose to boil drinking water for a minute before consuming it.
"If it's just coliform" bacteria, which is the worst suspected, City Manager Bill Shaw said, "we would continue with the health advisory and flush it out. I suspect there is nothing in the tank."
If any contamination goes beyond coliform, Shaw said, the tank and all city wells and water lines would require disinfection.
"It would require a higher level of treatment, a heavy level of chlorine throughout the entire system," he said. "It would be very expensive."
As it is, he said, cost of treatment could approach $3,000.
Shaw said Water and Sewer Superintendent Gary Root discovered a damaged hatch and vent on the roof of the holding tank while doing a routine inspection early Wednesday afternoon.
Police were summoned and the state was notified.
Shaw said rocks were stacked at the base of a metal ladder attached to the side of the 18-foot-high tank and surrounded with a protective cage, apparently to help the vandal or vandals reach the ladder. They tampered with the lock at the bottom of the ladder cage, but did not break it.
He speculated that, unable to break through onto the ladder, they scaled the outside of the cage to the top of the tank where they tried to pry off the locked hatch.
Although it was battered, the hatch was not broken open.
Because of recent rains softening the ground and obscuring footprints, he said it is impossible to determine when the damage occurred.
"I suspect there may be more than one person," he added.
Shaw said it is unlikely that any contamination entered the city's drinking water supply. But officials took precautions by issuing the health advisory, which remains in effect until test results are received.
To purge any possible contaminants, the water supply to the city was taken out of service and Root and his crew began draining the tank about 6 p.m. Wednesday. Root reported it was nearly empty early Thursday.
The water was channeled into nearby Cedar Creek.
Once drained, the holding tank was heavily chlorinated and refilled. Shaw said the water was released through the city supply line, disinfecting that on the way to eventual release onto the ground after the chlorine is diluted.
The tank then will be filled a final time and put back into use.
During the process, the city is pumping water from a back-up well in town.
Shaw said he is puzzled why anyone would do this.
"Who knows? It's just vandalism, being destructive for no reason," he said. It's a half-mile hike in from the road to the storage tank, he noted.
"They had to hike in there, carry the tools, make a dangerous climb," he said. And, for the level of damage that could be done by carrying in contaminants, he questions the motive. "If you're going to contaminate the whole city, you'd have to have a truckload of stuff in there."
He said the city will take precautions to avoid a future occurrence.
"We'll secure it and make sure the ladder is completely inaccessible. We can only make it difficult for it to happen again," he said. "The tank's been there now for better than 10 years and this is the first time it happened."
Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com