Nov 8, 2017 3 min read

Pennsylvania American Water Co. lifted its boil-water advisory just after noon Wednesday.

According to the company’s website, the state Department of Environmental Protection authorized lifting the advisory when samples of water taken Monday and Tuesday tested clean.

Melissa Walters, a spokeswoman for the company, said the first set of tested samples came back clean late Tuesday. The second set came back late Wednesday morning.

The advisory began Monday after tests showed high turbidity, or cloudiness, levels for water in much of the company’s service area in Washington and southern Allegheny counties, affecting about 100,000 customers.

Turbidity can indicate the presence of organisms, including bacteria, parasites and viruses. People were advised to boil their tap water before drinking, making ice, brushing teeth, washing dishes or using it in food preparation.

Walters said Wednesday that a preliminary investigation showed the turbidity was caused by a malfunctioning filter at the Aldrich Purification Plant in Union Township. Walters said the filter that malfunctioned, one of eight filters at the plant, was fixed Monday night.

The state Department of Environmental Protection issued a field order Monday, requiring Pennsylvania American to flush all contaminated water from the entire distribution system, which Walters said has been completed. DEP also required PAWC to sample the water at 11 locations throughout the system, and continue sampling until the results were clean on two consecutive days.

Some local restaurants and coffee shops had a difficult time staying open, due to the advisory.

Chicco Baccello, on South Main Street in Washington, managed to stay open, though other coffee shops such as Starbucks, in South Strabane Township, closed during the advisory.

Chicco Baccello owner Lisa Aprea said the advisory not only made much more work for her employees, but it was as if they took a step back in time.

“We boiled the water and had to pour it over the coffee grounds,” she said. “It’s old school. I felt like a pilgrim.”

Aprea said they had been letting people purchase only small cups of coffee, to make sure everyone got some, and were serving it in paper cups to cut back on the amount of dishes. She also said they weren’t able to serve specialty drinks such as lattes and cappuccinos.

“We had a ton of calls yesterday asking if we had coffee,” she said. “We’ve had the same volume of customers, but it’s just a lot more work. We’ve been trying to make light of it, and we’ve been having fun.”

Vocelli Pizza on South Main Street in Washington also had more work to do in boiling water to wash dishes. Shift manager Jackie Welch said they’ve had a steady number of customers since Monday, because people don’t want to have to boil water to wash dishes or cook dinner.

“Our Canonsburg store was swamped yesterday,” she said.