AMHERST - Residents along Biggs Drive near Amherst should be able to drink their home's water as early as today after a boil water advisory was put in place late last week.
Robert Streatch, public works director for the Municipality of Cumberland, said Monday the advisory was issued because of an equipment failure with the privately-owned water system.
"The advisory was put in place as a precaution after a backup pump failed," Streatch said. "There is no indication there was anything wrong with the water but we wanted to err on the side of caution."
Since the residents of Biggs Drive own the water system Streatch said he could not make much comment on the matter other than to say as soon as the equipment failure occurred the boil water advisory was put in place.
The county has the maintenance contract with the Biggs Drive water association.
Streatch said this was the first advisory in several years after a chlorination system was put in place after a series of boil advisories nearly a decade ago.
Jill Cormier did not want to comment on the Biggs Drive situation because it's a private system owned by the residents, but she said it's not uncommon to have boil advisories in place at the first sign of trouble.
She said two clear tests are required before the boil order will be lifted.
Resident Paul vanVlack is concerned residents weren't given much information about the boil advisory, other than a piece of paper that was delivered to his home.
"I was disappointed that we didn't have more information other than what was on the paper. We didn't know who to call if we had any questions," vanVlack said.
VanVlack said the advisory has caused a lot of inconvenience in that residents couldn't drink their water or bath in it.
For vanVlack, the advisory should be just for the county to go back to the town and extend the water system to Biggs Drive.
"They have this co-operation agreement with the town now. It would only make sense for them to go to the town and ask them to extend the water here, after all we're right next door," he said.
Amherst still has a moratorium in place preventing the extension of water services further outside the town. It put the moratorium in place after the county extended the water to the experimental farm in Nappan a few years ago.
dcole@amherstdaily.com
