MERCER ISLAND (AP)— Mercer Island water samples have tested clean of E. coli for a fourth consecutive day, but an advisory to boil water stands, the Seattle suburb said Monday.
A task force is discussing when life can return to normal on the Lake Washington island that is home to about 24,000.
“There’s nothing that would make the city happier than to move on to normal and get back to daily life,” said Mercer Island spokesman Ross Freeman.
Health officials are reluctant to lift the advisory to boil water because inspectors have been unable to find the source of the bacteria. They don’t want to lift the advisory only to have to impose it again, as they did last week, Freeman said.
The city not only has to have clean water, it has to prove it’s done everything possible to search for the contamination.
Inspections of water lines, construction sites and even having a diver inspect the city’s two water tanks have not found the source of the problem.
“There isn’t anything like a small dead rodent,” Freeman said. “It’s down to the minutiae.”
Check every stone
Officials are worried it’s an intermittent contamination inside a pipe that’s driven down by high levels of chlorine but shows up again when chlorine levels return to normal.
“We want to make sure we look under every stone,” Freeman said.
Meanwhile, Mercer Island public schools were open Monday with students drinking bottled water. About half the island’s 62 restaurants and coffee shops that were closed last week were allowed to reopen using pre-packaged food.
There is one report of a Mercer Island child with an E. coli infection, but it’s not possible to say whether the child became sick from drinking water or from some other source. The child has not required hospitalization.
Officials aren’t disclosing the child’s age or whether it’s a boy or a girl, county health department spokeswoman Hilary Karasz said. There are about 60 E. coli cases in the county each year and the source in most cases is never identified.
