Arbor Update

Ann Arbor Area Community News

Boil Water Alert

7. June 2005 • Scott Trudeau
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The City released a boil water notice this evening.

Residents in certain areas of the City of Ann Arbor experienced a loss of water pressure today at approximately 7:30 PM due to a major water main break in the City’s water distribution system.

As a precautionary measure, all residents in the areas described below are advised to boil the water for 5 minutes that they will use for drinking or cooking.

The affected areas include:

The main break is in Northeast Ann Arbor near Bandemeer Park. The affected area is West and South of US 23, North of the Plymouth Road/Broadway Road and East of M-14/the Huron River. Not all of this area may have suffered a pressure loss. We will be further defining the boil water area as more information becomes available.

The water should be boiled for at least five minutes and allowed to cool in a covered container. Bottled water may be used as an alternative to boiling.


The TV told me the warning was for all of Washtenaw county, so I went out and bought a bunch of water before reading the city notice. If anyone on the north side needs some agua, contact me.

Update: The alert has been lifted. Ann Arbor News.



  1. Scott,
    Thanks for posting this warning. I hope everyone reads it and passes along the bad news about the water. I’m sure that it will be under control soon enough, but in the mean time I wouldn’t want anyone getting sick over back water.
       —Bob Dascola    Jun. 7 '05 - 03:01AM    #
  2. Any idea if it’s safe now? (I was totally gonna post this too).
       —js    Jun. 7 '05 - 12:11PM    #
  3. I was going to post this too. Thanks Scott for actually doing it!

    The slightly expanded area (as of 2:00am this morning) is:
    Northeast Ann Arbor
    -North of Fuller Road and Glazier Way (was Plymouth Road)
    -East of M-14 and the Huron river
    -West of US 23
    -South of US 23

    Looks like the advisory will be in place until safety testing is completed—currently expected for Wednesday morning. There is more information in a .pdf on the city’s web site www.a2gov.org (I don’t want to link directly to the .pdf in case the info changes on the main site) and a phone number to call for more information: 994-2840.

    Oh, and don’t wash your clothes in the water if it is discolored or they will permanently stain. If you do, there is a hotline number for that too: 994-1760.
       —Juliew    Jun. 7 '05 - 01:37PM    #
  4. I sure wish the city had an RSS feed so that we could get news like this as it happens and not count on the diligence of the bloggers to dig it up. (as a non-TV listener and mostly non-radio during the day, I get a lot of news from the net.)
       —Edward Vielmetti    Jun. 7 '05 - 02:56PM    #
  5. Ed, I thought the same thing last night. I only caught the tail end of the TV warning (thank you Tivo for allowing the warning to interrupt the recording I was watching) and it took me awhile to find any reference to it on the web. I went to the water deptartment, emergency management and a few other city and county sites before I thought to check the City’s home page … For emergency stuff, I’d take email over rss, even. Actually, I’d take, email, IM and rss … better too many warnings than not enough …
       —Scott Trudeau    Jun. 7 '05 - 04:14PM    #
  6. “I went to the water department, emergency management and a few other city and county sites before I thought to check the City’s home page.”

    I think it didn’t get to the city’s home page until some time between 9pm and 10pm last night (monday night), despite the fact that the water department’s FAQ lists that as the first place to look. So although I did check there first (around 7 or 8, wondering why my water pressure was so low), I actually only got the message thanks to a TV-watching friend.
       —Bruce Fields    Jun. 7 '05 - 04:48PM    #