PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Atlantic City on Sunday afternoon lifted the boil-water advisory that had been in effect for all residents since Friday. The announcement was made at a 3:45 p.m. press conference at the mayor’s office in City Hall.
Mayor Marty Small Jr. thanked residents for their patience.
“I would like to thank the residents of Atlantic City for being patient and understanding that things do happen,” he said.
Residents had been encouraged to use boiled or bottled water to drink, to cook with, to brush their teeth with, and for other tasks, such as making ice cubes. Over the course of the last three days, the city gave residents more than 500 cases of bottled water to use.
Clifford Kean with the Municipal Utility Authority in Atlantic City said a problem that started last Friday at the city’s water treatment plant caused sludge from the settling basin to be recycled to the start of the treatment process, forcing officials to implement the advisory.
“What this means is that the iron we normally pull from the water was put back into our treatment process, and our filters received more iron than they could remove from the water. This made the water cloudy,” Kean said.
“When the water is cloudy, there is a small potential that the contaminants that can cause harmful effects on people can enter the system and be masked by this cloudiness.”
Harold Reeves with the Atlantic City Health Department said the utility was flushing the system to clear the cloudy water.
“We’re in contact with the AC MUA. They’ve been very cooperative with us, giving us all the information that we need to do and all that we need to know.”
Kean says even after clean-up at the treatment center, residents still may see cloudiness in their tap water.
“After we flush, there probably will be some dirty water coming out of your faucet. Please let that run until it clears,” he said.