March 29, 2024

Creston released from drinking water warning

The city of Creston was removed from the drinking water warning around 6:30 p.m. Sunday after having been included in the warning for more than a week.

Southern Iowa Rural Water Association and City of Creston Water Works first announced the drinking water warning on Thursday, May 31. The warning went into effect 8 a.m. Friday, June 1.

So far, Creston is the only city or area cleared from the warning. All customers who pay their water bill to Creston Municipal Utilities have been released.

The rural area around Creston and surrounding areas remains under the warning. Parts of eight counties were also included in the warning, including Adams, Adair, Clarke, Decatur, Madison, Ringgold, Taylor and Union counties.

“SIRWA and the other water utilities will be working around the clock until all of our customers have safe drinking water to their taps again,” SIRWA General Manager Dan McIntosh said in Sunday’s press release.

The City of Creston Water Works flushed the needed water mains Saturday and took health samples, which were flown to a lab in Storm Lake Saturday night. The cities of Lenox and Diagonal were receiving the new, potable water Sunday and health samples were being taken. SIRWA was flushing in Afton Sunday, and samples from all three cities were flown to Storm Lake Sunday afternoon, with results expected back late this afternoon.

According to SIRWA’s Sunday press release, water needed to be turned over in 28 water towers as well as more than 2,000 miles of water line in SIRWA’s system in order to get its consecutive cities back online.

That process is made even more difficult by the fact the 12-Mile Water Treatment Plant is not operating at full capacity.

Suez, the company that manufactures the membranes used by Creston Water Works at the 12-Mile Treatment Plant, will have representatives on site for at least the next two weeks to ensure the membranes are performing correctly.

SIRWA customers will receive an automated telephone call telling customers when their specific city or rural area has been released from the drinking water warning.

As cities and rural areas are released from the drinking water warning, SIRWA will add them to the list at www.sirwa.org/html/warn-releases.html, along with the three digit area code that appears as the first three digits of billing account numbers for SIRWA customers.