UPDATE: Cottonwood Shores lifts boil water notice
UPDATE: The city of Cottonwood Shores lifted a boil water notice on Thursday, March 25, that had been in effect since Monday, March 22.
PREVIOUS STORY: Cottonwood Shores is under a boil water notice as of Monday, March 22.
City Administrator J.C. Hughes explained why.
“Due to an unauthorized fiber optics company digging into a large water line at our water tower,” he said. “The resulting water interruption requires a boil water notice until further notice.”
City employees were notified of the break right before lunch, Hughes said.
“It was fixed within 40 minutes,” he said. “There were sections of the city that totally and completely lost pressure. Under (the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) guidelines, if you totally lose pressure in that area, the system has to go to a boil. We had to cut off the water within the system because it was next to the water tower. We only have one pressure plane.”
Having only one pressure plane in for the entire city forced officials to issue the boil water notice. Under TCEQ guidelines, if the water pressure falls under 35 pounds per square inch, city administrators must issue a boil water notice.
Hughes said water samples were already at the water lab, so he hopes the notice is short lived.
“We had no idea they were here,” Hughes said of the fiber optics company. “They never asked for our line location. Their bucket was right on the center of our main water line.”