08/20/2024
Gothenburg has a boil order in place.
Here are the most common questions and answers.
Does my Reverse Osmosis Drinking Water System remove E-Coli?
If you look at this link to the CDC website:
https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/drinking/home-water-treatment/household_water_treatment.html
you'll see that Reverse Osmosis is listed as a "very high effectiveness" method for reducing bacteria, but we are still advising customers to boil the water from their drinking water systems.
So why do you still recommend boiling water from my system?
There are variables that impact the effectiveness of the Reverse Osmosis membrane to the point we can't use the word "remove" instead of "reduce". Bacteria is very different from contaminants like Lead, Nitrates, and Arsenic. If there are 100 organisms of e-coli in a given volume of water, and we remove 99 with filtration and reverse osmosis, the one remaining organism can multiply after treatment and "colonize" a system.
If we know there is bacteria in a water source, we add an Ultraviolet Sterilizer to the system. This will kill bacteria, viruses, etc. and the reverse osmosis is now treating sterilized water.
Why don't you include UV sterilizers on every Drinking Water System?
The local municipalities do a remarkable job of protecting our water systems from this kind of contamination. They take samples at least monthly in multiple locations to make sure there is no contamination. The municipalities are also highly regulated and supported by the state. See this link:
http://dee.ne.gov/NDEQProg.nsf/RuleAndReg.xsp?databaseName=CN=DEQSER6/O=NDEQ!!RuleAndR.nsf&documentId=AC1120F49FAE587F86258A84006DE9F5&action=openDocument
In my 42 years of treating Gothenburg water, this is the first boil order I can remember. The cost of adding a sterilizer for most residential systems adds $5 a month to the rent or maintenance cost of the system. They also require an electrical outlet where most of our residential systems use no electricity.
What's next?
We must wait until the boil order is lifted, then we need to disinfect every drinking water system installed in Gothenburg. We should also disinfect every water softener. If your system is within a few months of needing its filters changed, we can do this at the same time.
We are in the process of clearing schedules not only for our team working out of the Cozad location, but also our North Platte crew so we can service every system as quickly as possible. Please watch for a call/email/text from our office to schedule an appointment.
