How long will the Wichita boil water advisory last? At least 24 hours, officials say
Update: City officials announced Wednesday morning that Wichita’s boil water advisory will last until at least Thursday morning.
Original Story: City officials say the boil water advisory will remain in effect for Wichita until at least Wednesday evening as the Kansas Department of Health and Environment tests the city’s water supply for bacteria.
Alan King, director of public works and utilities, said maintenance oversight on an 80-year-old filter in the city’s water treatment plant was to blame for the lapse in water quality, which caused cloudy water with “a higher than expected dose of solids” to be discharged into the city’s distribution system.
Wichita’s boil water advisory to last longer than originally estimated, officials say
“Normally, we’re able to catch these glitches that happen. In this particular case, we didn’t get on top of it,” King said at a Tuesday evening press conference.
“Now, the backwash has been completed. The water that’s going into the system is acceptable and is clean, but you have this slug of the water that’s cloudy going through our system, and that’s what KDHE is concerned about.”
King said KDHE water samples have already been taken and are on their way to a laboratory for testing.
“We are confident that this should only last about 24 hours,” Mayor Brandon Whipple said.
But if the tests show bacteria in the water, it could be several more days before Wichita water can be safely consumed without boiling it first.
King likened the filters to “big swimming pools with sand and charcoal on the bottom of them.” The sand and charcoal is replaced every five or 10 years, he said, but the filter itself is original to the 80-year-old plant.
“Because we have a very old treatment plant, we’ve got to expect problems,” King said.
The Eagle reported in 2019 that an engineering study found 100% of the city’s raw water pipes were in “very poor” condition as of 2017, and the city’s entire water infrastructure was at a “significant risk” of failure.
Construction is underway on Wichita’s new water treatment plant, which King said will likely be completed by the end of 2024 or early 2025.
“That new water treatment plant will replace this plant, and we should have a higher reliable treatment process at that new treatment plant,” he said.
Last October, a major water main break and subsequent boil water advisory left the roughly half a million Kansans who rely on Wichita’s supply without reliable drinking water for 36 hours.
Prior to that, King said the city’s last boil water advisory was in the late 1990s.
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