BREAKING: Officials no longer asking for water conservation

Adrian O'Hanlon III, McAlester News-Capital, Okla.
·2 min read

Feb. 25—Officials no longer ask water customers of the city of McAlester to conserve after levels improved Thursday morning.

Levels were higher at city of McAlester water towers, service was restored to Summit Ridge, and car washes were allowed to reopen Thursday morning as officials gained renewed hope in fully restoring service following water issues after last week's historic winter storms.

City of McAlester City Manager Pete Stasiak and Assistant City Toni Ervin again thanked workers and contractors for their efforts in repairing more than 30 leaks during and after the historic winter storms.

After a week of limited-to-no water, officials believe Thursday brought signs of progress.

"It feels like progress," McAlester Public Information Officer Stephanie Giacomo said. "It's still very preliminary. We're hoping the system holds throughout the day, but we are no longer asking for conservation."

Officials said a precautionary voluntary boil advisory is still in place for the city of McAlester and Rural Water Districts purchasing water from the system.

A precautionary boil advisory is issued by a water system and is a recommendation to boil water prior to consumption. An advisory is different from a mandatory boil order, which is issued by the Oklahoma Department of Quality for various reasons.

Giacomo has said the precautionary boil advisory would be lifted after the system stabilizes, and 10 samples from throughout the system return get test results within acceptable limits set by the DEQ.

So when might that occur?

"If the system stabilizes today (Thursday), we hope to flush the system tomorrow (Friday) in order to draw those samples over the weekend," Giacomo said. She added that flushing includes opening fire hydrants to rid the system of water for which the city can't guarantee the quality.

Giacomo said city workers and contractors were still working on four leaks Thursday morning.

City administrators and employees have tracked the number of leaks confirmed and repaired — including the size of the pipe.

"The bigger the line, the bigger the leak usually, or water loss," Ervin said.

Giacomo said there was 63 feet of water in the city's Carl Albert water tower as of Thursday morning.

Summit Ridge usually gets water from a lift station supplying water from the Carl Albert water tower. The tower's water level stood at 28 feet on Wednesday, which was 10 feet lower than the previous day.

Service was restored at as of 7:30 a.m. Thursday to the lift station leading to Summit Ridge, an area of the system that officials said normally sees reduced service during an outage. Summit Ridge residents were going on more than one week with limited or no water service prior to it being restored.

Contact Adrian O'Hanlon III at aohanlon@mcalesternews.com