The Chautauqua County Health Department’s Natalie Whiteman, left, and Jessica Wuerstle attended a Fredonia Board of Trustees workshop Wednesday to discuss the village’s water system.

The Chautauqua County Health Department’s Jessica Wuerstle and Natalie Whiteman discussed Fredonia’s most recent boil water order at a village Board of Trustees workshop Wednesday.

The two-day boil order was rooted in tests conducted Sept. 17 where “your contracted employee” collected routine samples, said Wuerstle, the county director of environmental health services.

“Unfortunately, the contractor received results from two of those samples on the morning of (Friday,) Sept. 19. The results indicated one sample was coliform positive and another was E. coli,” said Wuerstle. “E. coli is a very specific type of coliform. If a sample is coliform positive it doesn’t necessarily have E. coli in it.”

However, she continued, “There’s no way to guarantee how that water (infected with bacteria) is going to move through that distribution system.” The Health Department therefore instituted a boil water order that Friday out of “an abundance of caution.”

Wuerstle stated that “Upon review of monthly operation reports which had happened the week prior to this incident, we have noticed that at the plant, the chlorine residual that is required to ensure proper disinfection, is not being maintained correctly.” She said that contributed to the boil order decision.

The county Health Department volunteered to process test samples to expedite the lifting of the boil order, Wuerstle continued. “We do not normally work on weekends, but this was a public health emergency, so we were glad to help.”

In the midst of that, Wuerstle checked the slip from the lab in Buffalo that processed the Sept. 17 samples. “It said it was E. coli positive and coliform negative, which is scientifically possible,” she said. It should have said the reverse: coliform positive, but E. coli negative.

However, since coliform bacteria was found at two locations in the village, “the boil order was still applicable.”

Test samples Friday and Saturday came back negative and the boil order was lifted Sunday.

“The truth is, we can’t say for sure what the problem was. All we can say is there were two locations with coliform in the distribution system,” Wuerstle said.

Wuerstle and Whiteman, the county Health Department’s water resource specialist, have been familiar faces at Village Hall meetings in recent years as Fredonia grapples with its antiquated, deficient water system.

Whiteman explained that leaky and compromised water mains can allow bacteria into the system.

“We suspect that most of the chlorination issues have to do with the difficulties they have maintaining the current chlorination system,” she added. Once that is fixed, “we expect better consistency.”

Trustees are indeed considering options to shore up the chlorination room at the treatment plant. However, in the long term, the plant is slated for closure. The board voted Sept. 10 to decommission the plant and associated reservoir, and acquire water from the North County Water District.

Whiteman had some more comments about the chlorination issue. “I want to bring to your attention, before you vote on replacing this system and putting money into the plant where we hope to not have to spend money: Structural concerns that were identified on LaBella’s most recent look at that chlorine room, give us concerns about the pumps and the storage of the chlorine chemicals that are currently in that room.”

Whiteman said the county could find no records to indicate that the load capacity of the room can bear what is in there.