A boil water advisory for D.C. and Arlington County, Virginia, has been lifted after over nine hours, essentially affecting the entirety of both jurisdictions.
A boil water advisory for all of D.C. and most of Arlington County, Virginia, was lifted Thursday morning — several hours after thousands of residents were urged not to drink water from their taps without boiling it first.
At a news conference Thursday, officials with D.C. Water and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said the boil water advisory was issued late Wednesday night as a precautionary measure after concerns about increased cloudiness — known as turbidity — in the water amid an unusually large algae bloom in the Potomac River and the reservoir that serve as the water supply.
However, the advisory was able to be quickly lifted because regular testing indicated the water provided by the aqueduct never deviated from Environmental Protection Agency standards, said Col. Estee Pinchasin, commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Baltimore District.
The event marked the first time in nearly 30 years that a boil water warning was issued for all of D.C. In 1996, also on the July Fourth holiday, all residents of the District were urged to boil their water, which lasted about a week, according to D.C. Water.
In addition to all of D.C., the nine-hour boil water advisory affected nearly all of Arlington County, including the Pentagon, Arlington National Cemetery and Reagan National Airport.
The Arlington County government, which issued its own water advisory Thursday, announced it had also been lifted.
The precautionary boil water advisory began Wednesday at around 9 p.m.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which operates the Aqueduct, said in a statement that it told D.C. Water of issues with elevated cloudiness in the water supply, which was caused by increased algae blooms in the Potomac River.
John Lisle, a spokesperson with D.C. Water told WTOP that the advisory was issued out of an abundance of caution to allow fire emergency personnel access to water, especially on a big holiday like the Fourth of July, and to allow enough water to flush out of the system.
“Turbidity can be an indicator of (poor) water quality. And so because of that it was determined that the safest thing to do was issue the boil water advisory,” Lisle said.
While the cloudy water itself has no health effects, it can interfere with disinfection measures and allow microbes to more easily grow, D.C. Water said.
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