DeKalb lifts boil water advisory
County receives poor marks for informing public of problems
From staff reports DeKalb County lifted the precautionary boil water advisory that had been in affect since Tuesday night for all zip codes at 3:30 p.m. today.
DeKalb County Watershed Management officials conducted several test that came back negative. Based on the results, officials have determined that all water is safe for drinking and normal use.
It is not necessary to flush any lines, county spokeswoman Kristie Swink said.
But some residents are giving the county poor marks on how it handled the advisory.
Jan Gardner of Clarkston, who said she does not have a computer, didn’t realize Clarkston was on the list until city Councilwoman Rosemarie Nelson called to warn her.
“It wasn’t until the next day that I got the news,” said Gardner. “I watched the news on TV, but they didn’t have my zip code on there at the time.”
The issue of water advisories was a popular question on the campaign trail during this summer’s CEO debates. At least two major water main breaks led to prolonged boil advisories in 2007, and a June incident led to accusations during political debates that the county wasn’t doing enough to inform the public.
The county posts information on it’s own Web site, and sends the information to mainstream and local media outlets.
Commissioner and CEO candidate Burrell Ellis has been an outspoken critic of the way the CEO’s office has handled the water advisories.
“In an era of instant communication, via e-mail, mobile phones and the Internet . …it is completely unacceptable that we are not making a more concerted effort to notify our citizens of a potential public health threats…or the more severe recent tornadoes or complete, though temporary, water service outages,” said Ellis, who promised an emergency communications network if elected.
At a press conference this afternoon accepting the endorsement of the Fraternal Order of Police, Stan Watson, Ellis’ opponent in the CEO race for the Aug. 5 runoff, said the county should use the tools at its disposal to get the word out.
“The county has a 311 system for non-emergency phones calls, we ought to be utilizing that more,” he said. “And the county ought to be using DCTV [the county TV channel] and send a radio blast out.”
For more information, log onto www.yourdekalb.com or www.dekalbwatershed.com.
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