A state of emergency has been declared in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno Wednesday morning announced the emergency declaration he said was due to a major water main break that occurred some 20 hours earlier and resulted in a boil water order being issued late Tuesday night because the rupture and subsequent loss of water pressure might have introduced bacteria into the municipal water system.
“Our number one priority is the health and public safety of our residents,” Sarno said.
There have been no reports, so far, of anyone getting sick as a result of ingesting the water, officials said.
At a City Hall news conference, Sarno made clear the reason for the emergency declaration is to allow the city to pursue federal funds to repair the damaged infrastructure.
“It’s going to cost millions of dollars,” Sarno said.
The boil water order affects 156,000 residents of Springfield, and thousands more people who live in Ludlow and Wilbraham who are customers of the Springfield Water and Sewer Commission.
Springfield Public Schools were ordered closed Wednesday. The city canceled activities at its senior centers.
The order from the Water and Sewer Commission says the tap water should be brought to a full boil for one minute and then cooled. Any ice, juice, baby formula, stored water, and uncooked food prepared with tap water after 3 p.m. Tuesday should be thrown out.
Regulations require the water to be tested over a 48-hour period to determine if there is any contamination. So, the earliest the boil water order could be lifted is 5 a.m. Thursday, said Water and Sewer Commission Executive Director Josh Schimmel.
“That is what we are hoping for, we have confidence in that,” he said.
Instruments at the Water and Sewer Commission’s operations center first signaled a likely major water main break at 3 p.m., but it took crews almost 2 hours to find the broken 36-inch, high-pressure pipe in a wooded conservation area in East Springfield.
It was not until 9 p.m. Tuesday that the public was advised to boil the tap water before use. The city and the Water and Sewer Commission sent out robocalls and texts. Later, the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency issued a region-wide alert, said Schimmel.
“We’re very much pleased with the timing of that,” Schimmel said. “You can’t make those decisions rashly. They have to be thoughtful every step of the way and that’s what we did. So, we’re very comfortable with that.”
Sarno also defended the delay in alerting the public.
“The worst thing you could do is send out a message and then five minutes later say ‘ that’s not so’ because you get into the cry-wolf syndrome,” Sarno said.
The water main broke when a drainage culvert running beneath it collapsed. Officials suspect this was likely caused by the cumulative effect of this summer’s extraordinarily wet weather that included 4 inches of rain in a two-hour period Monday night.
Repairs to the drainage system and the water main will take “some time” and “cost a lot of money,” said Springfield DPW Director Chris Cignoli.
“This a drainage system that basically runs behind Springfield Plaza and then underneath Liberty Street and it takes in a huge amount of water from a big section of the city,” he explained.
Water pressure dropped in parts of Springfield because of the water main break, but the pressure was back to normal as of late Tuesday night. During the time when pressure was low, the Springfield Fire Department brought in a tanker truck containing water from the Westover Air Reserve Base that could have been used in the event of a fire.
