Erosion led to precautionary boil water notice

Published 7:58 am Monday, February 12, 2018

Heavy rains caused erosion around a water pipe last week that led to the city of Oxford Public Works department to issue a precautionary boil water notice Friday for all customers who receive water from the city.

According to Public Works Director Bart Robinson, due to the erosion, there was not enough soil around a fitting to keep it from being pushed off the pipe that ran across Highway 6.

“Because it took us awhile to locate the break, we were losing pressure on the upper floors of buildings and in our elevations,” Robinson said this morning. “Out of an abundance of caution, we chose to issue the notice.”

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The notice Friday said customers should boil water until Tuesday since officials did not know if the State Health Department would accept a special request to run the tests on Sunday.

“The samples were collected from all over the affected areas Friday and carried to Jackson Saturday morning,” Robinson said.

At about 10 p.m. Friday, after multiple calls to individuals on the state level by the Mayor Robyn Tannehill, governmental affairs consultant John Morgan Hughes and Bill Henning, CEO and administrator of Baptist Memorial Hospital-North Mississippi, the state agreed to test the samples over the weekend.

The city received word back at 11 a.m. Sunday that the water samples were clear of contamination and lifted the boil water notice shortly after.