MCARTHUR, Ohio — The Village of McArthur has ordered every customer connected to its water system to boil tap water before drinking it, cooking with it or brushing their teeth, an advisory the water department says will remain in effect until further notice.
The McArthur Water Department announced the boil order in a Facebook post and dispatched an automated audio alert to notify residents across its service area. The department did not specify in its announcement what prompted the order.
Boil-water advisories are typically issued after events such as a water main break, a loss of system pressure or a treatment problem that raises the risk bacteria could enter the distribution system. Public health guidance calls for residents to bring tap water to a rolling boil for at least one minute — allowing it to cool before use — and to rely on bottled or boiled water for infants, young children and anyone with a weakened immune system until the advisory is lifted. Boiling does not remove chemical contamination, only biological hazards such as bacteria.
The advisory covers the entire McArthur Water Department service area, which supplies the village and surrounding parts of Elk Township. McArthur is the county seat and largest village of Vinton County, Ohio’s least populous county, with a population of roughly 1,755 people. The village was platted in 1815 and named for Duncan McArthur, an Army general in the War of 1812 who later served as Ohio’s governor.
The village’s water system has drawn state scrutiny before. In May, the Ohio EPA issued a notice of violation after McArthur submitted a required E. coli retest nearly two weeks past its April 9 deadline, following a bacteria detection in a routine sample. State regulators said at the time that the late filing did not indicate the water was contaminated, but undermined the safeguard the testing deadline is meant to provide. It is not known whether that violation is connected to Wednesday’s boil order.
The water department has not said when it expects to lift the advisory. Boil-water orders typically remain in place until follow-up laboratory testing, which can take 24 to 48 hours to complete, confirms the water is safe.
The information contained in this story was obtained from the McArthur Water Department.
