(CUC) — Residents in Papago will not receive water on Monday morning and are advised to immediately contact the Saipan Mayor’s Office for assistance.
The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. releases water to higher elevations of Papago on Mondays and Fridays. This water is pushed up the mountain side through a series of pumps, and one powerful booster pump failed Saturday. There are no similar booster pumps on Saipan, and the water division anticipates that it will take as long as four weeks to air freight a new pump from the U.S. West Coast.
Water outages are anticipated on the mountain side of Isa Drive from Chetnot Place (Crystal water) to Tangan-Tangan in Papago.
CUC has already worked with the mayor’s office and staff there and is prepared to take calls from Papago residents and schedule water deliveries.
Residents are advised to call 234-6208 or 234-6280 for assistance.
Water advisory for Tinian
Test results on Sunday afternoon indicated that the water supplies on Tinian contained total coliform bacteria after there was an interruption in the routine chlorine treatment of Tinian water.
But the Sunday results did not include E. coli or fecal coliforms.
The presence of total coliform bacteria indicates that the water is not treated and that E. coli is more likely to grow in untreated water.
Tinian residents were advised early Friday morning to boil water until further notice. CUC encourages Tinian residents to continue to boil water.
At 2:30 on Sunday morning, Tinian personnel received a shipment of chlorine gas and began treatment.
Tinian staff will collect additional water samples on Monday morning and ship them to Saipan for testing.