Majuro Water and Sewer Company reduced city water hours from three to two days a week in mid-January and Marshall Islands Environmental Protection Authority testing of 26 locations in the public water distribution system found E. coli — a bacteria from human or animal waste that can cause diarrhea — in four.
In a report released Friday, the EPA said the cause of the contamination is the reduction in water pressure in the pipes as a result of reduced water hours.
Because city water is now rationed to just two days each week, “sporadic bacterial contamination can never be prevented nor stopped,” said EPA water quality chief Abraham Hicking.
In October and November, fresh water reserves peaked at about 33 million gallons. This week, however, since the start of the dry season in January, the city water reservoir levels had dropped to 15 million gallons. Most homes in Majuro have water tanks that are filled by rain or city water when it is on Mondays and Fridays.
Fresh water hours are rarely more than three days a week in Majuro.
Hicking said city water users “are safer to boil water than to assume it is chlorinated and safe to drink. This Oboil water message’ should continuously be aired on the radio to remind people that they must boil water one-to-five minutes before drinking from the taps.”
The contamination problem for city water pipes is that water only flows on two days per week, so most of the time there is no water pressure in them, allowing ground water intrusion that can cause bacterial contamination “anywhere along the distribution system,” Hicking said. Adding to the problem, if city water customers do not have “check valves” on their pipes, the system can suck water back into the city pipes from people’s home water system, he said.
