FREDONIA, N.Y. — Boiling will eventually simmer in the village of Fredonia.

What You Need To Know

  • Village of Fredonia officials addressed the boil water advisory that has been active for almost three weeks
  • As of Monday, village officials say turbidity was at .5 — which is why the boil water order is still in effect
  • According to village engineers, upgrades are being made to the Fredonia water plant to assure issues like these don't happen again in the future
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Village officials addressed the boil water advisory that has been active for almost three weeks. They say more than 6,000 cases of water were handed out since the day it was put into effect. The advisory is still active but progress is being made.

Village engineers on Monday broke down the reason why the community was issued the boil water advisory.

"The increased temperature and lack of rain allowed algae bloom to occur so quickly that it overwhelmed the water plant," said Paul Snyder, Public Facilities and Health engineer for Chautauqua County.

To be in compliance with the state health department, turbidity — which is the measurement of how cloudy water is — has to be at a level of .3 or below. As of Monday, village officials say it was at .5.

"We don't know if there is contamination going into the distribution center. In samples collected over the last week and a half, every one of the samples has been satisfactory for bacteria," Snyder said.

Officials are calling for an interconnection with the City of Dunkirk water supply. They say if they had that cross connect, this ongoing advisory wouldn't have gone on for weeks.

"If that was in place before this emergency took place at the water plant, the water plant would have been isolated, shut down, and stopped feeding water to the village. And we may have had to be on a boil water order for a day or two, until we had satisfactory bacteria samples," Snyder added.

According to village engineers, upgrades are being made to the Fredonia water plant to assure issues like these don't happen again in the future

There is also a water conservation order in effect. Officials of the town water plant are asking people to stop testing the water themselves because it is slowing the process of fixing the problem.