BELLEVILLE – While residents in parts of Quinte West deal with boiling their water before drinking it, health officials are working hard to make sure that water is fully safe before things can go back to normal.

A boil-water advisory is in place for areas west of the Trent River, Consecon and Carrying Place, due to a 20-inch watermain that burst in Quinte West on Wednesday.

While the watermain has been fixed, the advisory remains in place for safety reasons until the health unit gives the all clear.

Hastings and Prince Edward Counties Health Unit’s senior public health inspector, Andrew Landy, explained that because there was a complete loss of water pressure, there’s always a possibility of infiltration of contaminants into the water system.

To ensure that bacteria such E. coli are not present in people’s water, the health unit requires people to boil their water for at least a minute before consuming it, he said.

“We’re notified by the municipality and we follow up,” said Landy. “We have to assess whether we think there’s a risk to the drinking water and if it will affect people’s health. We have to verify for sure that the water continues to be safe and in that respect (the health unit) will do some lab tests."

Nothing in particular has led the health unit to believe that there was a contamination breech said Landy. But protocols, like taking samples and testing them, are put in place just to be sure.

In order to lift the boil water advisory, two sets of samples that have been taken 24 to 48 hours apart must come back with zero traces of any contaminates.

Landy said the first set of samples has been taken and submitted to the lab, but because the two samples have to be taken at least a day apart, the earliest the unit would be able to lift the boil advisory would be Friday.

Landy added that lifting the advisory by Friday would only be possible if there were no delays in lab samples.

“They’ll do a distribution set of samples that are representative of the area. They will go upstream, downstream and around,” he said. “The lab’s well aware of the urgency and the number of people involved in this.”

If one of the sets of tests do not come back with satisfying results, Landy said the public would be notified immediately.

“We’re very aware of the inconvenience of this, but health trumps,” he said. “We have an on-call service so regardless of if this does unfortunately stretch to the weekend, we’ll still be on top of it.”

But if the test results come back and are clear from any contaminates in the water, Landy said the boil water advisory would be lifted.

He noted that because of the nature of the area, any news about the advisory being lifted could come in two releases, with the first being for Trenton.

“The Consecon and Carrying Place release may be delayed by another day after that and that is for operational reasons,” he said.

When a watermain is repaired, protocol dictates that the water lines must be disinfected and the system flushed out through the pipes.

 “I fully expect both to be cleared by the weekend,” said Landy.