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Gold Hill water breaks frustrate residents Monday Nov 7, 2016 at 5:05 PM Nov 7, 2016 at 5:30 PM Buffy Pollock for the Mail Tribune GOLD HILL — As the city issued yet another warning to some residents Monday to boil their drinking water because of a broken line, city officials insist efforts to update ailing infrastructure is progressing and residents never have been in danger. A water main broke on Ambrose Lane at Highway 234 in the early-morning hours Monday, causing residents on Ambrose from Fifth Street to Highway 234 to experience a loss in pressure. They've been advised to boil their water for a full minute and then let it cool before using or storing it for drinking, preparing baby formula, brushing teeth, making ice, washing fruits and vegetables and cleaning areas that come in contact with food. City officials said the water main is being repaired and will notify the residents when tests show no bacteria. They anticipated residents could safely drink water without boiling by Thursday. The cash-strapped town has put off maintenance and infrastructure repair for decades, officials said. It is currently without a city manager and is outsourcing its public works management. In August, Gold Hill began replacing manholes and adding new lining to old or failing sewer lines in an effort to update its wastewater treatment system. Aging asphalt, heavy rains and heavy equipment used for the project have resulted in eight to 10 broken water lines, several boil-water notices and occasional blocked roadways over the past two months. Downtown resident Jennifer Townsend said her confidence in city government had waned after the household she shares with her mother found cloudy water flowing from spigots repeatedly in recent weeks. "It's just very concerning for the city to give us boil-water notices so often that we don't know if we're coming or going," Townsend said. "We just decided to not drink or cook with the water, and buy bottled, until things quiet down. Most of the time we hear about the boil-water notice after it's been in place or hours after we see a road being torn up and water flowing down the road." William Burns, who lives near downtown, said he felt uneasy about communication from City Hall on the recent project. "It already makes people nervous about the water being safe when we have all these boil-water notices going on," he said. "And half the time we don't even get the boil-water notices on time, so it's like you have to check Facebook to find out if your water is safe or you find out after the- fact, and it's like, 'No one got sick so I guess it was OK.' " Debbie Bunker, one of several plant operators under contract with the city for Southern Oregon Water Technology, said the small staff at City Hall is trying to be proactive in relaying information to the public as quickly as possible. "We're having locate issues, infrastructure that's not up to code and, with the materials that were used and having been underground for 30-plus years, it's just difficult to know, any given day, what we'll run into," Bunker said, noting she had personally gone door to door to notify citizens when unexpected breaks would affect their water service. Bunker said samples taken after each incident have turned out to be within safe levels for drinking. She said the boil-water notices have been precautionary. "Concerns about having cross contamination can be put to rest. I can guarantee there has been no cross contamination between sewer and water lines breaking. Sewer are much lower depth than water lines." Mayor Jan Fish sympathized with contractors and residents in dealing with the long overdue projects. "Nobody is very happy," Fish said. "There have been any number of water breaks while they're using their excavators, which all happened right after it rained like 8 inches, so I think that went into the mix, too. Every day it's like, 'What's going to happen today?' "We do realize it's very frustrating for everybody. The people doing the work, the people fixing what gets broken, for the city and certainly for citizens." Fish said while an end to the work isn't immediately in sight, the city is trying hard to stay on track with a long-range plan for the wastewater plant and to be able to eventually focus on other aging infrastructure. "After we get the wastewater stuff figured out, we will very likely have to do the same thing with water lines, meaning to line them," Fish said. "It's very effective and it lasts maybe 50 years, but at this point we're still trying to figure out the money for the sewer lines. "Both our sewer and water lines are very, very old and all just kind of patched together at this point. It was inevitable that, at some point, we had to do the things that we're doing. It's taking some time, but we will all be better off when it's finally done." Project updates can be found online at www.ci.goldhill.or.us.