Dayton water issues: 3 FAQs

DAYTON — After widespread boil advisories were issued twice within in a year for water customers serviced by the city of Dayton, customers have more and more questions and concerns about what’s coming out of their taps.

>> I-Team: Dayton’s water issues after Memorial Day tornado outbreak

Here are three frequently asked questions about Dayton water:

1) Why were the boil advisories issued?

Two major incidents in the area resulted in different boil advisories being issued for Dayton water customers.

>> Dayton Water Outage: 5 things you need to know

On Feb. 13, residents in multiple Montgomery County communities started reporting a loss of water pressure or no water at all. A leak in the system resulted in the city of Dayton losing 2.52 million gallons of water in 10 minutes. The city, Montgomery County and surrounding communities issued boil advisories as a cautionary measure until water test results were in.

Three months later, 15 tornadoes hit the Miami Valley on Memorial Day, knocking out the power at a Dayton water plant.

>> Storm prompts second major boil water advisory of year in Dayton region

While the city has some backup power, it wasn’t enough to run all of their pumps following the tornadoes. The lack of power caused low water pressure for some customers, and the city also issued a boil advisory until the water could be tested.

2) Does the water system have backup generators?

The city of Dayton said that it has redundancies in the water system to account for power loss, but the outages from the tornadoes overwhelmed those redundancies.

Some customers and Montgomery County officials have questioned why the city doesn’t have backup energy sources to run all their pumps. The city said it would cost millions of dollars, which would mean divert funds from other areas.

>> What to do during a boil advisory

3) How often has the water system lost pressure?

Despite having issues twice within six months, city employees estimated that before this year the water system went more than 30 years without losing pressure.

On Monday, July 8, News Center 7’s Jim Otte is taking a closer look at issues with the city’s water system and what steps the city can take to prevent future outages. Tune in at 5:30 p.m.