Boil water notice in Lee or Collier County: what it means and what to do

A text comes in from the utility, or a sign goes up at the end of the street: precautionary boil water notice in effect. It happens after main breaks, after storms, and after any repair that drops pressure in the lines. The water usually looks and tastes the same as it did yesterday. Here is what the notice is telling you and how to handle the next few days.

Why boil water notices happen, and where they are posted

Public water is safe because it is treated and because it stays under pressure. Pressure is what keeps groundwater and whatever is in the soil around a pipe from getting in through a joint or a crack. When a main breaks, when a pump station loses power in a storm, or when a crew shuts a section down to make a repair, pressure drops and the utility can no longer guarantee that nothing got in. The notice goes out, the utility repairs and flushes the line, then samples it. The all-clear comes only after the bacteria tests pass, which takes at least a day or two because the samples have to incubate.

The notice does not mean the water is known to be contaminated. It means nobody can prove it is not. Treat it as if it is.

Each utility posts its own notices: Lee County Utilities, the City of Fort Myers, Cape Coral, Bonita Springs Utilities, Collier County Public Utilities, and the City of Naples all have alert pages, and most offer text or email alerts you can sign up for now, before the next one. Lehigh Acres and the eastern county are a mix of FGUA customers and private wells, and a notice never applies to a well. Knowing your well water is safe is yours alone.

How to boil water properly

Bring the water to a full rolling boil, with big bubbles breaking the surface, and hold it there for one minute. Let it cool on its own, then store it in a clean covered container. Boiling kills bacteria, viruses, and parasites. It does not remove chemicals or sediment, which is a different problem and not what the notice is about.

If the power is out and you cannot boil, use bottled water. If you have neither, unscented household bleach can disinfect clear water in a pinch; the health department publishes the drops-per-gallon table.

What to do about ice, coffee, teeth, and pets

• Drinking and cooking. Boiled or bottled only. Rinsing produce counts as drinking; use safe water for that too.
• Brushing teeth. Use boiled or bottled. It is easy to forget, and it is the one most people slip on.
• Ice maker. Turn it off. The ice it makes during the notice is not safe, and neither is the ice already in the bin if it was made after the pressure dropped. Dump it.
• Coffee makers. Most do not reach a rolling boil for a minute. Fill the reservoir with boiled or bottled water instead.
• Dishwashers. A dishwasher with a heated dry or a sanitize cycle is generally fine. Hand washing is fine with hot soapy water followed by a rinse in water with a small amount of bleach, or a rinse in boiled water.
• Pets. Give them the same water you drink. Dogs and cats get sick from the same organisms.
• Bathing and laundry. Fine for healthy adults. Keep water out of your mouth and watch small children in the tub.

Do filters make the water safe?

The honest answer is: not the ones most people have.

• Refrigerator, pitcher, and under-sink carbon filters are made to improve taste and remove chlorine, some metals, and some chemicals. They are not rated to remove bacteria or viruses. Water through a carbon filter during a boil notice is still water under a boil notice.
• Sediment filters and whole-house filtration, including systems built for chlorine, chloramine, and hardness, are in the same category. They do a lot for the water you drink every day. They are not a substitute for boiling during a notice.
• Reverse osmosis is different in principle. An intact RO membrane blocks most bacteria and parasites, and some systems are certified for that. But a membrane you cannot see may have a pinhole, the storage tank may already hold water from before the notice, and no utility or health department tells you to rely on it. Follow the notice, and treat RO water as unboiled until the all-clear.

If you have a whole-house system, it is not hurt by the notice. Leave it running. Its filters and media may need changing afterward, which is the next section.

After the all-clear: flush, dump, and replace

When the utility lifts the notice, the water in its mains has passed testing. The water sitting in your own pipes, water heater, and appliances has not.

1. Flush every cold tap. Start with the outside hose bib closest to the meter and let it run several minutes. Then run each cold faucet inside for a few minutes, tub and shower included.
2. Flush the hot side. Run the hot taps until the water is hot, so the heater turns over some of its volume.
3. Dump the ice. Empty the bin, turn the ice maker back on, and throw out the first batch or two.
4. Replace refrigerator and under-sink filters. Anything that filtered water during the notice may have caught organisms, and a carbon filter is a nice place for bacteria to grow. Change it.
5. Change the pre-filters on a reverse osmosis or whole-house system, and drain and refill the RO storage tank.
6. Run a dishwasher cycle empty and clean the faucet aerators, which catch sediment stirred up by the repair.

When the water still is not right

Flushing and replacing filters is homeowner work. Water that stays discolored after the flush, pressure that does not return at one fixture or the whole house, or a smell that was not there before the notice mean the problem is on your side of the meter: sediment in a valve, a partly closed main, or something disturbed by the pressure change. That is a look-at, not a wait-and-see.

If the water in your house did not come back the way it should have, or you want to know what your filtration system will and will not do the next time a notice comes through, tell us what you have and what you are seeing. We will give you a straight answer.