City awaiting Illinois EPA decision on boil order; Quincy schools dismissing early due to water main break

UPDATE: Quincy Public and Parochial Schools are dismissing because of the city’s water situation. Schools will dismiss 3 hours early. 11am – The Academy, 11:25 am: QHS, 11:41 am: QJHS, 12:15 p.m.: Elementary.

Quincy Mayor Mike Troup said the city was awaiting word from the Illinois EPA on how to proceed with the boil order because of the severity of the situation.

MRN will have further updates as they become available.

QUINCY — Water started pouring out of a 24-inch main at the City of Quincy’s water treatment plant after an excavator hit it late Thursday afternoon. City crews are working overnight to repair the main, and Quincy Mayor Mike Troup is asking citizens to conserve water tonight and Friday morning as repairs are being made.

Director of Public Works Jeffrey Conte said the leak will require extensive repairs, including vacuum excavation and hand digging around the main. Eight workers were on-site Thursday night, with another crew expected to arrive at 10 p.m.

Conte said the plant is expected to be back online by 8 a.m. Friday. A citywide boil order is likely to be in place because of potential bacteriological contamination once repairs are finished. The reservoir is at about 50% capacity, holding around 12 million gallons.

“If everything goes to plan, and the plan is pretty fluid right now, I’d say probably Saturday around noon would be when should have this back to normal and the boil order lifted,” Conte said Thursday night.

The City of Quincy website says 19.5 million gallons of storage capacity is available at the city’s ground storage reservoir site, with an additional 2.75 million gallons of elevated storage also available. Conte said Thursday night the reservoir was holding about 12 million gallons.

The Quincy City Council approved in April a water rate increase that will average more than $14 a month for residential users while also ending a discounted rate for not-for-profit users. The additional funds are going toward $30 million in improvements to the City of Quincy’s water system, such as floodproofing the water treatment plant and replacing water and sewer pipes as the Illinois Department of Transportation makes repairs to Broadway.

Conte said city crews have been working on the water treatment plant improvements for about two weeks. He said the plant was taken offline at about 4 p.m. Thursday.

“We were excavating to make these improvements to the pump station to protect it from flooding, and we came across a couple of leaks,” Conte said. “We pulled one of them out. It was a 100-year-old copper line that was weeping a little bit, and we hit it with the tooth of the excavator. (The main) just crumbled.”

Conte expects about 10 feet of the water main to be replaced overnight. However, he also said he was unsure what city workers would find once additional excavation work was finished because the water main is not on any city map. 

“We don’t even know what we’re getting into to make the repair,” he said. “We may find out that the pipe’s in such bad shape that we’ve got to dig the whole thing out. But we don’t know how long the pipe is, because it’s not mapped. Until we get it fully uncovered, we don’t even know what it is. We just know that somehow it’s connected to the clear well.”

“These things never happen at an ideal time, but we’ve got the crews and the equipment to address the problem,” Quincy Mayor Mike Troup said. “We just hope there’s nothing bigger underneath that. We’re lucky this didn’t happen in the middle of winter.”

Troup said the city water supply had not yet been impacted, but he’s asking citizens to voluntarily conserve water.

“Turn your (lawn) sprinklers off,” he said. “Conserving water now buys us more time.”

During a boil order, Conte said the water is safe for showering and bathing but not for drinking.

Conte expects a boil order to be in place for the whole city while he waits to get back the bacteriological test results that show the water is OK.

“I don’t anticipate running out of (treated) water,” Conte said with a smile. “We’re going to have a fix first.”

In a press release, Quincy Public Schools Superintendent Todd Pettit said he has talked with city officials after learning of the break. He said Jean Kinder, director of food services, has been notified and has planned accordingly. Food service will not be impacted Friday. 

“We are currently making arrangements to have bottled water available at each building,” he said. “School will be in session as normal.”

Quincy University President Brian McGee said Friday is the lightest day of the week for classes. Campus activities will go on as scheduled, but he told students to watch for updates. He asked students to reduce water usage by waiting to use their dishwashers and clothes washers on Friday. He also said campus staff will halt watering lawns and plants on Friday until further notice.

“We expect food service to continue throughout the weekend, but we have to be prepared to adjust for beverages,” he said.