Oakland Township residents in the North Pressure District can turn on their taps again without boiling first.
The Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner's office announced Tuesday, Aug. 18, that the boil water advisory for the North Pressure District of the Southeast Oakland Township Water System has been lifted. Laboratory testing confirmed the water is safe to drink after two rounds of sampling came back clean.
The advisory had been in place since July 14, when a loss of pressure in the system triggered the precautionary notice. The county attributed the pressure loss to a power failure event, though it's unclear whether that's the same incident the City of Rochester described two days later. The city posted on X on July 16 that an outage hit that morning:
@rochester_mi: "At 8am, there was a total power loss at one of GLWA pumping stations causing low or no water pressure to a number of Rochester Hills and Oakland Twp residents."
No contamination was ever found.
Still, Water Resources Commissioner Jim Nash's office kept the precautionary advisory in effect while testing continued. On Aug. 3, Nash's office posted on Facebook that the advisory would remain until two rounds of water testing were completed and confirmed safe.
The advisory originally covered two systems: the North Pressure District and the Knorrwood Knolls water system. Knorrwood Knolls customers got the all-clear on July 17, just three days after the advisory was issued. North Pressure District customers waited more than five weeks.
What to do now
With the advisory lifted Aug. 18, the Water Resources Commissioner's office recommends residents take these steps:
- Run tap water slowly and flush pipes for five minutes.
- Empty the automatic ice maker and discard all ice made during the advisory.
- Run a few cycles of ice production and discard those batches before using the ice again.
Residents with questions can call the Water Resources Commissioner's office at 248-858-1555, email [email protected], or visit oakgov.com/water/notifications.
