Water Authority – Cayman released a statement Monday, 15 Dec. explaining why it had issued a “boil water notice” in Cayman Brac on 13 Dec. and what steps it had taken to rectify the situation.
“The issue resulted from a failure at the water production plant in Cayman Brac,” the statement said. “There was a mechanical issue where a connector within one of the pressure vessels failed. The pressure vessels house the membranes that are used to process feed water.
“Additionally, the automatic controls that shut down the system when water quality parameters fall outside the Authority’s standards did not operate as designed.”
The Water Authority said the system failure occurred overnight on Friday, 12 December and was discovered the following day, Saturday, during manual system checks.
“The operations team took immediate action to rectify the issue upon its discovery,” the statement continued. “When the scope of the problem became apparent, actions were escalated, and our emergency plan was activated.”
The Water Authority issued a “boil water notice” shortly before 3pm on Saturday, 13 Dec., informing its customers in Cayman Brac that they should boil any water for at least 10 minutes before consuming it, including water for drinking, cooking, making ice and brushing their teeth. The notice applied to all customers of piped or trucked water.
“The mechanical failure at the plant meant the source water did not undergo the required process to produce potable water, in which case bacteriological issues could be a factor,” the Water Authority stated. “As such, the Authority carried out a regulatory definitive test for bacteriological quality, a measure that assesses public health risk and takes 18 hours to produce results.”
To protect public health, the Water Authority made the decision to issue the boil water notice.
The Water Authority then sent updates on the status of their efforts to correct the problem throughout the rest of the weekend, finally sending a notice just after 9pm Sunday, 14 Dec. stating that the boil water notice had been lifted.
Steps taken to fix the issue
In its statement on Monday, the Water Authority explained the measures it had taken to correct the problem.
“One of the initial issues identified was the water’s high conductivity, indicating high salinity,” the statement said. “Our team began the work to normalise these levels both at the water production plant and across our distribution network.
“Members of our Quality Control and Operations Team, who are usually stationed in Grand Cayman, travelled to the Brac on Saturday and on Sunday for the extensive testing required, working alongside the Cayman Brac team.”
The water production train that had a mechanical failure was taken offline, and another train was put into service to begin producing potable water that met the Water Authority’s quality control standards. Simultaneously, a crew began systematically flushing the main pipeline and conducting tests of salinity and other parameters, the Water Authority’s statement said.
“By Sunday morning, the salinity levels in the water storage tanks had returned to the Authority’s water quality standards,” the statement continued. “The Authority also conducted tests to ensure its water delivery trucks were not compromised – the results show that all meet our strict safety standards.”
Water Authority Director Gelia Frederick van Genderen explained the reasoning behind the issuance of the boil water notice: “The decision to issue and maintain the boil water notice was made out of an abundance of caution, with public health as our top priority,” she said. “While initial screening tests showed no bacteriological contamination, we kept the notice in place until comprehensive analysis confirmed those early results.”
Looking forward, the Water Authority said it is working with its vendors to rectify the programming issue that caused the automatic shutoff safety feature to fail.
“Additionally, the component that caused the mechanical failure to occur has been replaced. As these measures are implemented, the Authority will increase the frequency of its manual system checks.
Frederick van Genderen thanked the Water Authority team that “worked around the clock to resolve this issue as quickly and safely as possible”.
“We apologise to our customers for the inconvenience this situation has caused,” she added. “We are also grateful to the Cayman Brac community for their understanding and patience while we took action to protect our customers and ensure the safety of our water.”
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