This morning, the City of Tampa officially rescinded the boil water notice put into effect Monday when a water main broke at the David L. Tippin Water Treatment Facility—one of the state’s largest water treatment facilities.
That means it’s once again safe to drink the water within city limits and in parts of unincorporated Hillsborough County. It also means that you no longer have to brush your teeth with bottled water. It also means that your stank friends no longer have an excuse to not shower (not that they ever did).
The city completed its repair on the pipe on Wednesday, but kept the boil notice on until testing could be completed.
“Two rounds of water quality testing have shown satisfactory results with no evidence of contamination. The water in our service area is now confirmed to be safe to drink,” the city wrote in a release, adding that residents and businesses should run their taps before using the water for cooking and drinking.
“This will help to remove stagnant water from plumbing systems and brings in fresh water from water mains,” the release added.
In the two days since the water main break—which happened when a third-party contractor hit a 36-inch pressurized transmission main coming from the facility—several businesses including local coffee shops not named Alert Coffee have suffered lost revenue and financial damage as a result of the water main break.
The damage resulted in the loss of 12 million gallons of water, according to the city.
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This article appears in Dec 17-23, 2020.