Crisis 'may take weeks to resolve'
The water supply problems affecting more then 250,000 Northamptonshire people "might take weeks" to resolve, Anglian Water has admitted.
Dan Baker, its chief spokesman, said the water company was working as hard as it could but wanted to take as few risks as possible of people becoming ill from drinking its tap water.
He said: "Once the tests start to come out clear we then have to flush out all the pipes – which is a massive task – and then re-sample it to make sure everything is okay.
"It's a real inconvenience, but it might take weeks to do."
Anglian Water carries out about 1,000 water sample tests a day and the company was alerted to the cryptosporidium when one test was failed and was checked a second time. The results of the second test came out early on Tuesday morning and an alert was issued immediately.
The alert affected Pitsford Reservoir, near Brixworth, one of firm's largest water sources, but the parasite could be anywhere in the system supplied from there.
Consequently, tracing the cause may take a long time as the reservoir supplies a large area and a large number of homes.
Anglian Water yesterday acknowledged the massive inconvenience caused to its customers.
It sent out extra water to needy people and mobilised vans with loud hailers to alert residents to the problem.
But the water company said it had still not found out how the cryptosporidium parasite got into the water supply.
A spokesman said: "We need to work out what the source is because we don't know that yet.
"We would obviously like to know where it came from as soon as we can."
Meanwhile Anglian Water urged the affected people in Northampton and Daventry areas to continue boiling water rather than converge on shops in alarm.
Mr Baker, said: "We would say to people not to panic-buy water in the supermarket or anywhere else.
"To make the water safe, you need to boil it and allow it to cool then it can be drunk. That's what we would advise people to do."
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Friday 10 February 2012
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