Water Service Restored In Beverly, Morgan Park After Second Outage This Month; No Boil Order Issued
UPDATED 05/27/21 4:56 p.m.
CHICAGO (CBS) -- For the second time this month, thousands of homes and businesses in the Beverly and Morgan Park communities were temporarily left without water Tuesday morning, after a pumping station went offline.
The Chicago Department of Water Management confirmed two power issues between 9:15 a.m. and 10:15 a.m. on Tuesday affected pressure for drinking water from the Roseland Pumping Station, affecting service in Beverly and Morgan Park.
Officials said the station was back online and fully pressurized by 10:30 a.m.
Unlike the last time the pumping station went offline on May 6, a boil order is not being issued "because of the temporary nature of the issue," according to Water Department spokeswoman Megan Vidis.
"Out of an abundance of caution and in consultation with the Illinois EPA, the City will be performing its standard low pressure water sampling survey throughout the neighborhood," Vidis said in an email.
Residents tell CBS 2's Tara Molina they've had it with the inconvenience, but more so the lack of transparency.
They said they want to know why this keeps happening and what's being done to fix it.
The cause of the outage is under investigation.
Residents with questions can contact the city's Water Quality Surveillance Section at (312) 744-8190 or 311.
The same pumping station went offline on May 6, and city officials blamed a power outage caused by ComEd maintenance in the area.
However, ComEd has said it had nothing to do with the earlier outage, nor with the latest one, but would still be investigating. The utility issued the following statement on Tuesday:
"ComEd did not have a power outage affecting Roseland pumping station today and did not perform work at or near the station. Power has been flowing to the station normally throughout the day. We have offered the assistance of our engineering team to investigate the cause of the interruption. Our review of the pumping station outage earlier this month concluded there was no loss of power to the station."
On Thursday, May 27, the city's Department of Water Management issued this statement: "DWM is in the process of a full investigation around the recent power issues at Roseland. We are pulling and analyzing data and will issue a statement when we reach a determination of the cause."
A spokeswoman for the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency also issued a statement on Thursday, May 27: "Illinois EPA was contacted by the Chicago Department of Water on 5/25 to notify us of the low-pressure/no water reports. Illinois EPA confirmed that no boil order is required per standard procedures. However, water quality monitoring was conducted in the area impacted. Illinois EPA continues to monitor the situation as the City works with Com Ed to determine the cause of these power interruptions and to prevent future incidents."
