SARATOGA SPRINGS – The boil water order that forced businesses to buy thousands of pounds of ice and hundreds of cases of water has been lifted.
The city got the good news at 3:30 p.m., said Commissioner of Public Works Anthony “Skip” Scirocco.
“It’s officially been lifted,” he said.
Now comes the hard part: notifying all the restaurants and bars. Workers must disinfect every soda line, ice maker and anything else connected to city water before they can use them again. Many said they would try to accomplish that task before dinner service began.
“We’re going to send people down through Broadway with flyers to tell the businesses,” Scirocco said a little after 4 p.m.
It was a moment of relief for Mike Sirianni, the owner of Saratoga City Tavern. He closed Friday because of the boil water order.
“Yippee! I’m going to open that bar up right now,” he said after getting the news Saturday.
The situation began Thursday, when a main water pipe under Green Street cracked. Workers had to replace 10 feet of pipe. And although they used a valve to reroute water, maintaining water pressure throughout the city during the repair, the state Department of Health determined that the water could have become contaminated when the pipe cracked.
Late Thursday night, the Department of Health issued a boil water order.
Restaurateurs woke up to the bad news Friday and began searching desperately for huge quantities of ice and bottled water. Many chefs started work early by boiling pots of water for use throughout the day.
Bars were hit harder, because they could not use the drink mixers – from soda to sour mix – that are attached to a city water line. They also had to empty and sterilize their ice boxes before pouring in bagged ice. At Gaffney’s Restaurant & Bar, the owner took on the expense of buying packages of canned soda so they could continue to make some mixed drinks.
Owners reported buying ice and bottled water as quickly as possible, fearing that stock would run low because so many restaurants and bars would putting in orders. After buying as much as they could, some said they were worried that they wouldn’t have enough for a second night if the boil water order was not lifted Saturday.
The city began testing the water, completing four tests Friday. Everything looked fine. But laboratories generally need 24 hours to do a bacteriological test. The state would not release the boil water order until the second of the tests came back clean Saturday, showing that the water remained clean on two consecutive days.
