Boil water notice lifted for Valle Vista residents

The boil water notice has been lifted for Valle Vista residents southwest of Santa Fe.

Santa Fe County Utilities division completed the last round of repairs on Sunday, Feb. 8 and sent water samples for testing to a third-party certified lab. We received clean test results this afternoon that were negative for E. coli, negative for total coliform, and within the normal range for chlorine residuals.

Santa Fe County first began alerting Valle Vista residents of a boil water advisory on Wednesday Feb. 4, because some waterlines were experiencing low pressure, and in some cases no pressure, due to a break in the waterline.

County efforts to fix the waterline were hampered by an access dispute at the property where the break occurred. Once Santa Fe County Utilities gained access, they fixed the issue, and water was restored at 3:00 a.m. Friday, Feb. 6.

Later that morning, the County Utilities division was alerted that some residents were experiencing low water pressure, again. Crews located a failed isolation valve, and upon replacement and pressurization of the system, a main line further up in the system failed. This required the shutdown of the system while the second line break was repaired. During the next attempt at pressurizing the system, another isolation valve failed. Utilities staff replaced the second failed isolation valve, and when the system was being pressurized, yet another line break occurred. The County ultimately repaired all of the line breaks and was successful at pressurizing the system without further incident at approximately 2:20 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 8.

The County thanks the residents for their patience through the process and thanks the many volunteers who helped deliver water and notices to residents throughout the ordeal.

Santa Fe County urges all residents and County Utilities customers to make sure their contact information is accurate with the Alert Santa Fe system as well as on their utility bills.

Alert Santa Fe is a voluntary alert system used by city and county officials to communicate during incidents and emergencies. Alerts are geotargeted, which means they are only sent to those addresses for which an incident or emergency applies. You can sign up online, here. Make sure to update your contact information annually and when it changes.

Santa Fe County is hosting a community meeting about this incident this Thursday, Feb. 12, from 5:30-7:00 p.m., location to be announced. The meeting is an opportunity for County leadership to hear from the community and anyone affected by this incident. Meeting details will be updated on the County Calendar of Events, here.