The city lifted its boil order Thursday after telling 20,000 water customers on the Southwest Side to avoid drinking straight from the tap until tests showed no dangerous levels of bacteria.
The Chicago Department of Water Management said the analysis showed tap water in Auburn Gresham, Beverly and Morgan Park is safe to drink, though residents should flush their water systems before using it.
The order was issued after a malfunction caused a leak in a high-pressure water main at the Roseland Pumping Station on Tuesday night. That main has been repaired, the city said.
Residents and businesses were told to boil their water before drinking it or using it to wash dishes or food or brushing teeth.
The order affected homes and other buildings east of Sacramento Avenue, north of 119th Street, west of Interstate 57, south of 87th Street and southwest of Beverly Avenue.
Residents lost water pressure Tuesday night and some said they didn’t receive any alerts until well past midnight the following morning.
Beverly resident Rose Jeffry said she got an alert on her phone just past 1:30 a.m. Wednesday.
“What I would’ve liked when I first realized I didn’t have water was some information,” she said. “There was nothing online.”
Her neighbor, Angela Larsen, agreed.
“The other part that was unsettling about this,” Larsen said, “is that we did not know what was going on at first.”
Jeffry, like many other residents, drove to nearby Ridge Park to pick up a free case of water from the city.
Though the boil order has been rescinded, the city advises affected residents to run cold-water faucets for 5 minutes.
Other precautions should be taken, including making and then throwing out three batches of ice from automatic ice makers.
Anyone with questions can contact the city’s Water Quality Surveillance Section at 312-744-8190 or 311.
The Roseland Pumping Station had another malfunction leading to low water pressure in May 2021 that also resulted in a boil order for parts of the Southwest Side.
At the time, the city blamed a ComEd power outage for the issue, though the utility denied such an event occurred.
A city inspector general report later that year concluded that city equipment rather than ComEd’s power supply was at fault.
The latest incident raises questions about the city’s aging water infrastructure.
Separately, Chicago is in the early stages of replacing more than 400,000 lead lines from the city’s homes.
