From Staff Reports 

City of Asheville officials were estimating on Nov. 15 that the boil water notice will be able to be lifted by Nov. 19 as a result of reduced turbidity levels in the North Fork Reservoir and the capacity to push treated water into the system, Asheville television station WLOS (News 13) reported on Nov. 15.

Specifically, the TV station stated, “Clay Chandler, a public information officer for the City of Asheville’s Water Resources Department, said in a Nov. 15 briefing that as the capacity for the North Fork Reservoir to push treated water into the system continues to rise, residents of Asheville may be nearing the end of being without domestic water use.

“We’ve been able to feed a sufficient amount of filtered water into the distribution system without blending it with raw water,” News 13 quoted Chandler as saying.

Chandler added that the system currently has the capacity to push 20 million gallons of treated water daily — and the last time the system pushed raw water was Nov. 9.

Further, News 13 reported the following from the briefing:

“Chandler said the system has only pushed treated water, meaning the mechanism used to push raw water through the system would be taken offline, beginning on Nov. 15.

“‘The use of treated water, combined with customer usage, has given us data that we feel is sufficient to reach the conclusion that the system has, for the most part, turned over and the vast majority of raw water has been replaced with treated water,’ Chandler said.

“Because of this, Chandler said that the sampling process can begin, leading to a ‘potential lifting of the boil water notice’ that has been in place since Helene impacted the area on Sept. 27.

“Chandler said the sampling process will officially begin on Nov. 16, with lab staff needing to gather and analyze 120 samples.

“He said that based on their daily rate of ‘about 40 samples,’ the process is estimated to conclude on Nov. 18.

“‘By Tuesday (Nov. 19) afternoon or evening of next week, we should have a pretty good idea about the health of our distribution system and whether or not we will be able to lift the boil water notice.’

“Chandler said that the water resources department feels ‘it is important to begin taking this step now,’ as the reservoir’s turbidity levels decrease, which he said has made this step possible.

“While Chandler said that lifting the boil water notice would allow residents to resume normal domestic water use, and businesses to operate unrestricted, there remains a ‘low chance’ that turbidity levels will increase due to “line breaks, weather events, or, heaven forbid, another natural disaster.’”