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Alex Cabrero reportingThere's a sigh of relief in one Park City neighborhood tonight. Tests on their water for anything harmful came back negative. That means no more boiling, but the city still wants to know who broke into one of its water tanks.
City officials don't know if it was just a bunch of kids messing around or if it was a sort of "test" to see how easy it would be to get into the water supply. Whatever the answer, there is a $1,000 reward waiting for whoever has information leading to an arrest.
Carol Falton is used to boiling water for her evening dinners. She just wasn't used to boiling it for everything else. "It was a little frightening, wondering how bad it was," she said.
The Faltens live in the Quarry Mountain section of Park City. Theirs is one of 116 homes getting water from the Quarry Mountain water tank. Residents in those homes were told to boil their water, just in case something was in it.
Falton says they were told, "Do not drink the water from now on, don't bathe in it, don't cook with it. Boil everything."
On Tuesday, city water crews noticed someone had cut the locks to the hatch on top of the water tank. That hatch leads straight to the water supply, which was exposed. They contacted the state immediately.
Crews went to all the homes serviced by the water tank and told residents to boil their water.
Kathy Lundborg, the Park City Water Manager, said, "We have no idea what somebody might have dumped into that tank, and so we don't know what we're dealing with."
With cases like the recent Ricin investigation in Utah, crews say you never know what somebody may have been up to. "We have to go with the worst-case scenario and test for everything," Lundborg said.
Test results came back negative, so the boil order was lifted this morning. But workers still want to know who broke the locks and why. "It's a federal offense to tamper with a water system, and the new law is it's up to a 20 year prison sentence and a million dollar fine for tampering with a water system," Lundborg says.
Park City is offering a $1,000 reward for any information that leads to an arrest in this case.
E-mail: acabrero@ksl.com
