WATERTOWN, New York (WWNY) – Watertown’s boil water advisory is causing some havoc for the local food industry. Some places shut their doors for the day, while others are only serving food.
Last Friday’s rapid rain and snowmelt stirred up the Black River, where Watertown gets its water. Turbidity levels were creeping higher Friday night into Saturday. And on Sunday, the levels were too high, and the boil water notice was issued.
“Right now it’s being driven by the water coming out of the Black River that goes into our settlement basin and arrives at our water treatment plant,” said Watertown City Manager Eric Wagenaar.
The requirement to boil water before using it is tough when you’re in the food business. A check on Arsenal Street showed closed signs at Chipotle and Starbucks. Others, like Chick-fil-A and Five Guys, were serving food, but soda fountains were turned off.
In downtown Watertown, the Crystal Restaurant was closed.
Meanwhile, employees at Vito’s Gourmet say this isn’t a first.
“We went through this a couple of years ago, and we just have been boiling a whole bunch of water for any of the veggies we cook in the back,” said employee Kallista George. “For our soups and our coffee and anything that’s, like, that you eat readily, we’ve been using spring water; we have 20 – 25 gallons of it in the back.”
George says she trusts the city will fix the problem soon.
“We’ll just continue to get the spring water until they fix it. They’ve fixed it pretty quickly the last time it happened, so we’re not too worried about it,” she said.
Down the road, Chrissy Beanz says that they’ve been able to keep the coffee flowing thanks to an advanced filtration system, which they just had worked on.
Local businesses are rolling with the punches despite some uncertainty.
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