Public Notice Published March 30, 2011 By Mississippi Department of Health KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- The following standard public notice is required to be published by the Mississippi Department of Health by April 12, 2011. The notice is concerning the incident in February 2011 when we alerted all customers about the need to boil water as a precautionary measure. The problem was resolved and you do NOT need to do anything. We want to thank all our customers for their cooperation and patience during that time. Important information about your drinking water February 2011 tests showed total coliform bacteria in the Keesler water system. Our water system recently violated a drinking water standard. Although this was NOT an emergency, as our customers, you have a right to know what happened, what you should do, and what we have done to correct this situation. We routinely monitor for the presence of drinking water contaminants. We took 12 samples for coliform bacteria during February 2011. Four of those samples showed the presence of total coliform bacteria. The standard is that no more than 1 sample per month of our samples may do so. What should I do? You do not need to boil your water or take other corrective actions. People with severely compromised immune systems, infants, and some elderly may have been at increased risk. These people should seek advice about drinking water from their health care providers. General guidelines on ways to lessen the risk of infection by microbes are available from the Environmental Protection Agency's Safe Drinking Water Hotline, 1-800-426-4791. What does this mean? This was not an emergency. If it had been, you would have been notified immediately. Total coliform bacteria are generally not harmful themselves. Coliforms are bacteria which are naturally present in the environment and are used as an indicator that other, potentially harmful bacteria may be present. Coliforms were found in more samples than allowed and this was a warning of potential problems. Usually, coliforms are a sign that there could be a problem with the treatment or distribution system (pipes). Whenever we detect coliform bacteria in any sample, we do follow-up testing to see if other bacteria of greater concern, such as fecal coliform or E. coli, are present. We did not find any of these bacteria in our subsequent testing, and further testing shows that this problem has been resolved. What happened? What was done to correct the violation? The following specifies corrective actions this water supply has taken in response to this violation: We distributed and publicized boil water notices to our customers. We reviewed and verified that all treatment levels were correct. We reviewed sampling procedures and locations for possible problems. We isolated the area with the first positive results and took the water well out of service as a precaution. We took additional samples until negative sampling results were received. For more information, please contact Anthony W. Curran Jr., operator, 377-0909, or Alfred A. Watkins, legally responsible official, 376-8417. Please share this information with all the other people who drink this water, especially those who may not have received this notice directly (for example, people in apartments, nursing homes, schools, and businesses.) You can do this by posting this notice in a public place or distributing copies by hand or mail. This notice is being sent to you by Keesler Air Force Base PWS ID# 0240049. March 31, 2011