KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – Water users in the Kelseyville and Finley areas are being urged to boil water for the next few days in the wake of a low water issue that occurred on Thursday.

Some customers in the area reported receiving hand-delivered notices from Lake County Special Districts, while others received calls from the agency through the Office of Emergency Services' reverse 911 system.

Lake County News also received reports from Kelseyville residents of the water being off in downtown Kelseyville for about two hours on Thursday morning.

Pete Preciado, Lake County Special Districts deputy administrator, said the system experienced low water pressure on Thursday morning, resulting in a lot of calls from customers.

“Right now everything's back to normal,” he said Thursday afternoon. “The system is fine, the water is fine.”

However, he said Special Districts was asking customers to purify their water before drinking it, with boiling one of the ways to achieve that goal.

“Anytime you lose system pressure you could suffer back siphonage, and that could bring water into the system,” he said.

Last week construction began in downtown Kelseyville to increase the size of the water main, a project Preciado said is expected to conclude next Tuesday.

Preciado said district workers valved off an area of Main Street where that work is going on.

“We are isolating sections of pipe and redirecting the water,” he said.

He said that, following their investigation into the low water pressure occurrence, they believe the way the area was valved caused the problem.

“The wells are fine, the pipes are fine, the storage tanks are fine, it was just the valving off for construction,” he said.

Preciado said once Special Districts settled on a cause, the focus then turned to getting the water pressure restored, flushing the lines and notifying the public.

He said they were in the process of collecting bacteriological samples to make sure the water was safe to drink. They have to have two days of consecutive clean samples before the health department will rule the water safe.

Preciado said Special Districts is telling customers in the Kelseyville and Finley areas who have received the notices and calls to boil their water until a paper notice is placed on their door notifying them of the boil water order's cancellation.

If everything goes well, the earliest the order would be lifted is Saturday afternoon, Preciado said.

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