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<br /> NEWS <br />OWASA Releases Water Shortage Timeline Ahead of <br />Board Meeting <br />Posted by John Thomas | Feb 9, 2017 | Health | 0 <br />The Orange Water and Sewer Authority will address the recent Chapel Hill water shortage at its <br />Board of Directors meeting at six o’clock Thursday night. <br />The meeting will take place at Chapel Hill Town Hall instead of its usual location in Carrboro. <br />OWASA executive director Ed Kerwin said this change in location would ensure the people of <br />Chapel Hill have the chance to easily raise questions about what happened. <br />“It’s so important that we’re fully transparent and forthcoming with this information,” he said. <br />To aid with that goal, OWASA released a timeline of events Wednesday regarding the water <br />shortage. <br />The timeline breaks down each action taken by OWASA and the Orange County Health Department <br />from 3:00 p.m. on February 2 until 9:00 p.m. on February 4. <br />Those actions began with OWASA’s discovery of the fluoride overfeed at its Jones Ferry water <br />treatment plant. OWASA closed the plant in response. <br />Two hours later, OWASA began receiving portions of Durham’s water supply to sustain its own <br />reserves. <br />That problem was compounded just after 10:00 a.m. the following morning when a water main broke <br />in northeast Chapel Hill. <br />This severely affected OWASA’s already depleted water supply, forcing it to release a “Do Not Use” <br />warning to its customers about an hour later in order to guard against contamination and protect its <br />emergency water reserves. <br />Throughout the rest of the day, OWASA continued to receive large supplies of water from Durham, <br />while also activating connection lines with Chatham County.