EPHRATA – The City of Ephrata has officially lifted its boil advisory after the water sample testing came back negative for contaminants, according to City Administrator Ray Towry. 

“We apologize for the inconvenience,” Towry said. “We understand the stress that it puts on people and local businesses.”

The advisory began Monday after a pipe broke and caused water pressure to significantly drop in the city. According to state regulations, the city must place a boil advisory until testing can be completed. 

The only facility that still is on a boil advisory is the Grant County Juvenile Services Building because it is connected to the pipeline that broke. The pipe was fixed, flushed and samples were collected for testing Wednesday. Towry said they will likely get those test results back Friday. 

“We are doing a full after action investigation to figure out what happened and not so much centered around the pipe breaking,” Towry said. “Pipes break, those things happen. But why didn't we get the appropriate warnings from our automated system to let us know that there was an issue with the reservoir levels.” 

Towry said the vendor for the reservoir came to Ephrata Wednesday to begin trying to figure out what happened. He said normally when a reservoir drops out of “operational zone” a notification will be sent out that the reservoir levels were dropping; however, this didn’t happen with the pipe break this week. 

“We're gonna do a full after action investigation, and we'll let everybody know what happened,” Towry said. “Then what we're going to do in the future to try and make sure that that doesn't happen again.”