Is It Safe?

Amston Lake

Can I use my tap water or not? Talk about mishandled details. Last Friday I received a text on my smartphone from one of the local TV stations informing me that residents in the Amston Lake area should not drink their tap water. The area included Hebron, Lebanon and my town Colchester, but didn't say how widespread it was. I live barely a couple of miles from Amston Lake. Should I be concerned? Tuning in the six o'clock TV news revealed little. By ten o'clock, it had been made clear that 181 homes were affected, and boiling water with four times the safe rate of copper only made it worse. I took that to mean the densely populated area immediately around the lake, but it was still unclear how much of Colchester had been included in this warning. The next night only muddied the waters, as one unnamed local station showed a map of all three towns with no numbers given, making it sound like everyone in the three towns were being warned. I will give credit to WTNH Channel 8 for being specific at eleven. How many households in Colchester were under the water emergency? Two! I hope all the folks who live around this beautiful lake get back to normal conditions soon, but it wasn't a shining moment for local media - some of them, anyway.