Don't drink the water in Boston without boiling it first. | Hacker News Reader

Don't drink the water in Boston without boiling it first.

boston.com

88 pointsspeek76 comments

I once witnessed a pipe of the same dimensions bursting - the difference being that it was carrying 80 degree celsius hot water for central heating...

It was right under a main street (it's standard procedure to put large pipes under streets so you can get to them if anything goes wrong) and within 10 minutes the street looked like an earthquake had hit it - the massive amount of almost boiling water simply eroded the foundation under the street and washed it away. Tonnes and tonnes of 80 degree hot muddy water gushed up and flowed down the street to a nearby low-lying town square that quickly filled up. Luckily they got it shut off within 20 minutes, but it looked like the gates of hell had been opened with all that water and steam just spewing out of the ground.

Luckily nobody was hurt, but it was an interesting experience.

It sounds like a miracle that no one was hurt!

The contractor who built this water supply tunnel, which was finished only 7 years ago, is Modern Continental.

http://www.mwra.com/osu/1003mwtfacts.html

They were the Big Dig's largest contractor and are in Chapter 11 bankruptcy because federal prosecutors brought 49 charges against them including allegations that it knew about bolts coming loose in the ceiling of the Big Dig tunnel years before a ceiling collapse killed a motorist.

Shouldn't there be some kind of lifetime ban on them doing engineering work?

Them as a company or them as the individual engineers?

Both?

I doubt they're getting any new contracts, anyway, ban or no, especially now that they're in bankruptcy. The problem is there's a whole backlog of stuff they did years ago before anything major happened to suggest their work was problematic. As you note, this water supply tunnel was finished in 2003, while the Big Dig ceiling collapse fiasco didn't happen until 2006.

Something similar happened in Atlanta, where two structures built by Hardin Construction collapsed within a year, a pedestrian bridge in 2008 and a parking garage in 2009. I doubt they were getting much new business after that first collapse in 2008, but that still left a bunch of existing work, like the GT parking garage, already out there.

That and criminal charges if possible...

Thank you.

I wonder why Cambridge (where I live) is not listed? The surrounding towns are.

edit: according to http://www.mwra.com/02org/html/whatis.htm, Cambridge receives full sewer, but only "emergency backup" water from the MWRA.

edit2: a commenter at http://www.wbur.org/2010/05/01/water-main-break/comment-page... says Cambridge gets its water from Fresh Pond.

According to an email from the Broad, there are interconnects between Boston and Cambridge and no water should be consumed without boiling.

Got an update from the Broad and they feel confident now that there is no crosstalk between Cambridge and Boston water supplies. Sorry for the false alarm!

Off topic, but I thought this was the most appropriate thread. I just got a place in Somerville (lucky me ;-)). Are there any cool events around where you can meet people and make friends?

Meetup.com is great for this. I'd also recommend being active on twitter; plenty of events spread through there. Use http://search.twitter.com if you need a starting point. Check out http://greenhornconnect.com/ 's events section for startup-related stuff.

Cool! Thanks for the links!

Open shop night at Sprout community science lab in Davis Square, Tuesday and Thursday nights.

Also, google Willoughby and Baltic.

Totally OT, but Willoughby and Baltic seems dead to me. I live a block from there and I just go to Sprout. Its generally free, great people and a really friendly environment.

I just went by both locations I found online, Elm St and Joy St, and both are abandoned. Nobody answers the phone or returns my messages. I just wanted to check out their MakerBot CNC, but I guess I'm out of luck and they are, too. Very sad.

Wow, that's depressing.

They moved out of the Elm Street building a year ago, but I thought it was because the Joy Street building was awesome. It looks like the main organizer, Meredith, moved away, and the place died.

Well, I can confirm that at least Sprout is alive and kicking.

Thanks! I'll check it out. I will be living pretty close to Davis Square :-)

Yeah, according to people around MIT talking on zephyr we get our water from Fresh Pond.

Who uses Zephyr? Professors and staff who've been there a long time? I'm a grad student in CSAIL and have never once seen it in use.

My impression is that it's common mainly among undergrads. That also seems to be the case at CMU, though my knowledge is only second-hand in both cases.

MIT is still using zephyr? I didn't think it would still be in use 15 years later.

Yeah, though people have made better user interfaces for it. The particular space between Twitter and IM that it sits in doesn't seem to have been colonized by anything better yet.

EDIT: Though I'm sure there are people here who'd be happy to try :)

I was in a Watertown MA supermarket at about 5 when my mother, who lives an hour away, called to tell me she saw this on TV and Watertown was affected.

I went to the bottled water aisle to get water for my family. It was mostly large packs of bottles. I managed to get 15 gallons in big jugs by going in the direction I saw a guy with jugs come from. They wheeled a cart with water out, and people were pulling it in boxes straight from the cart. At first, maybe 3-4 people were loading up on water, but that was it.

Within the 20 minutes I was there, I watched the shelves almost empty completely of water.

One nice thing--the supermarket manager, before I even got to the checkout, had discounted all the water--thank you Shaws!

The psychology of it was interesting. I felt bad about the jugs (I am I hording? should I share) but then thought how I would feel if I didn't have enough clean water for my pregnant wife and child, and family who is visiting for the birth. I calculated that I would feel like a bigger jerk if I didn't look out for them, so I went with it. I also called several friends and gave them a heads up on the run on water. One of them didn't know, and was able to find some at a CVS. So that is my story so far.

The article I just read said that the pipe was a "custom pipe" that burst, so they have no replacement ready and can't even give a timeframe.

edit: on the news they now think it was just a "connector" so it may be an easier fix.

So there's already going to be a major shortage, so they discount to further aggravate the problem?

Now, it's not really a major thing to consider since water is so cheap already that almost no one is thinking about the cost when filling their cart with ~$1 gallons of water. They were going to sell out in basically the same amount of time regardless, and this way buys the store good will ("thank you Shaws!", for example).

And I agree with your moral rationalization of you hording as much as you can get (within reason), adding in the fact that if you realize it's more than you need, you can always share it with friends/neighbors.

At least Shaw's didn't multiply the price by ten. Sounds like the manager at Shaw's cleverly identified getting rid of all of his (probably profitless) bottled water as fast as possible (and posting a sign outside saying they're out) as the best way to prevent clogging the store with the hoarding hordes.

If there weren't laws against price gouging, I'm sure they would have strongly considered multiplying the price by 10.

Maybe not. If you had a choice, would you shop again in a store that did that, vs one that didn't?

Shaws will still be selling stuff long after this is over, but people will remember.

He should have multiplied the price by ten or whatever the market would bear. To do otherwise would create shortages.

I remember doing that while living in Taiwan. At least the climate in Boston makes having lukewarm water more bearable. When you are sweating in a tropical summer the last thing you want is a warm glass of water.

Traditionally China has been the same way: Whenever somebody gives you a glass of water it is always warm so that the receiver knows that it has been boiled, and is safe to drink. It often takes foreigners a while to adjust.

Lemon helps if possible. Lukewarm or hot water by itself = bu hao (no good). Lukewarm lemon-flavored water = much more drinkable.

/in China and Taiwan this year

Oddly enough, it is a custom in Taiwan to serve warm water. I totally don't get it because Taiwan in the summer is, as you said, really hot and muggy.

I was visiting someone in a mental institution in Taiwan and the nurses kept giving him warm cups of water when he really wanted a cold cup of water. Hilarity ensued.

Interesting language tidbit related to the warm/boiled water custom: a common term for drinking water in Taiwan is 開水 (kaishui3), which literally means "boiled water".

The first few times people asked me if I wanted "kaishui" I got confused because I thought they were asking if I wanted boiling water... but cold, ice-cube filled drinking water is also called kaishui to indicate that it has been boiled and so is for drinking.

I think those kinds of cultural-linguistic ties are cool in language.. I would love a book that gives you a linguistic tour of the world using words that reflect certain local customs.

I've found that hot tea is wonderful in warm weather. It's like you just stop pretending that a cold glass of water is going to make you any less hot & instead choose to enjoy the heat.

Hah! Tell that to the sweat stains on the back of my shirt! :)

Boil it then put it in the refrigerator?

There are machines in Taiwan that do exactly this. It's very convenient, because you can get really hot water for tea just by pushing the right button, or cold water if you press another button.

These machines definitely exist in the US as well. My work has one. It doesn't pre-boil the water, but it does keep a cool and hot section. If you just loaded it with boiled water to begin with, you'd be set.

What's a refrigerator, amigo?

They have electricity in Taiwan.

A couple of decades ago, they were these cube shaped metal things covered faux wood grain found in dorm rooms.

This might be Myth Busters material, but wouldn't it be more energy efficient to drink water closer to the body's own temperature? Less energy is needed internally to process warm water, than to heat cold water up to 98.6 F.

This is also similar to why it's bad to drink soft drink, the body consumes more water to break it down than it gains from the soft drink.

Fluids come as hypotonic, isotonic and hypertonic. Water is hypotonic, and before it can be absorbed, the body has to add in glucose and electrolytes from internal supplies. Hypertonic drinks, like Coca Cola need to be diluted with water from the body. An isotonic drink which is 6% glucose + electrolytes can be used almost immediately. That's why sports drinks are often isotonic.

>This is also similar to why it's bad to drink soft drink, the body consumes more water to break it down than it gains from the soft drink.

The longest one can last without additional water is something like 3 days, no? http://health.howstuffworks.com/live-without-food-and-water.... (it gives a couple of citations but I haven't checked them, I tried the sciam.com one but it's paywalled) gives 3-5 days + 1 for a "healthy" person.

So if this assertion is right then drinking exclusively soft drinks for about 5 days will kill you. A simple experiment to do.

You would also have to avoid juicy foods. You could probably avoid drinking water indefinitely if you ate enough apples.

Yes. And that is something that nomads in eg Mongolia practise. You sweat less and your body has less warming up to do.

I love that dirty water, OOOOOO Boston you're my home!!!!

(Sorry, had to, since EVERY Boston sports team plays it after a game)

After a win, you mean :)

ah, yes, like the Bruins today!

If you're curious what it looks like:

http://www.wwlp.com/dpp/news/massachusetts/boston-water-main...

Very strange.

I just finished reading Robert Harris' "Pompeii" which I started a couple days before the Iceland Volcano started putting out ash. Now the aqueduct breaks. Very strange coincidence... I hope my brain isn't projecting the content of the stuff I'm reading...

Luckily I live just outside the boil water area though.

>dumping eight million gallons of water per hour into the Charles River.

I can't wait to see the Big Picture cover this.

Wow, that's one big pipe. Though, you'd think the pressure inside the pipe would be greater than outside it, nullifying any immediate risk of contamination from other water sources.

If you read past the first couple of paragraphs, you'll find that the water needs to be boiled because they're pulling from unfiltered (or less-filtered) backup sources.

They said that they are augmenting the water supply with sources that are not suitable for drinking:

MWRA is activating its emergency water supplies such as the Sudbury Aqueduct, Chestnut Hill Reservoir and Spot Pond Reservoir. THIS WATER WILL NOT BE SUITABLE FOR DRINKING, but can be used for bathing, flushing and fire protection.

From here: http://www.mwra.com/updates/leak.html

Domestic water pipes often have holes in them, relying on the pressure of the water in the pipe to not let any polluted water get in, if the water pressure dropped as a result of the leak then the dirty water can enter the pipes.

There was a boil-water notice for northwest Washington, DC, within the last few weeks. We heard of it late, then found that the affected area ended about a mile north of us. But there was a spectacular break in the suburbs just before Christmas, requiring helicopter rescue of some stranded motorists. So it's not just Boston.

Anyone know why it took 8 hours to turn off the valve controlling the pipe?

I could see a hour or two to identify the exact pipe, and locate the paperwork on where the valve is, but 8 hours?

I'd assume mains control valves would be computer controlled and be easily recognised by one of the lead engineers. Compare to an electricity outage - when the cables in our street were cut through the electricity company new within half hour which substation was out and within 2 hours had an estimate for repair. The repair was about 8 hours, granted this was a relatively minor repair.

Don't main pipes have flow monitors? In which case it could be almost automatic.

Another +! for Cambridge, only area in the region not effected.

That may be true, but perhaps not? The Broad (in Kendall Square) just sent out this email: Dear Colleagues, As many of you may be aware, there has been a catastrophic leak in the water supply serving Greater Boston, and at present is dumping approximately 8 million gallons of water per hour into the Charles River.

Governor Deval Patrick has declared a State of Emergency, and has issued a "boil water" order for some 30 cities and towns. Even though the City of Cambridge maintains its own water supply, there are cross-connects, and as such you should not consume any of the water, including the coffee, at any of the Broad's facilities until further notice.

First our water, then our coffee? All of Kendall Sq will shut down! :/

Seems like a good time to re-read Zodiac.

What IS it about Boston?

I'll get flamed, but I feel that way about most the water supply in the U.S. Ever look at the reports per county for what is in your water supply here? I don't care what anyone says, most of those contaminates listed aren't acceptable to me at any level. I hate the fact that I have to shower or brush my teeth with it.

Even worse are the chemicals they use to "clean" it, which doesn't get things like medications out, like my favorite additive "chloramine". The website is a little wonky, but check out http://chloramine.org --not to be confused with chlorine which can be filtered out... chloramine is damn near impossible to filter.

I'm not an environmentalist nut, but if there is one thing in this country I don't find safe, it is my drinking/bathing water--and I'm not buying what the government is dishing about its safety and purity.

Not acceptable at any level? Do you think infinitely dilute poisons are still harmful poisons? Do you think one molecule of arsenic will kill you?

BTW, did you know that natural spring water has contaminants too? And the water in every other country? Maybe the level of contaminants is better in some places, but you don't seem to be paying attention to that.

And did you know that all filters do is reduce the level of contaminants? There is no such thing as an absolutely perfect filter.

Yes. And the air we breathe is full of dangerous microbes. Almost anything we touch or ingest contains something risky. The bodies of human beings, as the bodies of all living organisms, include adaptations to deal with less than ideal environments.

As an actual matter of fact, tap water in quite a few parts of the United States is all but sterile.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17456554

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1472650/

And in case you're tempted, you may want to think twice before drinking that ultra-pure, 18 MOhm water you have handy in the lab:

http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/nutdeminerali...

Arsenic is a metallic element - it comes in atoms, not molecules :)

The sad thing is that I almost didn't click on this submission because, glancing at the headline, I felt certain that it was going to lead to some sort of paranoid rant.

Instead it turns out to be a one-hundred-percent-real news issue that affects many of my friends and neighbors [1].

I was nearly a victim of the "Reddit who cried wolf" effect.

I'm glad I can continue to have faith that HN's moderation system is working.

---

[1] This is one time when I'm actually glad to be living in a relatively distant suburb of Boston.

You know the computer monitor you're sitting in front of is giving off radiation, right? Which is also bad for you at any level. The brick wall behind the monitor is giving off radiation too, for that matter.

That is what the tinfoil hats are meant for.

Those give off radiation too.

At first I thought you were going to write about decrepit infrastructure in the US. That's probably more worth ranting about.

The pipe was only 6 or 7 years old: http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/23337764/detail.html

It's more apt to rant about corruption in construction contracts in Boston union jobs

That document is one of the more ridiculous things I've read today, and that's saying something.

If you get any significant proportion of your mineral intake from your drinking water, you have bigger problems than water.

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