Clemson Water Boil Advisory: Amid Flint Crisis, South Carolina City Issues Warning After Faulty Main Breaks

The city of Clemson, South Carolina, issued a boil water and service outage advisory notice Monday after a water line break affected a section of the city, officials said in a statement. Residents were asked to boil water for at least one minute prior to drinking or cooking as a precaution. In addition, ice should be avoided unless it the water has been boiled first, the statement urged.

“The city of Clemson will collect water samples throughout this area. Water sample testing results should be completed by 12 p.m. Feb. 2, 2015, and posted to the city of Clemson’s web page,” the statement read.

The new precaution was the second time in a little over six months that a warning has been sent to residents, after the city issued a boil water advisory in July last year. The city said the advisory was issued as a precaution due to a faulty water main that had been assembled recently.

While neither officials nor residents of the city are suggesting that the water is contaminated, it is another example of a water system in the cities around the country that are clearly experiencing problems. Earlier this month high levels of lead were discovered in Flint, Michigan’s water system. The contaminated water, which may have caused the death of some residents who caught Legionnaire’s disease, also attracted interest from federal investigators.

Flint was issued $28 million in federal emergency aid to help combat the crisis, which has affected all 100,000 residents in the city.

Under-fire Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder signed a bill last week aiming to fix the problem. "We don't walk away if something doesn't go right," Snyder said moments before putting pen to paper. "Let's stand up together as Michiganders to say mistakes were made, problems happened, we're going to solve them, we're going to fix them, and we're going to [be] stronger."