What are the health risks during a Boil Water Notice?
The health risks associated with ingesting water that has not been boiled are hard to estimate. The Notice was issued because conditions exist that make it impossible to ensure the safety of the water without boiling it first. The risk could be low if no actual contamination occurred or very high if pathogens are present. However you can be confident that boiling your tap water for one minute is sufficient to destroy any pathogens that are present in the water. It is important to note that Boil Water Notices are specific to microbiological threats. They are not appropriate to address threats from chemical contamination. Boiling chemically contaminated water will only result in the chemical becoming more concentrated or release the chemical into the air where it could be inhaled. In such cases a different kind of Notice would be used.
