A city wide boil order was issued stating that no water should be consumed unless boiled on Friday, Sept. 18. While the order has since been listed, the reason behind the contamination was unclear at the time besides the fact that the water was deemed unsafe.
The boil order only affected South 43 Putnamville customers, which includes DePauw University and its surrounding locations. Fortunately it was not a contamination of the water itself, but it was a slightly more complex situation. The City of Greencastle had to install newer, larger, water pumps in its water reservoir due to the city's sudden expansion and rapid population growth.
This action by the City of Greencastle was expected, and similar action will not be taken for several years now that the new pumps are in place.
Normally this procedure would not have caused quite the problems it did, due to the use of a standpipe (a large pipe used in emergencies to pull more water from a different reserve, for when the city needs extra water temporarily). The standpipe had not been used in several years and the quality of the water was questionable, and thus caused the city to call the boil order, according to Big Walnut Water, the company that owns Greencastle Water Works.
After a day and a half the new pumps were installed, but the city wanted to inspect the water before they cleared the boil order, which took another day and a half. Once all of the installing and inspecting had been done they still required all pipes to be flushed out to clear the potentially contaminated water. Only then was the boil order lifted.