Fonda, Mohawk boil water order continues

Mayor Bill Peeler explained what led to a boil water order that has persisted in Fonda and Mohawk for the last two weeks.

FONDA, N.Y. (NEWS10) – A two-week-old boil water order continues in Mohawk and Fonda due to water discoloration, or turbidity, that is diminishing.

“We had a water filter failure that emptied out our water tank at the reservoir," said Mayor Bill Peeler in a joint press conference with Montgomery County Executive Bill Purtel and Mohawk's town supervisor Janet DePalma.

The failure happened in the middle of the night, and the system that would have triggered an alert to village officials did not work. “The day before unbeknownst to us, someone was moving and they cut a communications line,” said Peeler.

Ironically, Mayor Peeler says the village was already working on measures to prevent something like this from happening when it did.  “We are looking at putting a wireless system up there so this does not happen again, we hope,“ Peeler explained.

The small village mayor says their small tax base and subsequent small budget bars them from fixing the water overnight. "So what we had to do is we had to go out and collect donations, and thankfully, we had Crystal Geyser stand up and we had Stewart's shop step up and Walmart step up," Peeler said to reporters.

For the time being, Fonda is offering bottled water to their residents on Monday and Tuesday. The village asks residents to boil their water for at least three minutes. The boil water advisory will continue until the village gets the results of its water quality lab test. For further information on water pick-ups and water safety tips, click here.