Scare as 12,000 told: Don't touch tap water

MORE than 12,000 people have been told they should not touch their tap water after it was found to be contaminated by a potentially harmful algae.

Householders have been warned they should not wash themselves, their dishes or their clothes until the blue-green algae has been dealt with.

Dover and Folkestone Water Services issued the warning to people living in the Romney Marsh area of south Kent.

Fifty Gurkha soldiers were called in to help the company deliver 12 litres of bottled water to each of 6,000 homes in New Romney, Lydd, Greatstone, Little-stone and Dungeness.

Margaret Banner, 46, speaking from her home in New Romney, said: "It is an absolute nightmare. I really don't know what to do. It was bad enough when they told us not to drink the tap water but then we had a message saying it was unsafe to even touch the water."

"We have been told we might become seriously ill if we wash our clothes in the sink or try to do the washing up. It's

made me feel quite frightened because we may have already been harmed by it.

"My friend has told me to come and stay with her until the problem is sorted out but I don't want to be forced to leave my own home.

"The water board have told us it is going to be some time before things can return to normal."

"I've had to go out to the supermarket to buy bottles of water but they were running really low on them when I went there today so they've probably run out of them by now."

Water company production manager Terry Hutchins said the algae was not poisonous but made drinking water taste unpleasant. It was hoped to have the water supply decontaminated by tomorrow.

"It tastes awful but there is no health hazard. You would have to drink loads of it for months and months to feel any effect. People can still flush their toilets,

but they can't use the water for drinking or washing," he added.

"We are measuring the toxicity and we hope to have our supplies cleaned out by the morning. The Gurkhas' help has been invaluable."

A Ministry of Defence spokesman confirmed that 50 Gurkhas and four Army lorries had been deployed to distribute the bottled water.

In 1997 residents in areas of north London and Hertfordshire were forced to buy in huge quantities of bottled water from Scotland and Yorkshire following the discovery of the parasite cryptosporidium in water supplies.

Experts linked the contamination outbreak to the unprecedentedly low levels of rainfall at the time. The parasite, passed by farm animals, managed to leak into the manmade boreholes and contaminate the water table. Rock-hard soil conditions caused by the drought created cracks in the clay which allowed the contamination to leak down into the bore-holes in a sudden heavy storm.

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