The City of Killeen has received approval from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to lift the city-wide boil water notice (BWN) for the entire city. This follows lab samples that have returned after a 24-hour testing process. On. Oct. 28, the TCEQ approved lifting the BWN in the Lower Pressure Plane only, which is the eastern portion of the city that includes nearly 35,000 customers.
Killeen has been under a BWN since Oct. 19, following water samples taken from six sites indicating chlorine residuals below TCEQ guidelines.
“The health and safety of our citizens has always been a top priority,” Mayor Jose Segarra said. “We understand this has been an inconvenience for many, but our crews have done everything in their power to work with TCEQ and WCID and come to a resolution. We have plans in place to prevent a similar situation in the future and we truly appreciate everyone’s patience.”
On Oct. 26, our Public Works team announced an after-action plan as a way forward to prevent an incident like this in the future. It includes the TCEQ providing extensive training for WCID and its customers regarding chloramine treatment, nitrification and nitrification action plans; as well as installation of chlorine booster stations throughout the distribution system, heightened standards, alerts and scheduled chlorine conversions.
City crews have worked around the clock over the last several days to resolve this matter. Per state law, any BWN cannot be lifted until an approved lab finds the samples acceptable and TCEQ provides guidance.
As a reminder, the Bell County Water Control and Improvement District (WCID) is still performing its chlorine conversion across all areas it services, including Belton, Copperas Cove, Killeen, Harker Heights, Nolanville and the Fort Hood Military Reservation until Nov. 21. WCID says that during this time, customers in all areas may experience taste and odor changes associated with temporary chlorine disinfectant conversion.
The City has been transparent and continuously updating the community on all platforms with any information we receive since the BWN was issued. We’ve posted our daily testing reports for October 2021, as well as our quarterly results, to our website at https://www.killeentexas.gov/294/Public-Works.
To view our Oct. 28 press conference for more details, visit our Facebook page at Facebook.com/KilleenTexas.
To view all 13 press releases the City has posted with information about this BWN, please visit our website at http://www.killeentexas.gov/civicalerts.aspx.
To view the full BWN presentation that Public Works presented at our Oct. 26 Council Meeting on what led to this situation and plans to prevent a similar incident in the future, you can visit our website at http://www.killeentexas.gov/281/Council-Live-Streaming
We encourage residents to sign up for the City Alerts on our website, killeentexas.gov, to stay up to date on all news, information and events, as well.