The City of Malad posted a boil advisory on Monday afternoon, during the paper’s production process.  As a result, we don’t have a lot of detailed information, but here is what we have been able to learn from city officials about the incident.  Mayor Joan Hawkins said, “Basically, the Scada System [Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition]  did not call to kick on Well 4 until early Monday morning.  It should have done it Friday night so the tank drained.  We have to follow DEQ protocols in a case like this, so Tyler [Webster—City Superintendent of Public Works] was on the phone with them much of the day.  They told him early Monday afternoon that we should do a boil advisory.  After the water is tested, they will let us know if further steps are required.  We used reverse 911 to inform people to stop using water until the tank filled because people were using water faster than the tank was able to fill.  When we received the boil advisory from DEQ we put it on Facebook and took it door to door.”

Mayor Hawkins acknowledged that there was some concern from residents about not being told of the boil order sooner, but she noted that the city had to wait to receive the complete advisory from DEQ before they could post it.

Superintendent Tyler Webster added that “We [the city] have programmed a few more redundancies in Scada and set up a few more alarms.  We have implemented some protocols so this will not happen again.”

SCADA is a computerized system used to monitor and control industrial processes. It “gathers and analyzes real-time data from various sensors and devices, enabling operators to oversee and manage complex systems.”  In this case, the warnings that were sent out from the system to cell phones of the connected employees were not received until Monday morning. The advisory was lifted on Tuesday.