Argyle boil water order & school closure following watermain work
ARGYLE, N.Y. (NEWS10) — As the old saying goes, prevention is better than cure. Crews in Argyle are trying to make it so the Water Main break only affects an isolated area, rather than having to shut down water to the entire town.
Water stopped flowing to this Washington County town over the past few days as crews were installing the 6 new valves. The goal is for water main breaks to be isolated rather than wide spread as to avoid disrupting places like schools.
Ironically, the valve replacement forced schools to close and go virtual, but The district superintendent James Bennefield says the work is necessary.
“This has been an ongoing issue, The village of Argyle not having valves in the system. So they should reduce having to close schools down in the entire village, should there be any water issues in the future” said Argyle School Superintendent James Bennefield.
Bennefield added that his schools were well prepared for the closure:
“We prepared our students to be virtual today so we have been working with students during the week to make sure that they were able to get onto Google Meets, how to log on, how to do everything and make sure they were working properly, and our teachers and our staff did a great job.”
Water was scheduled to be shut off from 6am to 6pm but construction officials we spoke to say the process was expedited allowing water to flow again since 9 o'clock this morning. A boil water order still remained in effect.
The school superintendent says in person classes should resume tomorrow. Officials also say construction will be continuing tomorrow as well.
In accordance with New York State Department of Health Regulations Argyle's Water Commissioner Gary Robinson released a boil water order that went into effect since 6 this morning and remains indefinitely. We”ll continue to follow this story both on air and online.