Idaho Falls water all clear but with complaints

After quite the scare, residents of Idaho Falls no longer have to boil their drinking water.

The city water department issued a statement just before 1 p.m. Tuesday afternoon giving the all-clear notice.

Test results confirm there is no contamination in the system. Each portion of town that was under Monday’s boil order can go back to normal.

Several viewers said that will be hard to do though.

It’s a touchy subject that a lot of people don’t like to talk about. In fact, Local News 8 couldn’t find anyone willing to discuss it on camera.

But some people did write in about it.

A woman named Jill emailed in saying, “I have several neighbors in the ER with terrible diarrhea and stomach pains. I wonder how many people will become sick?”

This comes after a computer glitch caused water pressure to drop on Sunday, potentially creating water backwash in the system.

Although it took about a day to get the warning out, city water Superintendent David Richards said after testing there is no bacteria in the water after all.

Reporter Jessica Crandall stopped by Dr. Michael Harris’ office to look into it. He’s a family physician.

Harris didn’t see more patients coming in complaining of sore stomachs over the past 24 hours, but said viewers’ issues could be related to something else.

“Stress can do it, but especially with the heat we’ve had lately. Even if you’re drinking enough fluids, it can cause an electrolyte imbalance or salt and water imbalance,” said Harris.

There’s also that little hypochondriac inside so many of us.

“If you’re worried about something, you can have a physical reaction to a mental stress,” said Harris.

Crandall tried to find out how many patients came into Eastern Idaho Medical Center suffering from nausea on Monday and Tuesday, but the staff there was too busy to get numbers.

The city of Idaho Falls has a Facebook page you can go to for updates. Just click this link.