Mayor: Pittsburgh’s boil-water advisory lifted; water safe

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto says a boil-water advisory affecting 100,000 customers — including hospitals, schools, and restaurants — has been lifted.

Peduto on Thursday says there’s no trace of bacteria that can cause diarrhea in the city’s water, even though some tests late Tuesday showed there wasn’t enough chlorine in water treated at one plant.

The state Department of Environmental Protect insisted on the boil-water advisory based on samples from the city’s Highland Park reservoirs.

Peduto says Pennsylvania’s chlorination standards are higher than federal standards and in “another state our water would have been safe and we wouldn’t have had to take these precautionary measures.”

The city added chlorine and drained reservoir water out of its system to satisfy the DEP, and is now investigating the cause of the failed tests.

Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority director Bernard Lindstrom apologized for the “massive inconvenience.”