Did You

KNOW?

The cost of one bottle of water from a vending machine is equivalent to the cost of drinking 8 glasses of tap water every day for a year.
A gallon of water weighs 8.34 pounds.
The Water Authority maintains almost 1500 miles of drinking water pipes. If you put them end-to-end, they would stretch from Roanoke to Colorado Springs, CO.
At one drip per second, a faucet can leak 3,000 gallons of water per year.
Water is the only substance naturally found on earth as a solid, liquid and gas.
Over 713 gallons of water go into the production of one cotton T-shirt.
The Authority’s Water Pollution Control Plant is regarded as one of the best bird-watching areas in the mid-Atlantic region.
The Water Authority maintains over 6,000 fire hydrants in our service area. Fire hydrants are connected to the public drinking water distribution lines, so water from a fire hydrant is drinking water.
There are over 23,000 manholes in our service area.
Carvins Cove Natural Reserve is the second largest municipal park in the United States.
The Authority’s Water Pollution Control Plant covers over 100 acres of land.
More people in the world have a mobile phone than have a toilet.
The Water Authority treats 19-million gallons of drinking water a day although we have the capacity to treat 56-million gallons per day.
The Authority’s Water Pollution Control Plant treats almost 37-million gallons of wastewater a day from all across the Roanoke Valley.
There are 51 drinking water storage tanks in our service area. They each hold between 500,000 – 2-million gallons of water.
Most of the treated drinking water used in a home is for toilet flushing.

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LIFTED: Boil Water Notice - Limited Area 24014

This notice only applies to a limited number of customers on and around West Ridge Road SW listed below.

Post Date:05/27/2026 8:22 PM

Update 5/30: Boil Water Notice has been lifted for impacted customers listed below.

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Boil Water Notice - Limited Area 24014

This notice only applies to a limited number of customers on and around West Ridge Road SW listed below.

BOIL WATER ADVISORY - Wednesday, May 27, 2026

This notice only applies to a limited number of customers on and around West Ridge Road SW listed below. For all other customers of the Western Virginia Water Authority, there is no need to boil water and they can safely drink and use their water.

This Advisory only affects homes served by the Chapel Forest pump station, specifically homes along:

West Ridge Road SW
West Ridge Circle SW
Lockridge Rd SW
Fordham Road SW

This precaution is necessary because of the occurrences of zero and/or negative system pressure at the waterworks due to an approximately 90-minute pump station power failure observed on Wednesday, May 27, 2026, and the likelihood of the presence of E. coli in the drinking water.

A pump station power failure occurred due to a circuit breaker failure at the Chapel Forest pump station on Wednesday May 27, 2026. This failure resulted in the pressure tank draining leading to zero and/or negative pressures in the service area.

How to Boil Your Water:

Boiled or bottled water should be used for drinking, beverage and food preparation, and making ice until further notice. Boiling kills bacteria and other organisms in the water. Boiling is the preferred method to assure that the tap water is safe to drink. Bring all tap water to a rolling boil, let it boil for one minute, and let it cool before using, or use bottled water.

We will inform you when you no longer need to boil your water. To address this problem, the pump station has been repaired, the water in the system is being disinfected, and the system has been re-filled with water to restore normal pressure. Western Virginia Water Authority staff will collect a sample of the water for bacteriological testing. It takes 24-hours for those tests to incubate before analysis. Even if the first test is negative for any type of bacteria, a second test is required to be taken and must be negative for any type of bacteria before the boil water notice can be lifted. Please note that this entire process takes at least 48-hours.

For more information, please contact Michelle Caruthers at (540-283-2944) or 601 S. Jefferson Street, Roanoke VA, 24011.

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