Body Found in McMillan Reservoir on Saturday “There is no impact to the drinking water”

From MPD:

“Detectives from the Metropolitan Police Department are investigating the death of a person whose body was discovered on Saturday, September 10, 2016, in the 2500 block of First Street, Northwest.

At approximately 7:33 pm, members of the Third District were called to the McMillan Reservoir where they located an unconscious, unidentified black male submerged underwater. No signs of life or obvious cause of death were observed. The body was transported to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for an autopsy.

Anyone with information about this case is asked to call the police at 202-727-9099. Additionally, anonymous information may be submitted to the department’s TEXT TIP LINE by text messaging 50411.”

A reader inquires:

“Having read the news about a body found in the water at the reservoir and not finding any “advisory” on the DC Water web site or the news outlets, can you kindly address the topic so that it may generate information for the general public please. Ultimately i would like to know the extent to which i would need to go in terms of substituting bottled water ie making pasta, coffee etc which fall outside of my bottled water consumption usage. While they mentioned later in the day that the process was being diverted elsewhere, there was no mention of if the existing water in the pipes posed a risk etc.”

DC Water explains:

“There is no impact to the drinking water distributed in the district. McMillan is one of the two water treatment facilities operated by the Army Corps of Engineers Washington Aqueduct. In response to the discovery, the Aqueduct shutdown the McMillan plant while the reservoir was disinfected as a precaution. During that time, customers got their water from the Dalecarlia Treatment Plant. The McMillan plant has since been returned to service.

It is important to point out that the reservoir stores untreated water prior to the treatment process. It is filtered and disinfected after it leaves the reservoir. DC Water is confident the Aqueduct has taken the necessary precautions and the incident is not a threat to our customers’ water supply or health.”