Boiled Water Advisory Checklist for Dairy
We are in an area where boiled water advisories are becoming more and more common. The surrounding counties are dealing with contaminated water sources from run off issues and pollution. Our county has been dealing with broken water mains almost every week due to aging water systems and very old pipe lines. Although the county is implementing precautions and trying to upgrade to better water systems, we still use city water in production and I thought it would be a good idea to use a 'boiled water advisory' scenario for our test of the business continuity plan this year for SQF.
I've downloaded the basic CDC and FDA templates to use as a guide and I have started brainstorming every where in the plant that we should consider using alternative water in this case. I'll bring these up in my meeting when I down with senior management to go over a plan for this scenario.
My question is, has anyone been in this situation before where your food manufacturing plant is subjected to a contaminated water source? Is there anything I should know while planning for such a scenario? If you have been in this scenario before, was there an issue after the fact that did not occur to you while dealing with this situation?
Additional Information:
- We are a dairy that produces liquid milk, apple and orange juice, drinks and teas.
- We use city water that is filtered through a charcoal filtration system. (I am already aware that this is not sufficient in a boiled water advisory)
- We have the option to switch between two different city water sources from two different municipalities. (if one has an issue we can switch to the other. However, we don't have a plan yet if both cities have an issue at the same time which is what we will be exploring in our test of the business continuity plan.)
You should really price out alternative water sources (i.e. water trucks of potable water) to see if it's even financially viable to continue operations during a water event.
Also, a process to validate the purchased water for potability
you can also rent portable water systems that can treat water for use, but again, you need methods to validate at a moments notice
This may very well be a scenario you cannot work around
Psssst sounds like the company should be thinking about their own water treatment plant...............you may need it