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DUNSTABLE — An emergency boil water alert was lifted Wednesday, nearly one week after E. coli contamination was discovered in the town’s drinking water during routine testing.

Dunstable’s water department received permission from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection to resume normal water service to its customers. To lift a boil water warning requires two consecutive days of clean samples, which a statement issued by the department said had taken place.

“The last two rounds of sampling conducted Monday and Tuesday showed zero conditions,” the statement said. “We thank you for your patience during this challenging event.”

E. coli are bacteria whose presence indicates that the water may be contaminated with human or animal waste. These bacteria can cause short-term health effects such as diarrhea, cramps, nausea, headaches or other symptoms. It poses a greater health risk to infants, young children, seniors and people with severely compromised immune systems.

Dunstable has a limited centralized public water supply with 102 connections. The majority of those connections are residential, but the Swallow Union Elementary School, the police and fire stations, the Dunstable Free Public Library, the U.S. Post Office as well as some commercial properties are connected to the system. The remaining town residents obtain their water from individual on-site wells.

One of those residents who straddles the town-well water divide is Helen Dzwonek. She said she has well water at home, but her job as an administrative assistant at the elementary school required some quick pivots to keep the kids and staff safe.

“All the taps were turned off when we came back last Friday, because you can’t tell a bunch of kindergarteners not to drink the water,” Dzwonek said, laughing. “We had bottled water and hand sanitizer. But today the water was turned back on.”

Tara Vachon’s experience was a little bit more complicated and less flexible. She’s the owner of the Farmhouse Café, located on Pleasant Street, right along the water main corridor. Her business was closed for four days during the emergency, requiring her to cancel some delivery orders, and turn away customers.

Thursday morning, though, she was back open and serving breakfast.

“Thursday afternoon, I received a phone call from the Board of Health letting me know about the boil water alert,” Vachon said. “We could have opened if we had an alternate source of water, but that’s impossible because so many of our pieces of equipment – the coffee pot, the hand washing stations, the dishwasher, the ice machines – are hooked up to the main water line.”

She said they spent the hours before opening this morning flushing all the main lines, changing filters and running the “water for forever.”

The café opened in 2017, and has a regular core of local customers, who Vachon said missed coming in. “They were glad that we were back open today.” she said by phone above the din of a busy 24-seat restaurant.

Small towns throughout Massachusetts have been hit with E. coli outbreaks. The Department of Environmental Protection Drinking Water Program lists five towns currently under a boil water order, some going back as far as September 16. E. coli was found in Wilmington’s Hillside Way water storage tank on September 6, and in Mansfield’s system that weekend.

Attempts to reach the both the health and water departments were not successful. Dunstable is a small town of just more than 3,000 residents, and many of the town’s offices operate on a reduced work week schedule.

Both Dzwonek and Vachon are glad the emergency restrictions were lifted.

“You’re reminded of how much you need that hand washing,” Vachon said.

Dzwonek said that not having water “wasn’t the best thing, but it wasn’t terrible, either. We managed.”

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