Ventura to hold town hall meeting after 'do not use water' order in Pierpont neighborhood, emergency communication issues

VENTURA, Calif. (KABC) — The city of Ventura is expected to address concerns about its water testing and emergency communications following a “do not use water” order that was issued in the Pierpont neighborhood just days before Thanksgiving.

A town hall is scheduled for 6 p.m. Wednesday at Pierpont Elementary School, where city officials are expected to answer questions.

The city has done testing every week since the Harbor Sinclair gasoline leak last year. That routine testing last week detected gasoline in the tap water, but further testing showed it was a false positive.

Before it was deemed a false positive, an emergency alert was sent out through the city’s communication channels, including VC Alerts, social media and the city’s website.

However, officials realized that not everyone in the affected area got that notice.

“In this case, we found that our VC Alert only went to landlines and that’s not acceptable. So we’ve updated our procedures, so future alerts go to all the devices enrolled in VC Alert,” said Communications Manager Jennifer Nance.

The incident upended Thanksgiving plans for some.

Follow-up tests eventually confirmed that there was no contamination and the notice was lifted Nov. 26. The testing lab later determined that the initial result was a false positive.

Experts will now go over that testing process, emergency communication and next steps.