Lawrence city officials say they are taking precautions to safeguard the city’s drinking water after approximately 3 million gallons of raw sewage from Topeka spilled into the Kansas River over the weekend, but officials say the treatment process should protect residents from any health risks.

Jeanette Klamm, management analyst with the Lawrence Utilities Department, said the city has cut back on the amount of water it is drawing from the river and increased its water intake from Clinton reservoir. She said the city is also stepping up its testing of water samples throughout the system.

“We’re doing additional testing as it’s coming into the plant; we’re testing the water in the plant; and we’re testing the water in distribution,” Klamm said.

“All those (measures) are precautions,” she said. “The treatment process should take care of it. The water treatment process at both plants use liquid chlorine. We’ve increased the amount of chlorine at Kaw River treatment plant.”

Topeka announced Monday that raw sewage had spilled into the river starting around 1 p.m. Friday due to a power failure at a wastewater pump station near the river and the failure of a backup generator to activate. The spill continued until about noon Sunday.

Bob Sample, director of Topeka’s Water Pollution Control Department, said the system’s alarms did not go off because a backup generator at the plant failed to activate.

Topeka officials are still investigating the cause of those issues.

Sample said his department immediately sent crews to Lawrence to test the river water for E-coli and fecal coliform bacteria, but he said they did not detect any contamination at that time. He said it typically takes about half a day for water in Topeka to reach Lawrence.

In a statement Tuesday, the city of Lawrence said its utilities department has not detected abnormalities, but additional testing is being conducted to monitor water safety and quality.

But Klamm said the city was concerned about the fact that it wasn’t notified of the spill as soon as it happened.

“As a downstream user, we of course are interested in what’s coming down the river,” she said. “We would like to be notified so we can make decisions prior (to the spillage reaching Lawrence).”

Klamm noted that the water level in the river is relatively low now, and so a three-million-gallon spillage will be more concentrated than if the river were full.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment said it was not notified of the spill until Monday. KDHE spokeswoman Sara Belfry said the agency is now investigating the cause and extent of the sewage spill, as well as why it took so long for state health officials to be notified.

“We’re investigating exactly what the (contamination) levels are between Topeka and Lawrence. We’re also going back and looking at the processes and procedures that were used to notify,” Belfry said.

As of Tuesday, however, KDHE had not issued any health advisories for people who come in contact with the river for boating, fishing or other recreation.

Topeka officials, however, are advising people to “exercise the normal precautions” when accessing the river.

In a news release, Topeka officials said those precautions include keeping one’s head above water, showering and shampooing hair immediately after returning home from swimming or wading in the river, immediately washing any wet clothing, hands and other exposed parts of the body after fishing from the river, and making sure to fully cook any fish taken from the river before eating it.