Diane Echmalian, who lives on Malcolm Street at Mineral Spring Avenue, first noticed that her water was brown on June 20. She says it still tastes bad even though it now appears clear.

The Providence Journal / Richard Dujardin

NORTH PROVIDENCE — Diane Echmalian is worried about her water.

The 57-year-old fundraising consultant said she never worried about her water until three weeks ago, when she saw the water coming out a dark yellow-brown.

“That’s when I knew I had a water problem,” said Echmalian, who lives in a white single-family house at Mineral Spring Avenue and Malcolm Street that her grandparents moved into 78 years ago. “I called the Providence Water Supply Board, and they were good about it. They flushed out a hydrant up the road for me and delivered a couple of gallons of water from the Yacht Club.”

The water did seem to get better — for about a day. But then there it was back again, water with a yellow tinge. She gave the water to two of her cats, and tried some of it herself, and all ended up with diarrhea.

It was then that Echmalian began talking to neighbors in the area, on Barrett and Rockland streets, and learned that neighbors had also noticed the yellow tinge. Whatever was causing it — Echmalian thinks the demolition taking place across the street at the former Rizzo Ford property might be part of the problem — there’s no way she’ll drink it or even use it to shower until she’s assured the problem has been corrected.

Last week, she called the Providence Water Supply Board again and was told that the person in charge of the lab and water quality was on vacation, and that she would have to wait until yesterday to have the water tested.

She’s been supplied with eight gallon jugs of water that she uses for washing, and gave one of the gallons to a neighbor who also had dirty water.

The extent of the problem is still not entirely clear.

Mark Castelli, who owns and operates Captain’s Catch Seafoods, just a couple hundred feet down the road, said his business depends on having clear clean water 24 hours a day, and he has never seen any yellow tinge.

“Look at these ice cubes,” he said. “See how clear they are?” To emphasize his point, Castelli poured out a cup of water from the tap and drank it.

His neighbor next door, Ahmed Mumtaz, who runs Sam’s Food Stores, said he had not noticed any discoloration at his business, but he did have brown and yellow water at his home on Smithfield Road a couple weeks ago. “My sons noticed it first. They asked, ‘Why is the water in the shower yellow?’ ”

G. Richard Fossa, chief of staff to Mayor Charles Lombardi, said his office hasn’t been inundated with complaints about the water quality, but he did receive calls from Echmalian and a couple of other people on Smithfield Road and the area around Charles Street in Marieville. He said such complaints usually surface after the Fire Department flushes fire hydrants as part of its routine maintenance.

But is the water safe?

Around 1:45 p.m. yesterday, two workers from the Providence Water Supply Board opened a fire hydrant at the end of Echmalian’s street, creating a small pool. Fifteen minutes later an inspector arrived at her house to get a water sample.

Michael Covellone, director of water supply for the water supply board, said test results wouldn’t be known until this afternoon, “but I will tell you now, the water is safe to drink. We go to dozens of places a day to test the water. There are instances where people get rusty water, but it’s not necessarily a health hazard.”

“It’s not uncommon for people to have that complaint,” said June Swallow, chief of the office of drinking water supply for the Department of Health. Typically, she said complaints about seemingly dirty water surface after there has been some new construction or when children open up a fire hydrant without authorization. Either of these, she said, may cause a “flow reversal” that may result in sediment backing up into people’s faucets.

Swallow said the real health threat to any supply of drinking water would be E. coli bacteria, whose presence can only be determined by testing, since contaminated water can look clear.

Echmalian said yesterday that even if the water supply board announced today that the water is safe to drink, she’s not buying it.

“I did take the plunge and took a shower yesterday, but I’m still terrified.”

Echmalian said she remains convinced that the problems with the pipes will only grow worse, particularly when the company preparing the land for the construction of a Lowe’s Home Improvement store across the street from her house begins to blast away the ledge there this summer.

“It’s going to be a long time before I can trust the water,” she said.

As she posed for a picture yesterday with a glass in hand, Echmalian was asked if she would at least take a sip of the seemingly crystal clear water. She did.

“Yuck” she grimaced. “This is going to be a long hot summer.”

rdujardi@projo.com