About 300 Waiahole Valley residents were advised to boil their drinking water following the discovery of the E. coli bacteria in the water distribution system there, state officials said yesterday.

The discovery also means that Waiahole Elementary School will not open for students as planned today, the Department of Education announced.

Several area residents said they have been feeling ill recently.

"I've had diarrhea for the past two weeks," said Lithe Garcia, who owns a plant farm in Waiahole. "I don't know how come and then each time I come back from the bathroom, I drink three glasses of water and then I keep going back. I think, 'I need more water, I need more water.' I thought I was getting well, and today I had to go back and this afternoon when I heard (about the contamination), I got really mad."

Waiahole resident Albert Badiyo Jr. said eight members of his household have had sore stomachs lately.

He said an alternative source of clean water should be provided " 'cause take money to boil water. We run out of propane. You try boil one five-gallon (container) of water. Watch how long it takes."

Health Department officials said a test of the water quality in the privately operated system found traces of the disease-causing E. coli bacteria in water pipes at the school.

The test was ordered Tuesday after officials noticed that a chlorinated pump in the area had failed, said Adrienne Gardner, housing information specialist for the Hawai'i Housing Finance and Development Corp., which owns, operates and maintains the water supply system in the mostly agricultural Windward O'ahu valley through a contract with a private engineering firm.

Test results received late Wednesday afternoon confirmed the presence of the bacteria, said Stuart Yamada, chief of the Health Department's Water Quality Management branch. Officials yesterday began going door to door, leaving fliers advising residents and farmers in the valley to boil their water until further notice.

The Escherichia coli bacteria is often an indicator of potential fecal contamination in water, and its presence at any level triggers an immediate boil-water notice, Yamada said.

An estimated 73,000 cases of infection and 61 deaths occur each year from the hundreds of different strains of the bacterium, according to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Infection often leads to bloody diarrhea, and occasionally to kidney failure. Infection can occur after eating undercooked meat, drinking raw milk or swimming in or drinking sewage-contaminated water.

Officials suspect the problem in Waiahole arose in a contaminated pipe somewhere within the distribution system rather than at the drinking water well that serves the area. Officials were testing sites up and down the distribution system yesterday to find the source of the contamination, Gardner said.

"One of the possibilities we're looking at is that the contamination occurred when someone illegally tapped into the system or a backwash system failed," Gardner said. Officials hope to have results of new testing by this afternoon, she said.

"We're hoping that we'll be able to give the all-clear signal by then," Gardner added.

Department of Education officials said Waiahole Elementary School, which serves about 95 students, will remain closed until the water problem is resolved. School staff members have been instructed to report to work at Kahalu'u Elementary School today, said DOE spokesman Greg Knudsen.

The Waiahole cafeteria also prepares food for Ka'a'awa Elementary School and other sites, he said. If the Waiahole School remains closed beyond today, arrangements have been made for food preparation to come from Kahalu'u Elementary School, he said.

Gardner said the housing agency has ordered a new chlorine pump for the system and hopes to have it installed by the end of this weekend.

The Waiahole water system is one of about 50 privately operated systems on O'ahu, mostly in remote areas, and is the only one operated by the housing agency, she said.

"Eventually, we'd like to upgrade it and turn it over the Board of Water Supply," she said.

Yamada said he couldn't remember another case of E. coli bacteria being found in an O'ahu water supply system. "It's very, very rare. It probably hasn't happened in 10 years," he said.

Reach Mike Leidemann at mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com and Robert Shikina at rshikina@honoluluadvertiser.com.