Can I bathe? Wash my hands? Cook? What to know about the boil water notice.

ODESSA, Texas (KOSA) - Residents of Odessa and Ector county rejoice! Water is on its way back to your faucet.

But that doesn’t mean you can use it for anything you want.

“If you intend to use your water for the purposes of cooking or consumption, we ask that you boil that water first,” Odessa City Manager Michael Marrero said.

While pressure builds throughout Odessa and West Odessa, the city is monitoring repairs at 42nd and San Jacinto to make sure the new pipe and couplings can handle the pressure.

But even as pressure builds and faucets run, life isn’t quite back to normal.

“Folks who live in the lower elevations of our community will probably see pressure gains a lot sooner than those who live what call the north plain or upper plain,”

The boil water notice will last at least until Thursday afternoon when city and county officials can pull samples.

As Marrero said, drinking is out of the question. But you can shower and wash clothes.

“Just keep it out of your eyes, out of your mouth, out of your ears, you know, those parts, to make sure bacteria that might be in the water don’t get into your body,” Ector County Utility District President Tommy Ervin said.

It’s also smart to not just whip on the faucet.

“When we start charging our system back up, every once in a while, people may have some brownish-goldish colored water,” Ervin warned. “That’s just iron that’s in our system out here and scale that’s coming off the pipe.”

Ervin recommends running a faucet outside first to get rid of that sediment.

There are also other outdoor activities you shouldn’t be doing during the recharge.

“Specifically, if you’re doing watering such as irrigation or any other unnecessary watering, we ask that you hold off until we get back to a normal state,” Marrero said.

It should also be noted, it is not recommended for pets to drink tap water either.

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