After Saturday’s water main break downtown, questions from both residents of Pullman and officials from the City of Pullman remain unanswered. 

Those who could view the broken water main gushing out liquid described it as yellow, almost a golden color. While not the traditional color of water, many residents bought the initial story that it was simply due to the City of Pullman adding more chemicals to their water to treat it. 

I do not buy it.

Sara McJellan, junior viticulture and enology major, told reporters that she caught a glimpse of a small label that was on the broken pipe before emergency crews rushed the onlookers off. 

“I can’t be sure, but I think I spotted something like Coors? I could not see the last bit of it,” McJellan said. “That wasn’t even the worst part of it. For those who were in the blast zone the emergency crews began checking our IDs?”

Instead of properly disposing of the discolored and now possibly tainted water, emergency crews and major fraternities were on hand with large Home Depot buckets to catch any of the refuse. 

Even stranger was the small canning station step up near the site, plopping out cans of the water with a strange mountain label on it. 

President of Oozma Kappa Fraternity Don Carlton stated that they had been called by the City of Pullman to come help with the cleanup of the site. 

“The city contacted a number of fraternities. It is really great to see the brothers come out in force,” he said. “Pullman Water is famous around Greek Row and the rest of the United States, so it’s only natural they gave us a call. The city gets a free cleanup, and we get free drinks.’”

The cans that were seen near the cleanup site were reportedly hauled back to Greek Row, never to be seen again. Or more specifically, to be seen crushed up on the fraternity’s front lawn the next morning. 

None of this was adding up, so, like any intrepid reporter, I decided to get to the bottom of this; what was in those cans and that pipe? 

A proud sponsor of the WSU football team is the Coors Brewing Company, championing the slogan of drinking responsibly. I believed that they would be a great resource for getting answers, so I reached out to their CEO, Gavin Hattersley, for comment.

After three missed calls and being left on read after sending Hattersley a “U up” late last night, I decided to take matters into my own hands.

Digging through Coors’ news releases, I was able to find a company report about a keg line having burst somewhere in Washington. Evidently, beer had spilled everywhere and ruined a major street.

Having tasted Coors’ product, I did not even know that they made beer. 

After mere minutes of research, I could swear that these events must be connected, but the question remained: was it industrial sabotage, or was it a promotional stunt to highlight the uniqueness of Pullman Water? 

The world may never know, because the City of Pullman quickly blocked off access to the pipeline near Grand Avenue and Center Street. Officials are looking into repaving options for the street, but it sounds like they are just trying to pave over the answers. 

But the attempt to cover up this wacky event does not stop there; city crews have increased the amount of chlorine in Pullman’s water in order to compensate for “people’s health” and to make the water “drinkable.” 

This whole situation stinks, and I am not talking about the broken water pipeline – although we can count our blessings it was not a sewage pipe. 

In the meantime, while the city and Coors attempt to cover up their blunders, many students have begun to wonder how this will affect their day-to-day, and, more importantly, their thirsty Thursday nights. 

Due to the pipe break, both the James Place and Charlie Brown reservoirs were “impacted,” so the city has advised residents to continue boiling their water if they were in the affected area. 

City officials have told residents to ignore it if they get a slight buzz from their cup of water.