WILTON — Water Department Superintendent Dalton Plante and his staff were commended Tuesday evening for handling the Water Treatment Plant failure Jan. 31 that resulted in a boil water order over the next three to four days.

The chlorine disinfectant pump went offline, prompting the order for Wilton and North Jay Water District customers, Superintendent Dalton Plante told the Select Board on Tuesday.

Plante said he and another staff member worked that night to get the disinfectant process going again. However, because of the way the system is designed, the quick restart and shock chlorination did not assure the water was safe to drink.

Plante said he issued a boil water order, as did Ben Wright, superintendent of North Jay district, which uses Wilton’s water. Notices were put on the Wilton Facebook page and the North Jay page as a precaution. The delay in Wilton’s post, Plante said, was because he waited for a Maine Drinking Water Program representative to answer whether they needed to issue the order to the entire town or just certain areas.

Getting notifications to 1,000 customers in the entire town took longer than expected, he said.

The order was lifted Tuesday after samples of water were declared free of E. coli at a Maine Health and Environmental testing agency.

Plante said he planned to continue checking with all Wilton water customers Wednesday and make an effort to improve networking with them.

Chairperson Tiffany Maiuri said complaints about the delay in notification are not on Plante. The board has talked about how to build a better communication system to notify residents in case of an emergency such as a boil water order, she said.

She will bring it up at another meeting, but if the town wants better communication, they will need to invest in creating a program, she said.

Town Manager Maria Greeley commended Dalton and his staff for getting the system back online and notifying customers. Dalton and staff did “an outstanding job,” she said.