No fooling — our water’s safe!

It was meant as an April Fool’s joke but Bremerton residents and emergency management officials didn’t find it too funny.

Thursday morning, deejays on a Seattle radio station called the Buzz 100.7, announced that dihydrogen monoxide was found in the city of Bremerton’s water’s supply. A gush of fake callers rang up the station describing the danger of the substance.

“They even had someone from a military ship calling in, saying I know about that stuff — it is big, bad and ugly,” said Laura Jull, Kitsap County’s public information officer.

Problem was, dihydrogen monoxide is just a technical term to describe water. That’s right — H2O.

Bremerton’s water is safe and sound.

But to the flood of callers who fervently jingled the mayor’s office, 911 and the Kitsap County Department of Emergency Management, the radio station had produced the scare of a lifetime.

“We had to respond to it as an emergency because that’s what it was for us,” Jull said.

Jull’s office called the 911 dispatch center and the mayor’s office, telling them everything was OK — people could still sip from their water glasses or water bottles without fear of death.

Kitsap’s Department of Emergency Management Director Phyllis Mann called up the radio station and had a little chat with Manager Kevin McCarthy, requesting that the station apologize to its listeners and confirm that it was April Fool’s Day, and they were, well ... joking.

“We let him know that in this day and age these types of calls can be construed as terrorism,” Jull said, acting as an official buzz killer.

Although McCarthy promised to have the hosts “Robin and Maynard” announce their joke, they continued on with their unrehearsed skit for a few minutes after.

Meanwhile, Bremerton’s water resource specialist Kathleen Cahill has had an up-river climb trying to reassure people the city’s water is still the cleanest around.

“We have some of the best water in the country, from one of the few unfiltered water sources,” she said.

The Buzz’s Kevin McCarthy said the skit was neither rehearsed nor planned.

“Clearly people were affected by it, and we are on the air with hourly apologies,” he said. “Believe me, their entire intent was to be humorous.”

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