BOSTON -- Facing a “water emergency,” the mayor of Gloucester will bring together state and local officials Monday to hash out a strategy for cleaning the town’s water supply, which has been tainted by total coliform bacteria for more than a week.

City officials had hoped that the bacteria count would drop in the latest round of testing, but new results show that the number of samples containing total coliform has increased from earlier this week, according to the Gloucester Daily Times.

Monday’s meeting will bring together members of the state Department of Environmental Protection, representatives from United Water Co., which manages the city’s water treatment plants, and experts from Camp Dresser McKee, Inc., a consulting firm that studied the city’s water system in 2006. The group will work with local officials to “assess the current water emergency, and determine the appropriate course of action as we move forward.”

Residents, who have been boiling their water since Aug. 21., told NewsCenter 5’s Cheryl Fiandaca that the order has been nuisance, but restaurants and shops have been hit harder by the coliform contamination.

“We have to use the tap water to rinse (dishes) out and then we have to sanitize (them) for about five minutes,” said an employee at the Harbor Point Ice Cream Shop. “People get kind of frustrated, but it’s what we have to do.”

The city had also been coping with a depleted water supply since Aug. 15, when one of Gloucester’s two primary water treatment plants was taken offline for cleaning. The other facility, the West Gloucester plant at Essex and Magnolia avenues, has been offline for most of the summer for scheduled maintenance.

This left the Klondike Reservoir in Bay View as the only internal water source for the city, the Gloucester Daily Times reported. The facility is only authorized to produce 1 million gallons of water each day, however -- about one third of the amount used on an average summer day.

An emergency ban on outdoor water use was put in place on Aug. 18 and remained in effect until Saturday night, when town officials announced that water levels have returned back to normal because of heavy rainfall and contributions from Cape Ann and other neighboring towns.

Residents will still need to boil their water until two consecutive tests show that the total coliform bacteria has been removed from the system. Based on the testing schedule, Tuesday is the earliest that the order could be lifted, according to the Gloucester Daily Times.