Carmichaels water contaminated again
Cumberland Township residents Terri Donaldson (right seated), along with Leroy (second from left) and Joanne Shea (left) address the Carmichaels Municipal Authority over the areas drinking water. Recently the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection mailed a letter through the Authority asking Carmichaels area residents to boil their drinking water due to elevated levels of contaminants.
Dan Bailey, chairman for the Carmichaels Municipal Authority, answers questions from area residents who gathered Monday to raise concerns over their drinking water. Recently the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection mailed a letter through the Authority asking Carmichaels area residents to boil their drinking water due to elevated levels of contaminants.
?CARMICHAELS — Carmichaels Municipal Authority officials on Monday tried to assure a group of residents, who were upset over a recent notification that their water didn’t meet state standards, that the water is safe to drink.
The authority sent a letter to its customers on June 3 notifying them that the water system violated a state maximum containment level (MCL) for drinking water standards.
Quarterly tests taken in 2010 showed the water system had a running annual average of .09 milligrams per liter (mgl) of total trihalomethanes (TTHM), which is slightly higher than the .08 standard, according to the letter. The highest level detected was .143 mgl and the lowest level was .028 mgl.
The elevated TTHM levels do not pose an immediate risk and residents do not have to use bottled water, but some people who drink water containing levels above the MCL over many years may experience liver, kidney or central nervous system problems and may have an increased risk of cancer, according to the letter.
The letter came about a month after a month-long boil water advisory, which the state Department of Environmental Protection issued because algae might have seeped through the plant’s filters and into the water supply, was lifted.
Authority officials explained that the boil water advisory notification and June 3 letter were written by the DEP and the authority was required to send them to customers, but they said they drink the water and that it is safe.
The officials agreed to attend a public meeting that Terri Donaldson of Cumberland Township said she is trying to organize concerning the water. She said DEP officials agreed to attend and would ask the township supervisors to attend.
Donaldson said she hopes having officials from all three entities in the same room to explain the water problems and treatment details would help residents understand the cause of the recent problems and how they are being resolved.
A date for the meeting hasn’t been set, but the Carmichaels Area School District agreed to host the meeting in the high school auditorium, Donaldson said.
“I really feel we need answers,” Donaldson said. “We’ve been drinking this water. We’ve been bathing in this water.”
The letter says TTHM is a byproduct of the reaction between water disinfectants, organic matter and inorganic matter in the water, and TTHM is in every public water system that uses disinfectants.
Authority Chairman Dan Bailey and plant manager Lloyd Richard said chlorine and other chemicals are used to treat water and the DEP tells the authority what chemicals to use.
Richard said the DEP tells the authority where to take water samples for testing and most samples are taken far from the treatment plant.
Chemists from two chemical companies that the authority buys treatment chemicals from and a DEP chemist were at the plant during the boil water advisory to help direct the plant cleaning, Richard said.
Donaldson said she underwent breast cancer surgery five years ago and doesn’t want to get the disease a second time due to the water. She said people with medical conditions and senior citizens with weak immune systems could contract a disease from unsafe water.
“We want clean water,” Donaldson said.
“I resent you coming in here saying the water is not clean,” Bailey said.
He stressed that the boil advisory letter clearly states that organism may have entered the water supply. He said none was ever found.
Bailey said bromide in the Monongahela River, the authority’s water source, is causing the TTHM problem. He said bromide does not naturally occur in fresh water and the DEP didn’t require public water authorities to test for bromide until gas drilling wastewater, known as frac water, started being dumped into the river.
“We never tested for it before,” Bailey said.
He said the mixture of bromide and algae in the raw river water with chlorine at the plant produces TTHM.
“There is no good way to treat bromide,” Bailey said, pointing out that the state asked sewage treatment plants that accepted frac water to stop accepting it around the same time the authority was under the boil water advisory.
He said the Franklin Township Sewage Authority was among those that accepted frac water.
Richard said the algae problem that resulted in the boil water advisory started after the DEP and chemical company chemists told them not to pre-treat the water with chlorine.
Since then, the authority began using chlorine again, but in lower concentrations, Richard said, adding that the authority has not yet received the test results on the latest water samples that were taken in April. The next test samples have to be taken in July, he said.
Bailey said all four water filters in the plant have been rebuilt at a cost of about $150,000 over the last two years and the plant has modern digital and computer equipment.
Richard said an electronic system to notify water customers via cell phones, home phones and computer email about problems with the water has been mandated by the DEP, but the state has encountered delays in establishing the system.
“There’s nothing wrong with the water,” Bailey said.
Richard said public water authorities are required to test raw water, but he would like to see the DEP assume that responsibility.