[November 22, 2009] Leominster officials say city water is safe to drink Tweet LEOMINSTER, Nov 22, 2009 (Sentinel and Enterprise - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Resident Mary Ann Grady said she's hoping that upgrades to the city's water system will make a difference where residents notice it most -- at home. Grady, 65, said she began noticing a strong, unpleasant odor from her faucets at her Sycamore Drive condo before Columbus Day, explaining the water had a distinct mineral smell that got so bad she stopped using tap water for cooking and drinking. "I should buy stock in Poland Spring," she said, referring to the bottled water she buys in bulk now. "The smell comes and goes, but it's still strong." Grady, whose city water comes from the Southeast well system, said she called the Department of Public Works about the problem and the worker who came to her house explained the well had gone low around the time the odor started. She is worried about the effects of external factors, such as new development and water runoff, on the city's drinking water supply. "The DPW was great, I know there's a lot of things that can happen with the water," she said. "I'm glad they're addressing it." Ward 1 City Councilor David Rowlands, a member of the council's Drinking Water Oversight Committee, said water taste and smell has nothing to do with the construction of a filtration plant at Distributing Reservoir or the levels of a disinfection byproduct at Notown Reservoir -- the most hotly debated issues in the water system. But Rowlands, who has called for major changes to the administration of the water and sewer department, said ongoing discussion about the city's past noncompliance with state regulations is likely to contribute to the doubt. "I drink the water, and I'm not telling anybody not to drink the water," he said. "But if you have a past history where you haven't gone the extra step, where, in my view, you've had a lack of oversight, all of these things go into the big picture question. Are we being responsible? Are people losing confidence because of all this, and their water smells?" Mayor Dean J. Mazzarella said people with discolored water, or water that has an unusual taste or smell, do the right thing when they contact the DPW. Mazzarella contended the council's continued arguments about other issues have "all but told" residents the water is unsafe, which is not the case. "We want people to bring it to our attention, we'll see where the issue is and find out what caused it," Mazzarella said. "Last week, (a driver) hit a fire hydrant, and that affected water pressure to people. There are a lot of different things at play." Upgrades to the water treatment facility at Notown Reservoir will "absolutely" improve the water quality from Leominster's largest distribution system, DPW Business Manager Roger Brooks said this week. And work to other parts of the city's three water sources -- including reducing the amount of time treated water sits unused in pipes -- should improve the taste and smell of the water, Brooks said. "There are a lot of different factors that affect the taste of water, including the age," he said. "I think for the most part water taste depends on how long it's been in the system and where (residents live) ... (With the upgrades), the product will be better treated, and we'll be working so we can adequately provide water on an as-needed basis, so the water won't just sit there in times where there's less demand." The upgrades to Notown, which are estimated to cost $3 million and fall under a $19.2 million loan from the state, are scheduled to start as early as next spring. Water management is a constantly changing effort, Brooks said during a tour of one of the city's treatment plants, but by the end of a multi-faceted, multi-million-dollar upgrade program the city's three distribution systems will have the same treatment processes and better technology to diagnose and solve issues that come up. Water quality, and the city's efforts to address it, have been at the forefront of debate in Leominster for three years, particularly in the Notown system, where water has tested for elevated levels of trihalomethanes, which the Environmental Protection Agency has linked to an elevated risk for developing cancer, particularly bladder cancer. Dave Reckhow, a professor of environmental and civil engineering at the University of Massachusetts, said the EPA takes a "very cautious" approach to setting standards in relation to public health, and explained the risk is calculated over a lifetime of exposure to any potential contaminant. "The chance of an individual contracting cancer as a result of exposure (to trihalomethanes) is really very small, extremely small," he said in a phone interview. Trihalomethanes and other disinfection byproducts do not pose an immediate health risk to consumers, unlike bacterial illnesses, some of which can trigger emergency boil orders, Reckhow said. "It's not like, for example, an infectious disease you can catch from water, such as coliform," he said. "You'd have to have a long, long exposure to the water to really constitute any risk ... The EPA regulated disinfection byproducts for the first time in 1979, and the situation has been improving over the years." Residents do not have to avoid contact with the water or boil it, but Reckhow said simple water filters, like Brita filters, can significantly reduce disinfection byproducts and other minerals if the filters are used properly. Because the trihalomethane level is often discussed and debated in meetings of the City Council's Drinking Water Oversight committee, residents sometimes associate the elevated trihalomethane levels with water taste and smell, however, the issues are not related, Mazzarella said. "People listen to everything that's being said and they think that the water is not safe to drink, that's absolutely not the case," he said. "The water is constantly being tested by a professional company, and the numbers are being sent to the state. We've been doing everything we can." Ward 3 Councilor Claire Freda, meanwhile, said she has faith in the DPW and consultants working on the upgrades to modernize the system and get it within full compliance. "I know the problem will be eradicated soon," she said. "I think we'd all like to have seen it go a little faster, but if you look throughout the Commonwealth, these issues are coming up everywhere, and cities and towns are paying millions to address them ... I consider the experts to be the experts." Freda noted the filtration waiver at Distributing Reservoir would likely have been lifted even without the past violations because of stricter state and federal regulations, and said she thinks the continuing debate over the water system has raised some confusion over whether the water is safe. "I think people do mix the issues up occasionally, but the water is safe," she said. Trihalomethanes, the disinfection byproducts at the center of most debate about Leominster water, occur when organic material in raw water, such as leaves, interacts with the chlorine used to make it clean. The EPA has set the maximum contaminant level (MCL) for total trihalomethanes (TTHM) at 80 parts per billion, and the water at Notown Reservoir, which goes to more than half of the city, has exceeded the MCL in recent years. Some testing sites in the Notown system have recorded TTHM levels at more than 100 parts per billion and higher, although the EPA and the state Department of Environmental Protection currently consider a system in compliance with standards if the running annual average falls within 80 parts per billion. That means Leominster's overall TTHM level has been under the MCL, even if the Notown numbers are higher. Notown's treatment facility is currently a direct filtration process, meaning the raw water flows through a screen -- which catches larger particles, such as leaves -- into the plant, where it is disinfected and filtered before it enters the distribution system. Robert Chalifoux, project manager for Veolia Water North America -- which operates the city's water and sewer system and acts as the general contractor on the upgrades -- on Wednesday gave the Sentinel & Enterprise a tour of the facility. Upgrades to the facility, estimated to cost about $3 million, will install a "clarifier" process before filtration, meaning the water will be treated with a chemical coagulant, which acts to bind the organic materials together and help them be removed from the water before it is filtered, Chalifoux said. The coagulant is being used currently, but in lower doses, because too much application without the clarifier could put the filters in jeopardy of being overloaded, Chalifoux said. "We need to chlorinate to eliminate the pathogens in raw water, which could pose a serious health risk if they're not treated," he said. "We have a system in place to reduce the TTHMs and the clarifier will significantly reduce them." Councilors during a recent Drinking Water Oversight expressed frustration that the current coagulant treatment is resulting in water that hovers near or above the MCL, and Rowlands said he's "fed up" with what he said was a lack of clarity about the coagulant's effectiveness. "What they showed us in the tests (before councilors approved money to add the coagulant full-time) were numbers in the 30 and 40 (parts per billion) range, but we're not getting those numbers now because they're not using as much," he said. "And they're still saying, 'Oh, look, the citywide average of TTHMs has gone down,' but we're averaging across three totally different systems. Some of them have zero or near-zero levels." Councilor at-large John Dombrowski said Notown would not consistently be in compliance if the DEP were looking at the city's water sources individually, and said coming regulations will require communities to stop averaging testing numbers. "I have confidence we'll get it under control and in compliance," he said. "We're within the legal limits, but in the interim, our numbers aren't low enough to pass muster if we weren't averaging." Dombrowski said it's frustrating to have approved money for the temporary coagulant solution and see it not making a big difference. Rowlands also said it's impossible to know how long a high TTHM level has been a problem at Notown, saying he has a lack of confidence in past reporting because of the former violations, and said the ability to average the numbers may have helped reduce the appearance of a problem. "I think we're meeting the minimum requirements set forth by the DEP and the EPA and we've gotten better about it, but I don't want to just do the minimum," he said. Brooks and Chalifoux said the city in the future will not average the results, but instead report TTHM levels based on the individual source, in order to follow state and federal rules. To see more of the Sentinel & Enterprise or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sentinelandenterprise.com/. Copyright (c) 2009, Sentinel and Enterprise, Fitchburg, Mass. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]