Contaminant levels in city’s water cause concern
The Atlanta City council convened Monday in regular session to discuss the maximum contaminant level in the city’s water and when it is required to give notice to consumers.
City manager, David Cockrell, said he was notified by TCEQ of a violation last week with regard to contaminants in the city’s drinking water. Total trihalomethanes, TTHM, is a volatile compound formed during the treatment process when naturally organic occurring matter meets chlorine.
According to Cockrell, “You’re going to have total trihalomethanes in your drinking water supply but there’s a maximum contaminant level that you’re allowed.”
Atlanta is contracted with Texarkana Water Utilities to purchase its water. Cockrell said that two quarters ago, he went to Texarkana Water Utilities with concerns about the total TTHM levels. He explained that at both testing sites, there were two fails. Cockrell urged TWU to act, “And we said if something doesn’t change, we’re going to not meet four quarters in a row. That’s about when Graphics Packaging took over from IP.”
He continued, “So we see a third quarter test with much lower results and we had some relief that they were responsive to our request. Then the final test occurred and it was back up as high as it was the first quarter. At one of our sites on Forest Lane, we are running four quarter .091 which exceeds the maximum contaminant level of .080. Having said that there are some things that we do routinely, we keep logs, and we flush water lines at 12 locations.”
“If the plant doesn’t take out enough of these naturally occurring organics and they send it to us fairly close, the higher they are when they get here, it can make it impossible or impractical for us to meet the .080.”
It has been four years since the city has received a violation regarding contaminants in its drinking water at which time, the city manager and TWU recommended that International Paper install and improve their filtration system.
Cockrell said that if the plant, now Graphic Packaging International, doesn’t act on the problem, “we’ll continue to have a problem and we’ll have to send out notification to customers of Atlanta Water that states the violation and we’re going to have to continue doing that until such time as our four quarterly averages get below the .080.”
Cockrell was to meet with Texarkana Water Utilities and Texarkana’s city manager last Tuesday to discuss solutions. An email requesting the details of that meeting and a copy of TCEQ’s report have returned no response.