Testing for Contaminants; New Water Quality Lab Means Mmwd Can Go Beyond Standard Testing
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Drinking water, according to Bob Castle, water quality manager for MMWD, is one of the most highly regulated industries around. As for those emerging contaminants in other communities, "We have no discharge from compromised sources, so we're not subject to these endocrine disruptors affecting our water," he said. "Still, we test for 242 more contaminants than are required by federal regulations. We even test for one chemical that falls into [the endocrine disrupter] category - perchlorate - even though we don't have to.
"It's a balancing of risks," says Castle. "If there's harm, it's so low that it does not show up in the epidemiology studies. You can draw a parallel to airbags in cars. They're required because they save lives, but in some accidents, they can do harm.When the first MMWD lab was constructed over 40 years ago, regulatory requirements were minimal, and only 2,000 tests were conducted annually. MMWD's new lab, completed in 2003, performs approximately 18,000 regulatory-mandated tests every year, and, when the voluntary tests are added in, approximately 35,000. In total, including tests done on water samples drawn from reservoirs, tributary streams, treatment plants and the distribution system, the district runs more than 120,000 tests per year.See the full content of this document
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Testing for Contaminants; New Water Quality Lab Means Mmwd Can Go Beyond Standard Testing
There's nothing like the fear of contaminated water to raise public concern. Recent reports from a US Geological Survey investigation of toxic substances in water conducted in 1999 and 2000, say emerging contaminants known as "endocrine disruptors" are being seen in higher numbers than ever before in water bodies around the country. A wide range of chemicals falls into this, category, from co...
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