By JOHN PURCELL Recorder News Staff Regulatory limits for lead contamination were exceeded again in the latest batch of drinking water samples collected from Amsterdam homes, but pending results from a corrosion control optimization study are hoped to help the city address the issue.
Amsterdam Water Treatment Chief Plant Operator Randy Gardinier in an interview said nine of the 60 samples collected from city homes in September were discovered to be above the regulatory limit, or maximum contaminant level (MCL), of 15 parts per billion.
Gardinier said the levels of lead in the nine samples exceeding the limit during the latest testing were 140 parts per billion (ppb), 58 ppb, 40 ppb, 30 ppb, 28 ppb, three at 21 ppb, and 16 ppb.
The city is expected to mail a postcard to all bill paying customers before the end of this year notifying of the elevated lead levels found in some samples, along with information about lead contamination, according to Gardinier.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency testing requirements for the city involve collecting water samples from 60 water distribution system customers at “Tier 1” sites, which are homes containing lead or copper pipes with lead solder installed between 1983 and 1988, or serviced by a lead service line.
In May — the first time the city was bound to the Tier 1 mandate — seven of the 60 samples collected from city homes were discovered to be above the regulatory limit, triggering an action level.
Gardinier in August said samples were also collected from where the city’s water enters its distribution system, and all six samples came back “non-detect,” meaning no lead could be detected.
He had said entry points into the distribution system were tested, along with water samples consisting of a blend from the reservoirs The city’s water supply travels through an approximate 15-mile transmission line from Glen Wild in the Town of Providence.
In May 2017, the EPA audited Amsterdam’s lead testing records from 2012 through 2017 and determined the city failed to comply with the Lead and Copper Rule, spurring an administrative order to be issued.
A critical issue was the city’s failure to collect water samples from distribution system customers at “Tier 1” sites.

At low-level concentrations, the cancer-causing chemical can turn clear water yellow, and when it’s really bad, a water source contaminated with ‘chrome-6’ can flow purple.
But even when tap water is perfectly clear, Brockovich admitted she’s still "funny about water," and rarely, if ever, drinks straight from a tap.
"I think we’re pretty convinced that these chemicals are immune toxicants that we should be concerned about," Linda Birnbaum, a microbiologist who directs the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences at the National Institutes of Health, said last month.
Eight big chemical companies in the US (including DuPont and 3M) voluntarily phased out the chemicals in their products and replaced them with new ones by 2015.
How to ensure your water is safe to drink The first thing you can do if you’re worried about the quality of your tap water is read your local water report.
She has even agreed to endorse a filtering product for the first time ever: the AquaTru home water filter.
Plus, bottled water is often just treated tap water, and the products are generally less regulated than what comes out of the tap.
But the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lets companies use the label "purified water" on water that’s been treated in several different ways, so it’s not always clear how it’s been filtered.
"I let consumers know, use your own common sense … if it looks funny or smells funny, don’t drink it."
Water-quality data for cities and towns around the country is required to be reported every year, and it’s available on the EPA’s website.

1 / 1 Scott County WEBER CITY — Scott County residents who experienced water outages due to the snowstorm should have normal water pressure by midnight tonight, according to estimates from the Scott County Public Service Authority.
Mike Dishman, executive director of the SCPSA, said AEP had restored power to all of the county’s water facilities by around 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday.
“It was the power outage at the Cliff Mountain pump stations that resulted in the water outage,” Dishman said Wednesday afternoon.
“Currently, we are refilling the system at a rate of about 500 gallons per minute, so our Cliff Mountain and Mabe/Stanleytown storage tanks and the water mains fed by those tanks that are empty will be refilling this (Wednesday) afternoon.
We estimate that by midnight tonight (Wednesday) these two tanks will be full and all customers will have normal water pressure.” Customers who experienced a water outage are under a boil water advisory, Dishman said.
As stated on the SCPSA’s website, “The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) advises that in the event of a water outage, after water service is restored customers should take the precaution of not drinking their tap water without first heating the water to a rolling boil and holding it there for one minute.
When your water comes back on, you should first open all the taps in your house and flush them until the water is clear.
After flushing your faucets and other taps, VDH calls for the extra step of boiling the water before consuming.
This precaution is due to the potential for the loss of pressure in a water system to allow contamination to enter the distribution pipes.” “We will be collecting a series of bacteriological water samples from the affected areas over the next two to three days,” Dishman said, “and will lift the boil water advisory when the test results of all samples over two consecutive days are negative for coliform bacteria.” For more information, visit scottcountypsa.myruralwater.com.
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A bipartisan Congressional bill introduced by a pair of Michigan legislators would dedicate $50 million to finding sites across the United States that may contain PFAS.
The new legislation would fund the U.S. Geologic Survey, funding a search for the chemicals in water, soil and air.
Identifying where the chemicals exist is a first step toward cleaning up contamination, the legislators said.
Multiple states are confronting PFAS contamination, including at closed military installations.
Estimates from the Environmental Work Group this year suggest up to 110 million Americans have some PFAS in their drinking water.
They’ve also contaminated both ground water and surface water, creating public health concerns.
In Michigan, that includes one municipal water plant shutdown and thousands of people using either in-home water filters or bottled water.
The most recent House bill resembles a bill introduced into the U.S. Senate in August.
A related bill introduced in the Senate at the same time was called the PFAS Accountability Act, which seeks to expedite cleanups at federal sites.
Kildee’s office said that’s expected to happen, but offered no timing plan.

In this week’s "Issues of the Environment," WEMU’s David Fair talks to Washtenaw County Water Resources Commissioner Evan Pratt about the steps being taken after recent testing revealed much higher levels of the chemical in the waters in Ann Arbor’s West Park.
Overview The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) recently tested water in a branch of Allen Creek that runs underground through Ann Arbor’s West Park.
The test results are concerning because they may indicate that dioxane is migrating farther from the original source of the pollution.
It is likely that the plume of dioxane laced groundwater and stormwater is now flowing under neighborhoods in western Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County and inching closer to Barton Pond on the Huron River, the city’s main drinking water source.
The Washtenaw County Office of the Water Resources Commissioner is required under a permit from the MDEQ to keep stormwater free of chemical contaminants, including dioxane, unless an exception is obtained.
Evan Pratt, Water Resources Commissioner for Washtenaw County, maintains that there is not a danger to the public at this time.
Pratt says that, although contact with water vapor containing dioxane is hazardous, it is unlikely that residents of Ann Arbor living near West Park are being exposed via basement flooding at this time.
Currently, Washtenaw County is a party in a lawsuit against Danaher Corp, joined by the city of Ann Arbor, the Huron River Watershed Council, and the state of Michigan.
Per Pratt’s request, the MDEQ will be conducting more frequent testing of water in West Park and other areas of concern throughout the expected boundaries of the dioxane plume.
Like 89.1 WEMU on Facebook and follow us on Twitter — David Fair is the WEMU News Director and host of Morning Edition on WEMU.

LOUISA, Va. (AP) — Officials say the contamination of a Virginia city’s water supply that triggered evacuations late last month was caused by methane gas released from the sewer system.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that Louisa town and county officials on Tuesday said the methane gas entered through traps in drains that typically prevent the backflow of methane.
Those traps are supposed to collect water to help stop the backflow, but several were found dry where proper maintenance practices weren’t followed.
The town’s statement also said improper disposal of grease can contribute to increased methane production.
The evacuation and “do not use” orders were lifted Nov. 30, a day after the gas was detected.
The county’s water supply was flushed, and the Virginia Department of Health and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency say it’s safe.
___ Information from: Richmond Times-Dispatch, http://www.richmond.com Copyright © 2018 The Associated Press.
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When it issued the order Oct. 22, Austin Water said the murkiness of floodwater had overwhelmed treatment capacity and could endanger water quality.
The boil order was lifted Oct. 28.
“They changed very radically [their treatment process for] water quality and water sources, and we all know what happened at Flint,” he said.
“I’m not saying that we’re Flint or we’re going to be Flint, but you have to be very thoughtful about process changes so you don’t destabilize your distribution system.” The utility also said adding extra treated water storage capacity could help, as it would buy the city more time to treat floodwater in the event of a similar storm.
Since the order was lifted, Meszaros said, the level of murkiness in water flowing out of Lake Travis is still not what it was before the October flooding.
This story was produced as part of the Austin Monitor’s reporting partnership with KUT.
The Austin Monitor’s work is made possible by donations from the community.
Key Players & Topics In This Article Austin City Council: The Austin City Council is the body with legislative purview over the City of Austin.
Until 2012, the body contained seven members, including the city’s Mayor, all elected at-large.
In 2012, City of Austin residents voted to change that system and now 10 members of the Council are elected based on geographic districts.

A visiting water scientist from the United States Department of Agriculture has been shocked by the state of New Zealand’s fresh water.
He has been in the country working with scientists on testing methods and said he came to New Zealand with the impression that it was clean and green and was surprised by what he has seen.
"I’ll be very honest, I was surprised, but I guess that was my misconception at the get-go."
He has been working in areas in New Zealand that are known to have problems with the water caused by the dairy industry and he describes the quality as very poor.
"Unfortunately where I live we have water that we can’t swim in, I see that also in New Zealand, you have rivers that you can’t swim in."
Dr Borchardt said New Zealand has a lot of similarities with Wisconsin in the level of water contamination related to agriculture.
He said septic systems were also contributing to the contamination in Wisconsin.
He is unaware if this is the case in New Zealand, but said he had seen the level of contamination in the surface water supply and it is similar to what those in Wisconsin.
Dr Borchardt has been doing this work for 25 years and said officials in Wisconsin are finally accepting the data and doing something about it, but it took community activists to finally get some traction going on the problem.
He said in some parts of Wisconsin the undrinkable water was starting to affect house values, so the community took petitions and legal action at the national level before things started to be remedied.

An application by the Pond Creek Mine, located in Williamson County about 14 miles south of the Rend Lake dam, to discharge waste water into the Big Muddy River is drawing criticism from local citizens and some environmental groups.
The application, filed by Williamson Energy LLC and its parent company, Foresight Energy, seeks permission from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources to discharge between 2.5 to 3.5 million gallons of water per day into the river.
The Illinois EPA stated in an email received this week that chloride and sulfate are toxic to aquatic organisms in amounts above accepted water quality standards.
A call to the Pond Creek Mine was met with a response of “no comment” from the engineering department.
According to the permit application, the Pond Creek Mine, located east of Johnston City, is quite productive, capable of producing 7.5 million tons of coal per year.
Blumenshine also noted the mining company has not filed an environmental impact statement.
The water will be discharged through a diffuser in effort to thoroughly dilute the chemical discharge.
An email from Kim Biggs, a public information officer with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency stated, “When the IEPA issues the NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) permit, the NPDES permit will ensure that the concentration of chlorides and sulfates will meet the water quality standards outside a mixing zone.
It is anticipated that the facility will only be allowed to discharge when the flow of the Big Muddy River is above 30 cubic feet per second.
“It is anticipated that the NPDES permit will have an equation to demonstrate that the water quality standards are met outside of a mixing zone.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Agriculture sent a joint letter to states and tribal groups this week encouraging “reinvigoration” of efforts to reduce agricultural runoff and acknowledging “nutrient pollution continues to be widespread, particularly in the Mississippi River Basin.” The letter sent Tuesday offers state environmental and agricultural agencies one-on-one meetings with the EPA and USDA to identify ways to reduce nitrates and phosphorus flowing into waterways.
These nutrients contribute to an oxygen-deprived dead zone that fish and other organisms must flee or die.
The Gazette found few Midwest states have consistent nutrient-reduction funding, some aren’t documenting what steps they’re taking and most can show no real improvement in nutrient reduction in the past 10 years.
Meanwhile, the dead zone persists, measuring at 2,720 square miles in July.
“The agencies are committed to engaging with local stakeholders, leveraging our collective resources, and helping to remove regulatory or other barriers that impede progress in this space,” the letter states.
“One thing that stood out is them offering ‘flexibility’ in implementing TMDLs,” Rota said, referring to the Total Maximum Daily Load plans, or pollution diets, states and the EPA may put on rivers and lakes.
“This looks like the same stuff they have been doing,” Rota said.
“The EPA and the USDA have routinely provided support, technical assistance, resources, etc., over the years to help Iowa meet its water quality and conservation goals,” he said.
Indiana State Department of Agriculture officials met last month with Northey and Anna Wildeman, the EPA’s deputy assistant administrator for the Office of Water, said Indiana agriculture spokesman Ben Gavelek.
“Especially with the Hypoxia Task Force meeting right around the corner, which includes Assistant Administrator Ross and is a great time to build collaboration.” The task force will meet for the first time in a year on Jan. 29 in Baton Rouge, La.