Opinion: Truckee Meadows’ water quality among the best
By Mark Foree
Recently, an inaccurate story regarding the quality of drinking water in the Truckee Meadows surfaced again.
You may remember that back in December 2009 a report from the Environmental Working Group ranked the quality of our water as among the worst in the nation. Truckee Meadows Water Authority responded to that story, stating that the report was inaccurate and misleading. That is still the case today, and we are again in the position of defending our great water quality.
We thoroughly reviewed the data that EWG used over a year ago, when the initial report was issued. We found that much of its data on TMWA’s water was inaccurate. An example of one major error is that EWG was rating drinking water, yet it used test data from untreated sources (samples taken prior to treatment) and reported it as water delivered to our customers.
We immediately spoke with EWG regarding its numerous inaccuracies, and they assured us that they would correct the data. That was a year ago. Because EWG has since stopped all communication with TMWA, I sent a certified letter to it last August, pointed out all of the errors and again asked it to correct the data and modify its report. This inaccurate information is very upsetting, as no one takes our water quality more seriously than me and our entire staff at TMWA.
Mark Foree is general manager of the Truckee Meadows Water Authority.
I agree with TMWA. If you look at the data, there might be higher test results due to higher sampling. National average on water samples is 420. TMWA has 2,068 tests. I you look at the specific chemical test, the averages were all below the limits. But there were some times where the maximum value from a test exceeded the limit.
It is hard to tell how many tests are taken per month and if each test tests for every chemical.
Take a look at the results for STPUD. They have over 25,000 tests, the national average being 420.
http://www.ewg.org/tap-water/whatsinyourwater/CA/South-Tahoe-Pud—Main/0910002/
I don’t think there is any standard for what chemicals are tested for. I doubt there is. And the data from EWG is not split up to account for this. You can’t say that water from X has more of chemical A than the water from Y if the water from Y doesn’t test for A…
I think this is a major problem with the data.
If you test more frequently, for more chemicals, you will find more chemicals….