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.