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From: JF Smeltzer
Category: General
Date: 13 Feb 2005
Time: 14:33:20 -0500
Remote Name: 67.77.116.197
Thursday, March 31, 1994
Harrison water safe to drink Officials discount year-old test showing high levels of mercury
By Jolie Williamson Staff writer
HARRISON: Township water is safe to drink -- though paperwork mistakes caused officials to discover more than a year late that it once tested as having high levels of mercury. But even those test results probably were not accurate, according to the township water authority, the independent laboratory that conducted the tests and the Allegheny County Health Department.
Lab suspects test glitch ‘The bottom line is, it is safe to drink,” and the high mercury reading of January 1993 almost positively was a testing error, said Guillermo Cole, county health department spokesman. In January 1993, Harrison’s water was tested by Microbac Inc., an independent testing lab, for 12 contaminants. It was an annual water quality test required by law. The test showed inordinately high levels of mercury. Microbac, suspecting an glitch in the testing, asked the township for another water sample. That sample tested well below acceptable levels, said David Danis, Microbac lab director.
An anomaly “I feel it was a contaminated test bottle,” said Danis. ‘The results of all the tests before that and all of them after have shown negative. It’s an anomaly.” Even if it were not, the level -- .006 milligrams per liter, three times the federally allowable limit -- was not enough to endanger anyone drinking it, according to both Cole and Danis. ‘Those maximum levels are calculated for consumption over a lifetime,” Cole said. He said a person would have had to drink about two quarts a day for about 50 years to feel a harmful effect Microbac is required to turn over
The high mercury reading of January 1993 almost positively was a testing error, said Guillermo Cole, Allegheny County Health Department spokesman.
Any test results that show above normal levels to the county health’ department and the state Department of Environmental Resources.
Results overlooked However, a coding error in the results sent to the health agency caused that department to overlook the high levels, said Cole. The health department did not find out about the test data until the DER shared-its reports with the department, which it does periodically to compare records. The water authority didn’t find out about the results until March 17 of this year. Its annual test in January 1994 turned out negligible levels of mercury, said Charles Means,’ the authority’s solicitor. “Microbac didn’t tell us we tested high,” Means said of the ‘93 test result. “We wish they would have. We would have been doing this a year ago.” Danis said he couldn’t comment on why the authority wasn’t told of the first test results.
Water retested Since finding out the test results from the health department, the authority has tested the water again for mercury. Results from last week showed below normal levels. “We’re required to do quarterly testing when we test high — but we’ll be testing weekly to prove to the public that the water is safe,” said Means.
(I wonder if they ever took into consideration the untreated seepage from this 10th worst Super Fund Waste Dump as being the cause? Flowing just 1400 feet down river to where the municipal water intake was located)