James Coburn
The Edmond Sun
EDMOND
Fri, May 16 2008
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Annette Ryan said she hasn’t thought too much recently about the safety of drinking the City of Edmond’s water. Ryan and her husband Dudley drink from well water on their Edmond property.
Homes and businesses with a water account with the City of Edmond recently received a letter from Edmond Water Resources explaining two Notices of Violation with the city’s water supply. Nearly 25,000 residents were mailed those notices.
The Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality notified Edmond Water Resources of a federal selenium violation during a November meeting to discuss an arsenic violation, said Fred Rice, superintendent of Edmond Water Resources. The official NOV regarding selenium was issued in April.
“You never know what’s in water,” said Ryan, a librarian for the University of Central Oklahoma Archives & Special Collections. “Sometimes I am concerned here on the campus just because of no particular reason, but in public places you just never know what’s going on.”
Federal standards require Edmond Water Resources to issue public notice when a violation has been detected in the city’s water supply, Rice said.
“First, let me assure everyone in Edmond that our water is safe to drink,” Rice said. Regulations are set at levels well below any chemical amount that would cause health problems, he said.
Water testing results indicated the water’s selenium level was 0.29 milligrams per liter. The federal limit for selenium is 0.05 mg. per liter. The arsenic level tested between 0.011 milligrams per liter and 0.43 milligrams per liter. And the limitation for arsenic is 0.010 mg per liter.
“We will not use a water supply under any circumstances that can’t meet those limits — knowingly, ever,” Rice said.
Selenium and arsenic are naturally occurring elements in ground water, he said. And arsenic and selenium detection improves with the evolution of technology. Ongoing research revealing the potential health consequences from these substances result in decreasing the substance limits to new standards. A good example of that is the arsenic level was lowered in January 2006, from 50 parts per billion to 10 parts per billion, Rice said.
“We knew about the numbers long before the NOVs came out and so we were sampling at the wells in question on a regular basis to ensure we were producing good water,” Rice said. “One well in particular came back with a confirmation sample that was still not OK and we took that well out of service.”
The defective well site is near Chimney Hill Road just west of Coltrane.
He said the only way arsenic and selenium can be removed completely would be through a chemical process. It would cost the city $312,000 to provide onsite treatment for one well.
“It’s not cost-effective. It’s better for us to just shut that well down,” Rice said.
The City of Edmond has two primary sources of drinking water. A water quality treatment plant at Arcadia Lake can produce up to 12 million gallons of water a day. The city currently has 58 water wells providing water from the Garber-Wellington aquifer.
“It’s all from a common source, but depending on the rock formation under the ground, certain parts of the aquifer may be more prone to having some of these substances than others,” Rice said. “But we’re required to test our water periodically to make sure it’s safe from those substances.”
The city performs more than 70,000 water quality checks each year. Current testing indicates Edmond’s water supply to be in compliance with federal regulations.
No customers of Edmond Water Resources receives water from a single well. Federal and state laws also dictate that an entire water system is considered out of compliance when a single point of water supply is out of compliance.
A water sample taken from one of Edmond’s 54 water wells existing in 2006 violated federal limits of selenium. Five of the well sites sampled indicated a non-compliance level of arsenic, Rice said.
Well water goes into hundreds of miles of pipe forming the city’s water distribution system. Water is blended from water from other wells and also water from the city’s treatment plant. On occasion, the city purchases Oklahoma City water during summer peak demand months.
Rice said the City of Edmond is committed to protect the health standards of its water supply.
Local resident June Cartwright has continued drinking City of Edmond’s water every day since she and her husband LeRoy received Rice’s letter. “I feel safe,” Cartwright said. “… especially since we were reassured by the city that there’s no problem.”
TO LEARN MORE about the City of Edmond’s water supply, call Fred Rice at 216-7696 or visit www.edmondok.com.
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