Rumors False: Tulsa's Water Safe to Drink

[OkieDiva]

The City of Tulsa's customer service staff began receiving multiple calls Tuesday afternoon saying that a wide-spead e-mail was advising residents to not use Tulsa water because it was unsafe, and that water service would be terminated after 3 p.m.
Neither rumor is true.
Public Works Director Charles Hardt and Environmental Operations Manager Clayton Edwards both confirmed that Tulsa's water supply is safe to use for drinking and other purposes.
While one of the City's two water-treatment plants has been without power, the other plant has been producing enough treated water, that meets consumption standards, throughout the ice storm.
PSO crews continue working to restore power to one of the City's water treatment plants. The A.B. Jewell Water Treatment Plant continues serving citizens as it has since Monday. City officials are continuously monitoring water levels and water quality.
"The City of Tulsa's water is safe to drink and meets all regulatory standards," Hardt said.
Citizens are still encouraged to conserve water until the Mohawk plant is back up and running.

see cityoftulsa.org

[RecycleMichael]

That is one of the benefits of having two water treatment plants.

All the other towns only have one.

[TheArtist]

Uh, huuum!... We are not a "town" WE are a city. [8D]

[Teatownclown]

Just an example of what bureaucrats do best.... deceive.

I'm just wondering if those idjits in BA http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20121001_12_A13_BROKEN251099 even have a clue about infrastructure and fixing this issue....I mean, was it part of their "Vision 2"  priorities?

What happened to good government?

Chemicals in Broken Arrow tap water near federal limits

By ZACK STOYCOFF World Staff Writer
Published: 10/1/2012  2:21 AM
Last Modified: 10/1/2012  8:20 AM

  Broken Arrow: Read previous stories related to Broken Arrow and get contact information for Broken Arrow officials.

Search for household water filters certified to remove or reduce chlorine byproducts.

BROKEN ARROW - A water treatment mishap by the city's supplier has led to a sharp increase of two common but potentially carcinogenic groups of chemicals in Broken Arrow's tap water, officials said.

The chemicals, created when chlorine interacts with organic matter, have increased to near federal limits because of a change in the chemical mixture used to treat the water before it reaches the city, Broken Arrow Engineering Director Kenny Schwab said.

The new mixture has allowed more organic matter to remain in the water, which interacts with additional chlorine that is added when the water reaches Broken Arrow, he said.

The city's supplier, the Oklahoma Ordnance Works Authority of Pryor, has since reverted to its previous method, and levels of chlorine by-products have been dropping, Schwab said.

Federally regulated tests of Broken Arrow's water this year have recorded a 76 percent increase in the citywide average of trihalomethane since 2011 and a 51 percent jump in haloacetic acids, according to a Tulsa World analysis of records provided by the state Department of Environmental Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Citywide averages are calculated by averaging the results of four annual tests at all of the city's testing sites.

Three rounds of tests so far this year have recorded citywide averages of 72.05 parts per billion for trihalomethane and 60.34 ppb for haloacetic acids. EPA limits for the chemical groups are 80 ppb and 60 ppb, respectively.

In the previous four years, both groups averaged about 40 ppb.

A final regularly scheduled round of tests in November will determine whether the city has had annual violations, which would require it to notify water customers and take steps to reduce the contaminants.

DEQ and EPA officials said the water is not a health concern at this point and that residents need to take no special precautions.

In fact, brief increases of the chemicals - typically harmful at high levels only after years of consumption - are often better than the alternative, they said.

Chlorine byproducts have been found to cause cancer in animals and have been linked with kidney and bladder problems in people.

"Disinfecting water is kind of a trade-off health-wise," EPA spokeswoman Jennah Durant said. "Obviously, people want to drink clean drinking water, and these disinfectants kill microorganisms that cause all manner of diseases, but what's left over can create these byproducts."

Violations likely

Although chlorine byproducts typically increase in warmer months, the increase between Broken Arrow tests in February and May this year dwarfed the summer increases of previous years.

Trihalomethanes went from 44.2 ppb to 100.3 ppb, while haloacetic acids increased from 34.5 ppb to 105.3 ppb.

Levels recorded during the next tests in August dropped to 71.6 ppb for trihalomethane and 38 ppb for haloacetic acids, and the November levels should be even lower - although maybe not enough to avoid a violation, Schwab said.

Another round of lower readings could bring the citywide averages below the federal limit, but a new method for determining compliance likely will keep the city from avoiding a violation.

Until this year, annual citywide averages were used to determine compliance.

The new method, which took effect in February, considers annual averages for each permanent testing site within a system, meaning that if one site has an annual violation, the whole system is in violation, Durant said.

Broken Arrow tests at eight sites. So far this year, five are in violation for haloacetic acids and one is in violation for trihalomethane.

The EPA takes violations case-by-case and works with water systems to reduce contaminants, Durant said. Serious violations often draw enforcement measures, she said.

Broken Arrow's contract with the Ordnance Works Authority, which provides water from the Grand River, was set to expire Dec. 31, but it has been renewed through 2013.

The city plans to begin buying some of its water that year from Tulsa. Once Broken Arrow's new treatment plant is finished in 2014, the city would pull and treat most of its water directly from the Verdigris River.


Original Print Headline: BA tap additives near limit

Those teabaggers in BA are clueless......

[Conan71]

Of course, you completely miss the point that chloramine reduces the amount if trihalomethane in your rants on Tulsa water.

Try using scholarly material in your research, not the 19 year-old-paranoid-pot-smoker-in-the-basement blogger...

[Teatownclown]

Of course, you completely miss the point that chloramine reduces the amount if trihalomethane in your rants on Tulsa water.

Try using scholarly material in your research, not the 19 year-old-paranoid-pot-smoker-in-the-basement blogger...

Hey, she's gone.

You joker. Replacing one poisonous chemical for another is not solving jack. Flushing this problem out is an engineers job...and the one's the city hires are not creative, innovative, nor motivated.

Problem is, there is no scholarly material...there are few options.

[heironymouspasparagus]

What it is saying behind the words about additional organic matter is that the Pryor water (Neosho River) is right in the area of all the chicken ranches.  So guess what chickens make and deposit on large tracts of land in eastern Oklahoma, which then gets washed into the watershed??

Yep!  Organic matter.

So when you take a nice big drink of cool refreshing water in BA, you get the cumulative effect of 500 million chickens per year.  Thanks Tyson for proper waste control!!

[RecycleMichael]

So when you take a nice big drink of cool refreshing water in BA, you get the cumulative effect of 500 million chickens per year. 

Chicken Poop for the Soul.

[Conan71]

What it is saying behind the words about additional organic matter is that the Pryor water (Neosho River) is right in the area of all the chicken ranches.  So guess what chickens make and deposit on large tracts of land in eastern Oklahoma, which then gets washed into the watershed??

Yep!  Organic matter.

So when you take a nice big drink of cool refreshing water in BA, you get the cumulative effect of 500 million chickens per year.  Thanks Tyson for proper waste control!!

Where do you think the water in Spavinaw comes from?

[heironymouspasparagus]

Where do you think the water in Spavinaw comes from?

Yep.  Same area of the state...I just didn't include Tulsa, 'cause that referenced article noted BA. 


There are very few places in the country that don't take their water downstream of someone else's sewer plant or chicken ranch or feed lot.  Maybe somewhere in Maine or Alaska??

[Conan71]

Yep.  Same area of the state...I just didn't include Tulsa, 'cause that referenced article noted BA. 


There are very few places in the country that don't take their water downstream of someone else's sewer plant or chicken ranch or feed lot.  Maybe somewhere in Maine or Alaska??

Up in the Rockies

[nathanm]

Up in the Rockies

Way up in the Rockies. There's plenty of cow excrement by the time it gets to the front range.

[Ed W]

They always tell us the water is safe....right before the zombie apocalypse!

Seriously, unless you live at the very top of the watershed, the water you drink has already passed through numerous kidneys and gastrointestinal tracts, even that fancy bottled stuff.  Get over it.  You'll live.

[heironymouspasparagus]

They always tell us the water is safe....right before the zombie apocalypse!

Seriously, unless you live at the very top of the watershed, the water you drink has already passed through numerous kidneys and gastrointestinal tracts, even that fancy bottled stuff.  Get over it.  You'll live.

It don't bother me... we have doubled the average age in large part from having water treated with chlorine, so I figure anything past about 40 is just icing on the cake.  Even it it does mean getting some chlorine by products.  Knew someone who went visiting to a nearby third world country and came back with typhoid - most likely from the water.  Takes WEEKS to recover, even with the anti-biotics.  And leaves one messed up for a while longer.

About half way down the page shows a graph of rates per 100,000 from time chlorination started.  It pretty much doesn't exist here anymore, unless you get sloppy with hygiene...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoid_fever

Chlorine RULZ !!!!

[RecycleMichael]

It is true that most municipal drinking water in America comes from a source that is downstream from a waste waster plant. Those plants are regulated to only discharge fairly clean water. In most cases, the effluent is cleaner than the body of water it is dumping into.

Spavinaw only has one small waste water plant in its watershed. The plant services Decatur, Arkansas population 1,700.