MANSFIELD — Mansfield officials hope to allay concerns residents may have about the local drinking water, in the wake of the Flint water crisis.
According to Mansfield Mayor Tim Theaker’s 2015 State of the City address, 3.755 billion gallons of water were purified and pumped at the Mansfield Water Treatment Plant with no Environmental Protection Agency chemical or bacteriological violations.
The report also says drinking water samples were collected and sent to EPA-approved labs for organic contaminants, metals and radiological contaminants with all tests coming back within allowable limits.
The water treatment plant receives a daily blend of raw water from both the Clearfork Reservoir and 10 wells.
Lead standards in drinking water are regulated by the Lead and Copper Rule (LCR). The LCR states that 90 percent of samples analyzed must be less than the action level of 15 parts per billion (ppb).
According to Angelo Klousiadis, plant manager, Mansfield’s water levels have tested well within the EPA’s compliance standards. Even water entering the plant is under the “detection limit” of two ppb.
“The Flint River, from what I’ve been able to read, was supplying almost 10 ppb lead to the water plant,” Klousiadis said. “So they’re just going up from there.”
In April of 2014, Flint switched its water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River as a cost-saving measure. But the water from the Flint River was found to be highly corrosive, leaving residents with lead-contaminated water.
“What happened in Flint is a shame,” Klousiadis said.
Reports have said that between 6,000 and 12,000 children in Flint have been exposed to drinking water with high levels of lead and they may experience a range of serious health problems.
“Water treatment is designed to try to apply a passive film of calcium on the inside of a pipe.,” Klousiadis said. “In other words, when we treat the water leaving the plant, we do stability tests, and the stability tests have to show that the water is plating a little bit of calcium out, rather than dissolving calcium.”
A phosphate silicate corrosion inhibitor is added as an additional stabilizer after the water is treated, Klousiadis said.
Prior to 1999, the Mansfield plant monitored 60 homes twice a year that were built between 1982 and 1986 twice. These homes represent the most recent use of lead solder in plumbing, given that the use of lead solder was banned in 1986.
Having never hit the action level of 15 ppb, the plant went to reduced monitoring in 1999, so now it monitors 30 homes built between 1982 and 1986 every three years.
“All of the homes that we tested from the initial testing to the last test that was done in 2013 have all been under the action level,” Klousiadis said.
The plant takes samples from homes under worst-case scenario conditions; meaning, the water must remain unused at the home for at least six hours and it must be a “first draw” sample.
“That’s what we test,” Theaker said. “And that testing shows that we are within limits.”
Klousiadis offered a final thought of comfort.
“Based on our historic testing, there’d be no reason for us to assume that they’ll be different when we do our testing again this June,” he said.
