ADMINISTRATIVE BOARD MEMBERS
William L. Douglas, Jr.,
Treasurer
Philip T. Driscoll, Clerk
Peter S. Kent, Water
Commissioner
Gaetano Polselli, Jr., Tax
Collector
Portsmouth
Water and Fire District
1944 East
Main Road
P.O. Box
99
Portsmouth,
RI 02871
E-mail: mailto:info@portsmouthwater.org
Dear Customer:
We
are pleased to present a summary of the quality of the water provided to
District customers during the past year.
The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) requires that water utilities issue
an annual "Consumer Confidence" report to customers in addition to
other notices that may be required by law.
This report details where our water comes from, what it contains, and
the risks our water testing and treatment are designed to prevent. The Portsmouth Water and Fire District is
committed to providing you with the safest and most reliable water supply
available. Informed consumers are our
best allies in maintaining safe drinking water. Some water customers of the
Newport Water Department and the Naval Station Newport water system,
particularly in the Redwood Farms, Bay View and Melville areas, in addition to
properties in the District with private wells, may receive this consumer
notice, even though they are not customers of the District. This over-coverage is unavoidable in our
effort to ensure that all potential water users within the District receive
this legal notice through a Postal Customer mailing.
About the Portsmouth Water and Fire District
The Portsmouth Water and Fire District is a
quasi-municipal agency created by the RI General Assembly and is responsible
for providing drinking water and fire hydrants for ninety percent of mainland
Portsmouth. The District is governed by
a seven-member elected Administrative Board and holds an annual election of
officers on the second Wednesday in June.
Although the District is not affiliated legally or administratively with
the Town of Portsmouth, the District and Town work cooperatively to best serve
their common constituents.
The District does not own any water supplies, but
purchases its regular water supply on a wholesale basis from the Newport Water
Department and relies on the Stone Bridge Fire District in Tiverton for
emergency water supply.
The Administrative Board's goal is to provide the
customers of the District with an adequate supply of the best quality water
available. To that end, the District is
a member of the Aquidneck Island Partnership's Drinking Water Subcommittee,
which is charged with evaluating and recommending methods to protect the
island's drinking water supply reservoirs.
As part of its efforts to provide a long-term, adequate water supply for
Portsmouth, the District has undertaken a fractured bedrock groundwater
evaluation and test well program. This
study should be complete in 2005. The
District also continues to require that new water main extensions be looped-in
to existing water mains whenever possible, to maintain water quality. Recently completed water quality capital
improvements include a one-mile water main replacement in Island Park.
We encourage public interest and participation in
our community's decisions affecting drinking water. Regular meetings of the Administrative Board of the Portsmouth
Water and Fire District are held on the first and third Tuesday of every month
at 7:15 PM, at the District's office at 1944 East Main Road. The public is welcome and encouraged to
attend these meetings. Minutes of
meetings are available upon request.
The information in this report is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.portsmouthwater.org.
Your Water Source
In 2003, the Portsmouth Water and Fire District
purchased all of its water from the Newport Water Department. The water is treated at the Lawton Valley
Water Treatment Plant in Portsmouth, which is owned and operated by the Newport
Water Department. The plant draws
surface water from the Lawton Valley Reservoir, St. Mary Pond, and Sisson Pond
in Portsmouth, Nonquit Pond in Tiverton and Watson Reservoir in Little Compton,
all of which are owned by the Newport Water Department. The Stone Bridge supply is treated at the
Stone Bridge Treatment Plant in Tiverton, which draws water from Stafford Pond
in Tiverton.
Source Water Assessments
The
University of Rhode Island, in cooperation with the RI Department of Health and
other state and federal agencies, has assessed the threats to Newport Water’s
water supply sources. The assessment
considered the intensity of development, the presence of businesses and
facilities that use, store or generate potential contaminants, how easily
contaminants may move through the watersheds, and the sampling history of the
water. The assessment results will be
used to plan source water protection efforts in the future.
The
water quality monitoring program by the District and Newport Water continues to
assure that the water delivered to your home is safe. However, the assessment found that the source waters on Aquidneck
Island and in Little Compton and Tiverton are moderately susceptible to
contamination. This average ranking for
the entire system is based on land use and existing water quality. Because most land in source water areas is
privately owned, the focus of the assessments has been on identifying threats
from land use so local governments, residents and water suppliers can take
action to protect valuable drinking water supplies. This means that monitoring and protection efforts are especially
important to assure continued water quality.
The complete Source Water Assessment Report is available at our office
or by calling the RI Department of Health, Office of Drinking Water Quality at
(401) 222-6867. The assessments are
also available at the RI Department of Health and URI web sites at www.healthri.gov
and www.uri.edu/ce/wq/program/html/swap/reports,
respectively.
Health Effects Information for the Water You Drink
Drinking
water, including bottled water, may reasonably be expected to contain at least
small amounts of some contaminants. The
presence of contaminants does not necessarily indicate that water poses a
health risk. More information about
contaminants and potential health effects can be obtained by calling the
Environmental Protection Agency's Safe Drinking Water Hotline (800-426-4791).
The
sources of drinking water (both tap water and bottled water) include rivers,
lakes, streams, ponds, reservoirs, springs, and wells. As water travels over the surface of the
land or through the ground, it dissolves naturally occurring minerals and, in
some cases, radioactive material, and can pick up substances resulting from the
presence of animals or from human activity.
Contaminants that may be present in source water include:
(a)
Microbial contaminants, such as viruses and bacteria, which may come
from sewage treatment plants, septic systems, agricultural livestock
operations, and wildlife;
(b)
Inorganic contaminants, such as salts and metals, which can be
naturally-occurring or result from urban stormwater runoff, industrial or
domestic wastewater discharges, oil and gas production, mining, or farming;
(c)
Pesticides and herbicides, which may come from a variety of sources
such as agriculture, urban stormwater runoff, and residential uses;
(d)
Organic chemical contaminants, including synthetic and volatile organic
chemicals, which are by-products of industrial processes and petroleum
production, and can also come from gas stations, urban stormwater runoff and
septic systems;
(e)
Radioactive contaminants, which can be naturally occurring or be the
result of oil and gas production and mining activities.
In order to ensure that tap water is safe to drink,
EPA prescribes regulations which limit the amount of certain contaminants in
water provided by public water systems.
Food and Drug Administration regulations establish limits for
contaminants in bottled water, which must provide the same protection for public
health.
Some people may be more vulnerable to contaminants
in drinking water than is the general population. Immuno-compromised persons such as persons with cancer undergoing
chemotherapy, persons who have undergone organ transplants, people with HIV/AIDS
or other immune system disorders, some elderly, and infants can be particularly
at risk from infections. These people
should seek advice about drinking water from their health care providers. EPA/CDC guidelines on appropriate means to
lessen the risk of infection by Cryptosporidium and other microbial
contaminants are available from the Safe Drinking Water Hotline (800-426-4791).
Infants and young children are typically more
vulnerable to lead in drinking water than the general population. It is possible that lead levels at your home
may be higher than at other homes in the community as a result of materials
used in your home's plumbing. If you
are concerned about elevated lead levels in your home's water, you may wish to
have your water tested and flush your tap for 30 seconds to 2 minutes before
using tap water. Additional information
is available from the Safe Drinking Water Hotline (800-426-4791) or from the
Portsmouth Water and Fire District. The
District can also help you get your tap water tested for lead.
About the
District’s TTHM Violations
We previously sent you a notice regarding these
violations. In the first and second
quarters of 2003, the District’s four-quarter Running Annual Average (RAA) for
TTHMs was 89.9 ppb and 82.9 ppb, respectively.
The EPA standard is 80.0 ppb, having been lowered from 100 ppb on
January 1, 2002. The District was in
compliance with the TTHM standard for the third and fourth quarters of 2003 and
the first and second quarters of 2004.
The average RAA for these four most recent quarters of compliance was
69.0 ppb.
When
chlorine is used in the treatment of drinking water, it combines with organic
and inorganic matter present in water to form chemicals called disinfection
byproducts (DBPs). EPA sets standards
for controlling the levels of DBPs in drinking water, one of which is
TTHMs.
Many
water systems disinfect their water with chlorine in order to inactivate
pathogens that cause disease. The
public health benefits of chlorine disinfection practices are significant and
well-recognized. One hundred years ago,
typhoid and cholera were common throughout American cities and disinfection was
a major factor in reducing these epidemics.
However, disinfection poses risks of its own. EPA’s health effects language for TTHMs states, “Some people who drink water containing
trihalomethanes in excess of the MCL over many years may experience problems
with their liver, kidneys, or central nervous system, and may have an increased
risk of getting cancer.” In
addition, several reproduction and developmental studies have recently become
available, and EPA has completed a more extensive analysis of reproductive and
developmental effects associated with DBPs.
Both human epidemiology studies and animal toxicology studies have shown
associations between chlorinated drinking water and reproductive and
developmental endpoints such as spontaneous abortion, stillbirth, neural tube
defects, pre-term delivery, intrauterine growth retardation, and low birth
weight. New epidemiology and toxicology
studies evaluating bladder and rectal cancers have also increased the weight of
evidence linking these health effects to DBP exposure.
Consequently,
one of the most complex questions facing water supply professionals is how to
reduce risks from disinfectants and DBPs while providing increased protection
against microbial contaminants.
The
District’s TTHM levels are the result of the organic content of the raw water,
the chlorination and treatment processes at the Lawton Valley Water Treatment
Plant, and the hydraulics at the plant and the District’s system, and largely
form prior to purchase by the District.
The following steps have been taken to address the high TTHM levels:
·
The amount of chlorine added to the water from time to time by the
District has been reduced while still ensuring reliable bacteriological
control.
·
The Newport Water Department has modified its plant operations to the
extent possible and permissible by regulations in an effort to minimize the
production of DPBs.
·
The Newport Water Department has conducted an evaluation of the
treatment plant to determine what improvements are required to reduce TTHMs on
both a short and long-term basis and is in the process of reviewing its
treatment options.
·
The District, the Newport Water Department, and the Naval Station
Newport have agreed to participate in a joint study to be completed in 2005,
that will examine the most efficient way to address the TTHM issue on an
island-wide basis.
·
The District has sought, and will continue to seek, the assistance of
the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission, the Rhode Island Department of
Health and the EPA to ensure that everything possible is being done to reduce
the production of TTHMs.
·
The District has investigated the requirements for re-treating the
water purchased from the Newport Water Department to lower the TTHM levels in
the District’s system in the future, if necessary.
There
are no other reasonable, immediate actions the District can take to reduce the
level of DPBs in the water. However,
the District’s Administrative Board is committed to resolving the TTHM problem
in the most expeditious manner possible.
Questions
The Portsmouth
Water and Fire District prepared this report.
We'll be happy to answer any questions about the District and our
drinking water quality. Please contact
William J. McGlinn, General Manager and Chief Engineer (401-683-2090).
The Portsmouth Water and Fire District is a proud member and supporter of the American Water Works Association, the New England Water Works Association and the Rhode Island Water Works Association.