43
OEPA: Sebring had second water problem after lead crisis, this time disinfectant byproduct
By Ed Runyan
SEBRING
Sebring Water Violations
Document
Ohio EPA violation notices to Sebring Village regarding drinking water and recommendations to improve the situation.
Nine months after the Sebring water department became Ohio’s version of Flint, Mich., because Sebring failed to timely notify its customers it had elevated lead levels in its drinking water, the department had a problem with another contaminant.
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency issued the Sebring Village Public Water System a notice of violation Aug. 26 for exceeding the maximum contaminant level for total trihalomethanes, known as TTHM.
TTHM is a byproduct of disinfecting drinking water with chlorine, according to the Water Quality and Health Council website, which educates the public on water disinfection.
Chlorine disinfectants have been added to drinking water for about 100 years to destroy microbial pathogens that could make consumers sick or kill them, the council says.
On Dec. 19, 2016, the TTHM levels were still too high, and the OEPA again cited the water system.
In both instances, the water system was required to send notices within 30 days to all its customers telling them about the problem. The most recent notices went out in early February, said Karl Reed, who has been the water system’s superintendent the past two months.
The notices told customers they did not need to use an alternative water supply, such as bottled water. It said the contaminant levels “do not pose an immediate risk to your health.”
It added, however, “some people who drink water containing trihalomethanes in excess of the [maximum contaminant level] over many years may experience problems with their liver, kidneys, or central nervous systems, and may have an increased risk of getting cancer.”
Before disinfection, waterborne illness and deaths were a common scourge, the council website says. Disinfection byproducts such as TTHM can be minimized in drinking water by reducing organic matter in water before chlorination.
Reed and Rick Giroux, Sebring village manager, both said the problem has been corrected at the treatment plant. Heidi Griesmer, the OEPA’s chief spokesman, said that is correct. Testing Sebring did since the first of the year brought the system back into compliance for TTHM.
With help from Vince Romeo, superintendent of Warren’s water treatment plant, Sebring made adjustments in the way it operates a $2.7 million carbon-filtration system added in late 2015, Giroux said. Romeo worked as a consultant to Sebring from October through December.
A Jan. 18 letter written by Romeo on file with the OEPA says the reason the TTHM levels rose was because of lack of training, which resulted in failure to replace the carbon in four canisters annually and failure to follow proper “backwashing procedures.”
Giroux said he agreed the problems were related to lack of training, saying, “The system was brand-new. [Employees] were not experienced in using it.”
In a pilot study, Romeo had workers reduce the amount of chlorine in the water and start a flushing program to remove “old” water from the distribution system, the letter says.
Though the TTHM levels dropped after these changes, there is a “dead end” in the system in Beloit that increased the TTHM “so high that it elevated” the TTHM level for the entire system to above the allowable level in the third quarter of 2016, Romeo said.
The village also purchased four automatic flushers to flush TTHM out of the water supply, Giroux said, adding the village was required to notify all its water customers, even though the problem was focused in the Beloit area.
The water system used a $404,000 U.S. Department of Agriculture grant to help cover the costs it had in late 2015 and early 2016 when the lead in its drinking water exceeded allowable levels.
Some of the money was used to add orthophosphate to the water. That chemical adds a layer of protection to the inside of water pipes and plumbing to reduce the amount of lead that leaches from them into the drinking water.
Some of the other money was used to pay for bottled water given out in Sebring in 2016 and studies related to correcting the high lead levels. Sebring is back in compliance on lead, according to a Jan. 10 lead-monitoring report.
One home on West Ohio Avenue had a 16.8 parts-per-billion lead reading, which is just above the allowable level of 15 ppb, but the overall system number for lead was in an acceptable range at 9.9 ppb.
Jim V. Bates, 61, of Salem, the Sebring water superintendent at the time of the lead crisis in late 2015 and early 2016, is scheduled for his next pretrial hearing at 12:30 p.m. May 18 in Mahoning County Area Court in Sebring on three counts of failure to comply with drinking-water notifications. The offense dates are Sept. 20, Oct. 11 and Nov. 30, 2015, according to court records.
The Ohio Attorney General’s Office filed the charges in July, saying Bates failed to notify individual Sebring customers within 30 days of water test results regarding lead levels in their drinking water and failed to provide systemwide notification to the public within 60 days of high lead levels.
Sebring Councilman Jim Cannell said he doesn’t believe village residents are concerned about the TTHM problem, in part because “everybody drinks bottled water today.” They also don’t understand enough about TTHM to know what the notifications they got mean, he said.
Shirleen Hughes, owner of the Royal Star diner on 15th Street downtown, said she received both notices about the TTHM problem – in September or October and in early February, but the TTHM problem appeared to be much less serious because everyone was still allowed to use the water this time around.
“Everybody thinks it’s a bunch of baloney, with what we went through before and not being able to use [the water] at all,” she said of January 2016 with the lead issue.
As for having three notices about drinking water problems in a year, “It just kind of makes you wonder what is going on,” she said.
Griesmer said TTHMs “are still a contaminant, and it can cause health concerns,” even though Sebring didn’t have to switch to an alternate drinking-water supply.