Broward County’s Drinking Water Report Doesn’t Address Chemical Testing Question

A government memo from May 2018 clarified when Florida officials should be testing drinking water for certain types of chemicals called Trihalomethanes.

Broward County released its 2017 water quality report Monday. But the report doesn’t address a water testing controversy around certain dangerous chemicals – called trihalomethanes – that emerged earlier this spring.

The report from the county’s Water and Wastewater Services office shows drinking water across Broward County had low, acceptable levels of the chemicals during all of 2017. “Once again, our water met or exceeded all standards of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act,” Alan Garcia, the Director of Water and Wastewater Services, wrote in a statement Monday. But it’s not clear when those tests were completed.

In early May, the Environmental Protection Agency said that Broward County was among several counties across the state not testing drinking water correctly during disinfection procedures called chlorine burns. Levels of the chemicals are known to spike when officials are performing chlorine burns. The EPA confirmed at the time that water systems do need to test for these chemicals during chlorine burns, which occur several times a year.

The EPA oversees Florida’s Departments of Health and Environmental Protection, which oversee […]

Full article: Broward County’s Drinking Water Report Doesn’t Address Chemical Testing Question

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