IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR DRINKING WATER
Our water system recently received a notice of violation. Although this incident was not an emergency, as our customers, you have a right to what happened and what we did to correct this situation. If it had been an emergency you would have notified within 24 hrs. You do not need to boil your water or take corrective actions. Alternative water supplies are not needed.
What occurred?
Water samples are collected quarterly at four approved locations & tested for Disinfection Byproducts (DBPs). Disinfectants (chlorine) can react with naturally-occurring materials in the water to form DBPs.
On May 05, 2020, a water sample was collected at 2279 Crompond Rd. (the Yorktown Central Garage). It, along with samples from the other 3 locations, was tested for DBPs. The results showed that the sample from 2279 Crompond Rd. tested high for one particular DBP: Monochloroacetic Acid, a Haloacetic Acid (HAA5).
The Locational Running Annual Average (LRAA) for Haloacetic Acids (HAA5) at this site including the 05/05/20 sample was at a concentration of 0.069 mg/l, which exceeds the Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) of 0.060 mg/l and is in violation of Part 5, Subpart 5-1, Sections 5-1.51(a) and 5-1.52 (Table 3) of the NYS Sanitary Code.
The Yorktown Water Department (YWD) was notified of the lab results on 05/27/20 & a resample was arranged for and collected on 05/29/20. The resample results showed the water from the site had returned to it’s normal low level for HAA5s.
What should I do?
There is nothing you need to do unless you have a severely compromised immune system, have an infant, or are elderly. These people may be at increased risk and should seek advice about drinking water from their health care providers.
You do not need to boil your water or take other corrective actions. If a situation arises where the water is no longer safe to drink, you will be notified within 24 hours.
What does this mean?
This is not an immediate risk. If it had been an emergency, you would have been notified within 24 hours.
HAAs are formed in drinking water during treatment by chlorine (the most commonly used disinfectant in New York State), which reacts with certain acids that are in naturally-occurring organic material (e.g., decomposing vegetation such as tree leaves, algae, or other aquatic plants) in surface water sources such as rivers and lakes. The amount of HAAs in drinking water can change from day to day, depending on the temperature, the amount of organic material in the water, the amount of chlorine added, and a variety of other factors. Drinking water is disinfected by public water suppliers to kill bacteria and viruses that could cause serious illnesses. For this reason, disinfection of drinking water by chlorination is beneficial to public health.
Some studies suggest that people who drank chlorinated drinking water containing disinfection by-products (possibly including HAAs) for long periods of time (e.g., 20 to 30 years) have an increased risk for certain health effects. These include an increased risk for cancer. However, how long and how frequently people actually drank the water as well as how much HAAs the water contained is not known for certain. Therefore, the evidence from these studies is not strong enough to conclude that the observed increased risk for cancer is due to HAAs, other disinfection by-products, or some other factor. Studies of laboratory animals show that the individual HAAs, dichloroacetic acid and trichloroacetic acid, can cause cancer following exposure to high levels over their lifetimes. Dichloroacetic acid and trichloroacetic acid are also known to cause other effects in laboratory animals after high levels of exposure, primarily on the liver, kidney, and nervous system and on their ability to bear healthy offspring. The effects reported in studies of laboratory animals occur at exposures much higher than exposures that could result through normal use of the water. The risks for adverse health effects from HAAs in drinking water are small compared to the risk for illness from drinking inadequately disinfected water.
What is being done?
The YWD believes that high DBP reading was due to a number of factors. The site has 6” diameter ductile iron pipe, approximately 800’ long supplying it’s water (a home typically has a ¾” copper line). Water usage is low at this location as it is office space. In mid-March, due to Covid-19 mandated staff reductions, water usage was further reduced by 50%. This situation continued through mid-May. Stagnation in the water line, combined with higher temperatures & reduced usage may have caused the chlorine residual in the pipe to interact with organics. This resulted in the formation of the HAA5 DBP.
With proper approvals, YWD will install a sample station on the water line closer to the Crompond Rd. water main. Subsequent samples will then be more representative of the distribution system’s water versus that of a long, oversized, low flow water line. This will be completed as soon as possible.
YWD is required to submit a corrective action plan to Westchester County Department of Health to achieve compliance with the MCL for HAA5. This violation is expected to continue until the May 5, 2020 water sample is no longer included in the LRAA calculation for HAA5.
For more information, please contact the Yorktown Water District at 245-6111 or 1080 Spillway Road, Shrub Oak, NY 10588 or the Westchester County Dept. of Health at 914-813-5000.
*Please share this information with all the other people who drink this water, especially those who may not have received this notice directly (for example, people in apartments, nursing homes, schools, and businesses). You can do this by posting this notice in a public place or distributing copies by hand or mail.*
This notice is being sent to you by the Yorktown Consolidated Water System. New York State Water System ID#: NY5903469.
Date distributed: July 1, 2020
