INSIDE

District OKs water improvement project

By Meg Olson

The Point Roberts water district commissioners have given the go-ahead to Tiger Construction for improvements to the water system intended to improve disinfection of the water which could also help with looming water quality issues.

To the basic $420,000 of disinfection and monitoring improvements the state health department is asking for, water commissioners approved an additional $35,000 to add mixing diffusers to the Benson road reservoir and to repaint the exterior. “That will reduce the staleness of the water and one of the problems we may be having with trihalomethanes is water staying in the system too long,” said commissioner Art Wilkowski at the October 14 commissioners meeting.

District manager Dan Bourks told commissioners in September that the district’s water supply was dangerously close to not meeting newly-established state standards for trihalomethanes, a disinfection by-product which may have long-term health effects. “We may see some improvement with what we’re doing here,” Wilkowski said.

District engineer Bob Bergstrom said the district would be trying to hit a moving target trying to keep up with regulations on disinfection by-products, since both federal and state regulations are on the verge of changing.

“There’s this regulatory balance between killing off the pathogens and the possible side-effects of the byproducts of the disinfection,” he said. “You have to understand this as a compromise.” In Canada, where there have been high-profile cases of communities being hit by e.coli contamination of their water supply, the emphasis is on killing bacteria, Bergstrom said. In the United States there haven’t been those kinds of cases so the emphasis today is to do some of both: disinfect and keep by-products low.

Bergstrom said new regulations for disinfection byproducts were expected by next year and small water districts would have seven to 10 years to comply. “Right now we need to study the system more,” Wilkowski said.

Commissioner Sue Johnson said she’d also like to see more public education about the possible effect of disinfection byproducts and how consumers can avoid them in their water. “We may have 10 years but we shouldn’t drag our feet,” she said. Bergstrom said while a personal pitcher charcoal drip filter system might eliminate “a little” of the trihalomethanes, the solution on this side of the border would probably be for the district to install an activated charcoal pressure vessel system, at about $200,000. Another option would be to change the disinfection method to something like ultraviolet irradiation and filtration, which Bourks said the Vancouver water system was adopting.

Wilkowski pointed out as Vancouver put in those improvements and stopped chlorinating, the Point’s water supply might no longer have a problem with disinfection by-products. “It’s probably better to wait and let someone else invent the wheel,” he said.