In the Legals section of The [Maryville] Daily Times, the South Blount Utility District Water has a post regarding their continuing drinking water problems. Higher than acceptable lead levels are being reported, 0.015mg/L versus 0.036mg/L. High levels of lead were reported for the South Blount Utilitiy District in 2006 and 2008.

As in the past, the blame is put on homes built prior to 1987, which may contain lead solder joints on plumbing.

This problem has been lingering for at least three years. The lead levels do appear to be going down, but they are still twice the actionable level. Why can't South Blount Utility District provide acceptable drinking water? Are other water districts having this problem? Don't they have homes built prior to 1987?

According to the South Blount Utility District, here are some important safeguards regarding drinking water:

• Do not drink of cook with water from the hot water tap.
• Do not boil the water in an attempt to remove contaminants. Lead remains in the water and cannot be boiled away.
• Run the water for 15-30 seconds before drinking or using to flush standing water from pipes.

For more information, contact South Blount Utility District, 865-982-3560.

A resident in the South Blount Utility District said they got a notice of violation of safe drinking water standards indicating their drinking water was contaminated with high levels of lead.

According to the resident, the notice says the "action level" (upper limit) for lead in the water is .015 mg/l, and the June 2008 measurement was .075 mg/l, which is five times the allowable amount.

The notice reportedly said residents should run their water longer or consider using bottled drinking water.

Maybe an expert can explain how running your water longer will help if the lead is already in the water from the source? Also, it's too bad people are being advised to run their water longer in the middle of a drought. And not everyone can afford bottled drinking water.

Has anyone else received a similar notice? (We're on Alcoa city water, and it usually gets A+ reports and I don't recall ever receiving such a notice.)

At any rate, does anyone know if Mayor Jerry Cunningham has advised the South Blount Utility commissioners to do something about the lead in South Blount Utility water if they want to keep their jobs?

The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation says "Infants and children who drink water containing lead in excess of the action level could experience delays in their physical or mental development. Children could show slight deficits in attention span and learning abilities. Adults who drink this water over many years could develop kidney problems or high blood pressure."

UPDATE: This is not the first time. The utility had violations in February of this year. District manager Henry Durant said at the time "We're out of compliance, and we're desperately trying to find a solution." There were also violations in 2006.

SBUD says the problem is with older homes which have copper plumbing with lead solder on joints. This is why running the water longer is supposed to help. According to TDEC, utilities that test positive for lead in drinking water at the tap are supposed to treat the water with a "corrosion inhibitor," which is a "substance capable of reducing the corrosivity of water toward metal plumbing materials, especially lead and copper, by forming a protective film on the interior surface of those materials." Sounds tasty! Does anyone know if SBUD has done this?

So now the question is, why the big rush to add fluoride to the water? It would seem that lead in the water is a serious, well documented, well understood problem in terms of its effects on human health. Shouldn't removing lead take priority over adding fluoride? Has Mayor Cunningham remarked on the levels of lead in SBUD drinking water, or offered a plan to address the problem?

UPDATE: The Maryville Daily Times reports today (Aug. 13) that SBUD says the problem is isolated to older homes with lead pipe or plumbing with lead solder and that they do not have any supply lines with lead pipes. According to the article, SBUD says they took steps in June to implement changes recommended by a Virginia expert regarding anti-corrosion treatment of the water. The article says the problem has been ongoing since 2006, but does not say if anti-corrosion treatment was added before June of this year as required by law. The article also quotes the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation as saying the utility is still out of compliance but improving. The article doesn't mention if Mayor Cunningham has been involved in monitoring the situation or working with SBUD on solving the problem.

The Maryville Daily Times has an update on all the work by the City of Alcoa and the City of Maryville to provide water for residents and the success of customer conservation efforts.

With the new pipeline running from the impounded part of Little River, Alcoa is in better shape. Maryville is still facing problems, and there's no rain in the forecast.

I found this quote from the article to be a little odd:

Maryville City Manager Greg McClain said, “Maryville and Alcoa have plenty of water now. What we’re dealing with are regulatory restrictions. We can get the water.”

Plenty of water? Has anybody gone out there and looked at Little River where the water treatment plants are or gone up what used to be the Y in Townsend?

He goes on the explain:

The city plans to try to get the cfs lowered because Alcoa now has a 16-million-gallon-a-day plant instead of a 24-million-gallon-a day plant. Part of Maryville’s cfs designation is based on the fact that there must be enough water left in the river past the Maryville plant to supply the Alcoa plant downstream.

In this context his remarks make a little more sense, as long as Alcoa would in fact have "plenty of water" downstream. On the other hand, it sounds like Alcoa might have actually, you know, planned for the future when they got their permit.

I don't know the guy, and maybe he's a Democrat and a paragon of progressive government, but "there's plenty of water, it's just a regulatory problem" sounds like more right-wing free market voodoo policy making.

The same article quotes assistant Maryville director of water quality control Jack Graham as saying the previous record low flow for Little River was 51 cfs in 1952. It was 41 Friday. That doesn't sound like plenty of water to me. And no amount of deregulation is going to make it rain or put more water in the river.

As expected, the City of Alcoa passed a water restriction ordinance at a special meeting this morning.

The ordinance gives the city the tools to enforce mandatory restrictions on non-essential water use if there is a declared emergency. (At the present time, the city has not declared an emergency.)

Here are the pertinent details on the new ordinance as passed on second reading:

SECTION 1, That when the flow downstream at City of Alcoa withdrawal operations in Little River at Mile 9.7 is 30 cubic feet per second (CFS) or less, appeal to the water customers of the system will be made through the news media for voluntary water conservation.

SECTION 2, When the flow downstream of said withdrawal operations is 25 CFS or less, water supplied to customers of the system shall not be used for non-essential purposes. For this purpose "non-essential purposes'; shall include but not necessarily be limited to filling swimming pools, car washing, car washing facilities, recreational facilities and watering of trees, lawns, gardens and other vegetation.

SECTION 3. When the flow downstream of the withdrawal operations is 23 CFS or less the amount of water consumed by large industrial customers and large non-residential / non-health care commercial customers should be reduced by approximately Five Percent (5%) of their average daily consumption until notice is given that the restriction is no longer in effect.

The ordinance allows for fines from $25 to $50 for each violation, and each day that a violation occurs counts as a separate offense.

The full text of the ordinance is attached here (PDF format).

The Maryville Daily Times reports that the City of Alcoa will hold special emergency meetings to consider a water use restriction ordinance.

The first special meeting on the ordinance will be at 9:30 AM at the Municipal Building. The second meeting will be at 9:45 for a second reading of the ordinance and presumably a vote. We're guessing it will pass.