Some residents on New Orleans’ East Bank received a letter in the mail from the Sewerage and Water Board notifying them of a drinking water requirement violation.
The letters were sent on July 22 and reached some residents this week. The incident in question happened on April 23.
The letter describes that for one hour, some of the drinking water treated at the Carrollton Water Treatment Plant exceeded maximum allowed turbidity, or cloudiness, limits.
Dr. Melissa Gonzales is an environmental health sciences professor at Tulane, and explained what this means.
“They have measurements of turbidity to estimate and kind of evaluate how well they are doing with treating their water, particularly cleaning out large particles, essentially filtration,” she said.
Some residents were left wondering if they should be worried that they consumed this water. The short answer is no.
WDSU reached out to the Sewerage and Water Board for more information on the incident. They said water samples taken in April did not indicate any bacteria, and turbidity alone does not carry specific health impacts.
The letter did say that people who are elderly, pregnant, severely immunocompromised, or have an infant may be at an increased risk of being impacted by this.
With the incident happening three months ago, Gonzales said it should now just serve as a reminder to those at risk.
“So this is kind of an alert to let you know if you fall into those categories that maybe you should be paying attention to your water quality more often, maybe you should filter it, maybe you should use distilled water, maybe you should consider other filtration methods,” she said.
The Sewerage and Water Board sent WDSU a statement which in part said:
“This was an isolated, non-recurring issue. It does, however, underscore the need for continued and increased investment in the Carrollton Water Treatment Plant, consistent with the goals outlined in the Water Quality Master Plan.”
As far as the timing of the letters, WDSU reached out to Councilmember Aimee McCarron.
“We are aware of this issue and have heard from several residents about the letters. The ordinance reforming Sewerage and Water Board’s governing structure requires a more streamlined communication process for these — and all other — types of customer notifications. We will be reviewing these processes as the Council takes the reins over the next few weeks,” she stated.
The council is set to vote on the aforementioned ordinance this week.
READ MORE:Sewerage and Water Board letters sent to customers: What you need to know about water quality
