According to the Palm Beach Post today, reporting on West Palm Beach drinking water:"The recent contamination of the city's water system most likely happened sometime between Sept. 19 and Sept. 25, as many as nine days before a boil-water order was issued on Sept. 28, city officials said Tuesday.
Because of the city's pattern of sampling, which involves testing only certain parts of the city each day, the samples containing fecal coliform and E. coli bacteria weren't taken until Sept. 26 and the results didn't come in until Sept. 28."
Nice. I hope people don't get sick.
3 comments:
Oh, YUK!
Hmmm
From today’s Herald and WLRN news
“ENVIRONMENT
Cities push tap water as `better than bottled'
...At least a half-dozen South Florida cities bottle their tap water, said Jerry York, spokesman for Cascade Spring Water in Lake Placid.
North Miami Beach bottled roughly 80,000 bottles of its drinking water last year, donating most to local sports teams and nonprofits to help their city brand get a little publicity.
The city also bottles five-gallon jugs to use in city water coolers....”
S
Editorial
City's theory won't wash
Palm Beach Post
Thursday, October 11, 2007
West Palm Beach water customers were relieved Friday when the city fingered a laundry business as the potential source of bacteria that forced a 10-day boil-water order.
By blaming Gold Coast Linen Services, the city could portray its water crisis as an isolated event, rather than a chronic systemic problem of
unknown origin. Mayor Lois Frankel hailed the utilities staff's detective work and all but excused the city. "This issue was not a failure of our
water system," she said. "We believe we have found the source (of the contamination). That source has been shut off."
But the mayor's allegations against Gold Coast are based on self-serving guesswork, not hard evidence. Testing of the laundry's water has not found the bacteria, and her continuing defense of the city's water system and monitoring procedures is just plain wrong.
In fact, it was a failure of the system. Testing of contaminated areas was
so infrequent that customers might have been drinking E. coli with their
water for as long as nine days. Public health officials called the city's
sampling methods and record-keeping inadequate. West Palm Beach has had
repeated problems with water quality and delivery, but the overhaul of the
system still is being planned.
Rather than push the circumstantial case against Gold Coast, Mayor Franke
l
should acknowledge the city's obvious culpability because of shoddy
maintenance and procedures. Who can blame the owners of the laundry, which
has operated at the location for decades, for feeling like scapegoats?
www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2007/10/11/w12a_lead
edit_laundry_1011.html
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