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After Flint, A Closer Look At Reno's Water Quality

Julia Ritchey

The Obama administration announced plans this week to step up its oversight of state agencies in charge of drinking water. This follows revelations earlier this year that authorities in Flint, Mich., repeatedly ignored evidence that lead-contaminated water was reaching the public. Reno Public Radio's Julia Ritchey spoke to some local water managers to get their thoughts on the Flint crisis and how they're working to keep our taps safe.

There are about 600 water systems in the state of Nevada, each in charge of following federal and state drinking water standards. That includes Northern Nevada’s main utility, the Truckee Meadows Water Authority.

“So here’s where water comes into the Chalk Bluff Plant — the Truckee River, maybe about 7 miles upstream, and comes into the Highland Canal, and the canal delivers it by gravity to this plant."

That’s Paul Miller, TMWA’s manager of operations and water quality. He’s giving me a tour of the Chalk Bluff Water Treatment plant, where he’s in charge of ensuring that water from the Truckee River is properly treated.

“All water treatment is is if you ever take a glass of water from the Truckee River and set it on a countertop, you’d see a cloudy glass of water, and it would just sit there and be cloudy," he says. "But once you add this coagulant, it helps those particles grow together and then become larger particles. Then we settle them out and then we filter them out.”

Chalk Bluff is the main source of tap water for this area, serving more than a third of TMWA’s 330,000 customers.

"When I first heard about Flint, I was incredulous. I go: 'How could something like that happen?'"

Credit Julia Ritchey
TMWA's Paul Miller shows a lab inside the Chalk Bluff Water Treatment plant where water quality is tested daily.

  Miller says he's been fielding more questions lately since the Flint crisis unfolded.

"And what TMWA doesn't have, and what everyone's been asking — and what they need to know — is there is no lead pipe within our system," he says. 

Additionally, he says, the utility has an active corrosion control program and that most federal lead and copper rules are more specifically targeted at homes built before 1980 that may have older pipes.

In fact, conditions are different here than they are in Michigan, according to Jennifer Carr, deputy administrator for the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection.

“Very few water systems in Nevada have had an issue with lead. One of those things we get to enjoy is the fact that we have hard water in our area, and that generally makes it less corrosive naturally,” says Carr.

In Michigan, state officials decided two years ago to save money by switching Flint's water supply to the Flint River, which was not being properly treated. As a result, the water eroded old iron and lead pipes, turning the tapwater brown and leeching contaminants into the supply. 

Carr says although lead contamination is fairly rare in Nevada, there are a few problem areas.

“There’s a couple of communities in Douglas County in particular — subdivisions — that we’ve been working with to add corrosion control protection to their water system to eliminate that problem," she says.

For concerned homeowners who are on private wells or who may be in a home with older pipes, Carr says they can look up a lead-analysis lab to test their water. Another option is to use a filter.

“So we would just advise that anyone looking to purchase a filter for their home, to read the fine print to make sure the device is designed and certified to remove lead, because not all of them are.”

TMWA's Paul Miller says they release an annual water quality report online where customers can review the data. They've also been making millions of dollars in capital improvements to their delivery system.

"We're a community water system ... and we all drink the water. And when we go to a restaurant and they sometimes offer you a bottle of water, we say no, we'll drink the tap water. We like it."

Miller says he understands there's a huge degree of public trust when it comes to drinking water, especially after an event like the one in Flint.

Julia Ritchey is a former reporter at KUNR Public Radio.
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