City Water Quality Makes the Naughty List: Leaves a Bad Taste with the SD Water Department
By Ron James

San Diego has been tapped as having the ninth-worst big city tap water in the nation, according to the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit watchdog organization.
But the city’s Public Utilities Department is crying foul, dismissing the data and proclaiming its water is safe and meets all EPA guidelines.
On Dec. 12, EWG, which works to protect public health and the environment, released the results of a three-year investigation of municipal water supplies across the U.S. San Diego ranked 92nd out of 100, near the bottom of the list. According to EWG, the contaminant data from water samples gathered by the San Diego Water Department showed unsafe levels of a number of chemicals over a four-year span since — chemicals that over a long period of time could cause cancer and liver disease.
The study examined the water quality of 100 cities with a population of 250,000 or more. The findings were based on water quality tests conducted over a four-year period by 47,667 utilities from 45 states and the District of Columbia.
The conflict between EWG’s conclusions and the city’s emphatic rejection of the findings seems to be centered on the exact source of the data. The city also rejected the methodology used in the study.
In San Diego’s case, EWG’s findings were based on water test results that were sent from the San Diego Water Department to the California Department of Public Health. EWG’s ratings were based on the total number of harmful chemicals detected since 2004, the percentage of chemicals found, and the highest average level for each pollutant compared with the legal limits and national averages.
The EWG report was completely misleading, said the city’s Public Utilities Department spokesman, Arian Collins, in an e-mail responding to a request for comment from the Uptown News. He was unsure of where EWG got its data, but said it didn’t reflect the official results of the city’s yearly water quality reports.
“We believe testing untreated water is how EWG reached its findings,” Collins said. “It seems the most logical explanation, but we don’t know for sure since all we have to go by is the same information you have. I would suggest you contact the EWG for more info on how it gathered its samples and why its findings are at odds with ours.”
“Our treated water meets all state and EPA guidelines, and we do not detect the contaminants that the group lists in its report in our treated water,” Collins said. “We continuously monitor the drinking water to assure that it meets the high standards of the U.S. Safe Drinking Water Act. In short, if our water did not meet EPA and state guidelines, we could not distribute it to our customers.”
EWG said it got the tap water monitoring data from the California Department of Public Health, which received it from the San Diego water utility. That report showed San Diego’s water contained 17 chemicals in amounts that exceeded health guidelines — the national average is four. The San Diego data also showed the presence of six chemicals in amounts exceeding the legal limit, with the national average being .5. Among the chemicals in San Diego’s water that exceeded the legal limit most frequently were tetrachloroethylene and trichloroethylene — both suspected carcinogens. The city of San Diego’s official 2008 water quality report showed neither of those chemicals.
EWG said it reviewed the data for inconsistencies and systematically looked for test results outside the expected range which would indicate potential errors. They contacted state water agencies to discuss and correct data that was inaccurate. EWG briefed major water utility trade associations and provided their members with a three-week window to review the state agency data they had compiled. More than 200 water utilities reviewed the work and either verified the statistics or provided corrections.
It is unclear whether the San Diego Water Department reviewed the EWG data.
“San Diego data shows spikes of contaminates,” said EWG analyst Mmeka Leiba. “Because of the water quality reporting protocols, the (city’s) yearly report may not show levels of contaminants that exceed health guidelines because they use the net average over the year to produce their test results. The problem is that if there are people drinking a lot of water during those spikes there could be long-term consequences.”
EWG spokesperson Lee Ann Brown suggested that the report shouldn’t alarm people, but should make them aware of potential health risks if they don’t modify their drinking habits or force the government to clean up the source of contamination. “We definitely do not advocate people switching to bottled water — it costs 1,900 times as much as tap water and there’s no regulation for bottled water,” Brown said. “We suggest that people get a simple filter that matches up with the particular chemicals in your city water. We have a list of filters that are specific to water problems on our Web site.”