DRINKING WATER NOTICE

IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR DRINKING WATER

Tests Showed Coliform Bacteria
in Centerville School’s Water

Our water system recently violated a drinking water standard. Although this incident was not an emergency, as our customers, you have a right to know what happened and what we did to correct this situation.

The State of Delaware, Division of Public Health’s Office of Drinking Water routinely monitors for drinking water contaminants. They collected three (3) samples to test for the presence of coliform bacteria during October. Two (2) of the samples showed the presence of total coliform bacteria. The standard is that no more than one sample per month may exceed the MCL.

What should I do?

• You do not need to boil your water or take other corrective actions. However, if you have specific health concerns, consult your doctor.
• People with severely compromised immune systems, infants and some elderly, may be at an increased risk. These people should see advice about drinking water from their health care providers. General guidelines on ways to lessen the risk of infection by microbes are available from EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Hotline at 1-800-426-4791.

What does this mean?

This is not an emergency. If it had been, you would have been notified immediately. Coliform bacteria are generally not harmful themselves. Coliforms are bacteria which are naturally present in the environment and are used as an indicator that other, potentially-harmful bacteria may be present. Coliforms were found in more samples than allowed and this was a warning of potential problems.

Usually, coliforms are a sign that there could be a problem with the system’s treatment or distribution system (pipes). Whenever we detect coliform bacteria in any sample, we do follow-up testing to see if other bacteria of greater concern, such as fecal coliform or E. coli, are present. We did not find any of these bacteria in our subsequent testing. If we had, we would have notified you immediately. However, we are still finding coliforms in the drinking water.

What happened? What was done?

The well will be chlorinated and the system will be flushed.

The Delaware Division of Public Health’s Office of Drinking Water is still detecting coliform bacteria. We will inform you when our sampling indicates that no bacteria are present. We anticipate resolving the problem within two (2) weeks.

For more information, please contact Bob Conley at (302) 571-0230 or Jim Richardson at (302) 741-8581.

Please share this information with all the other people who drink this water, especially those who may not have received this notice directly.

This notice is being sent to you by Centerville School.

Public Water System ID#: DE0000067

Date Distributed: 10/19/09