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Is your drinking water safe?
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Posted on May 01 2002
Two bottled water companies were cited for their failure to monitor bacterial contamination on the water product they sell, as the Division of Environmental Quality disclosed that it has issued 28 notices of violation in connection with its drinking water regulations.
For the bottled water companies, the DEQ said what it tested are the water products before they are bottled.
“Just this past week, the Safe Drinking Water Branch issued 28 notices of violation regarding the total coliform rule. Thirteen went to public water systems for failure to monitor total coliform bacteria. Two went to bottled water companies for the same violation,” said DEQ public information officer Rebecca Snider.
The respective notices of violation were issued against Crystal Water on Saipan, and Tinian Crystal Clear on Tinian.
David Schmidt, an environmental scientist at the DEQ’s Safe Drinking Water Branch, said that the agency is also conducting inspections of bottled water products, together with the Department of Public Health.
“There’s another kind of program that goes on where we do random samples from the bottles themselves, and that’s really under the jurisdiction of Public Health,” Schmidt said. “But we have an agreement with them. We’ll go out once a month and go to a few of these bottled water companies and have it tested for coliform bacteria.”
Schmidt said, however, that there were many instances in the past where the contamination resulted from the bottle, and not the water itself.
DEQ public information officer Rebecca Snider said that of the 28 notices of violations it issued for the coliform testing requirement of the Safe Drinking Water Regulations, eight actually had positive samples for coliform, exceeding the maximum allowable level.
Four were for failure to collect repeat samples and another one was for failure to collect adequate repeat samples. In these instances, there were also samples positive for the bacteria.
Schmidt said the high number of citations indicates the improved monitoring capability of the DEQ.
