Norton Summons WASA To Explain Water Sampling Goofs- August 23, 2006
Norton Summons WASA To Explain Water Sampling Goofs
August 28, 2006
Washington, DC—Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) said today that she would summon District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (WASA) officials to her office next week following today’s announcement that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had cited WASA for violations of a Safe Drinking Water Act consent order because of an “obvious and inexcusable foul up in 12% of tests on one hundred District of Columbia homes.” Norton said she was “dismayed and disappointed, considering the effects of more bad news on D.C. water following the bombshell revelations” of lead in the water of the nation’s capital two years ago. Congresswoman Norton requested multiple hearings about the lead water crisis, and she and the House Government Reform Committee have closely monitored WASA’s progress towards compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act.
“Confidence was ever so slowly being restored in our drinking water,” she said, “after the frightful discovery in 2004 of elevated lead levels in D.C.’s drinking water supply with no notice to the most vulnerable residents, such as pregnant women, children, HIV/AIDS residents, and the elderly. If sampling is incompetently performed, how can residents be assured that WASA is proficient in assuring lead is not in the water?
Late last year, in accordance with the June 2004 consent order, over a hundred samples were taken from D.C. residences but EPA says that 12% of the samples were not taken in accordance with the June 2004 consent order that requires that drinking water sampling be taken from high-risk residences, not homes that never had lead service lines or homes where the lead service lines had already been replaced, as apparently occurred here. Norton said that she could not understand why such obvious errors were not caught and addressed before submission to EPA. Earlier this session, Norton, along with Senator Jim Jeffords (I-VT), Paul Sarbanes (D-MD) and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), introduced H.R. 3178, the Lead Free Drinking Water Act, to overhaul and strengthen federal rules governing lead testing and standards in the nation’s public water systems.
Late last year, in accordance with the June 2004 consent order, over a hundred samples were taken from D.C. residences but EPA says that 12% of the samples were not taken in accordance with the June 2004 consent order that requires that drinking water sampling be taken from high-risk residences, not homes that never had lead service lines or homes where the lead service lines had already been replaced, as apparently occurred here. Norton said that she could not understand why such obvious errors were not caught and addressed before submission to EPA. Earlier this session, Norton, along with Senator Jim Jeffords (I-VT), Paul Sarbanes (D-MD) and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), introduced H.R. 3178, the Lead Free Drinking Water Act, to overhaul and strengthen federal rules governing lead testing and standards in the nation’s public water systems.