Littleton area residents connected to the town’s water system recently learned the system had violated federal safety standards for a common contaminant, but local and state officials said this week the water is safe and there no longer appears to be any problem.
As required by law, the town sent out notices to all the water system customers, informing them the system had exceeded allowable standards of total trihalomethanes, or TTHMs, during the period July 1, 2005 to June 30, 2006.
Laura Leonard, public information officer for the North Carolina Division of Environmental Health, said the actual violation took place between April 1 and June 30 of 2006.
She explained the system’s water is tested quarterly, and it was during that period the TTHM concentration was too high.
TTHMs are a by-product of using chlorine to purify water, she said. Thus, the agent used to make the water safe from bacteria and germs leads to the formation of TTHMs.
Federal regulations set the allowable presence of TTHMs at 0.08 milligrams per liter (mg/L), also known as 0.08 parts per million. The violating sample taken from the Littleton system registered at 0.09 mg/L.
Although in violation of the federal standards, Littleton Wastewater Superintendent Keith Hamm said at that level, the general consensus among health and environmental professions is that a healthy person would have to drink seven gallons of contaminated water per day for seventy years before suffering ill effects from the TTHMs. He said those most susceptible to TTHM-related problems are children, the elderly, and anyone with a weakened immune system.
Leonard said Hamm’s statement is accurate. She said those who have been exposed to high levels of TTHM over many years might experience problems with their livers, kidneys, or central nervous system, or they may be at increased risk of developing certain types of cancer.
She said water systems nationwide struggle with keeping TTHM levels within those allowed by federal guidelines, since the Environmental Protection Agency lowered the acceptable numbers in 2005. Prior to that, she said, levels up to 0.1 parts per million were allowed.
Leonard also said Littleton’s water system is a secondary system, meaning it purchases its water from another supplier and has little control over the chlorine use, and TTHM content, prior to the water entering its system.
The system purchases its water from Halifax County, though Hamm was quick to point out the problem does not lie with the Halifax water department. He said when the water enters the Littleton system, the levels of TTHMs are not too high.
“You control TTHMs with heavy water flow,” he said, explaining that keeps the material from building up in the water. “With our system’s use, there just isn’t enough flow to keep the TTHMs from building up.”
He said the only solution he’s been able to come up with is regular flushing by opening the town’s water hydrants.
“If we do that once a quarter, that keeps the levels down … but it’s still an expense to the town. We have to pay for every thousand gallons of water we use, they (Halifax) don’t excuse us for the amount of water we use in flushing,” he said. “It’s not their (Halifax’s) fault. It’s just that we have a closed system.”
Frank Randolph, public utility director for Halifax County, said he empathizes with Hamm, because he faces the same problem in one of the water systems he manages.
“We don’t have the problem in the system that feeds Littleton,” he said. But, the system it manages for customers outside of the town of Enfield – where it purchases the water from the town and then sells it to county customers – struggles to stay within the allowable limit.
Randolph said his solution is the same as Hamm’s – regular flushing of the system with the fire hydrants.
That seems to be working.
Leonard said Littleton’s system has had no additional TTHM violations since the one recorded last year.