99% of state’s 2,500 Public Water Systems compliant with lead standards

As controversy continues to swirl around the water crisis in Flint, MI, where that city’s public water supply has been contaminated with toxic levels of lead, the Connecticut Department of Public Health (DPH) today announced that 99% of the state’s approximately 2,500 Public Water Systems (PWS) are in compliance with federal lead standards for drinking water.  DPH’s Drinking Water Section (DWS) oversees the administration of state and federal drinking water regulations for those systems, which provide water to roughly 2.9 million Connecticut residents and visitors on a daily basis.  

“Safe drinking water is crucial for the health of Connecticut’s residents, and the Department of Public Health takes very seriously our responsibility for protecting this valuable resource,” said Dr. Raul Pino, Commissioner of the Department of Public Health.  “DPH vigorously enforces state and federal drinking water standards and takes appropriate action, when necessary, to ensure the quality and adequacy of the state’s public drinking water sources.”

In Connecticut, there are 1,058 PWSs required to comply with the federal Safe Drinking Water Act and its Lead and Copper Rule (LCR), which requires testing to minimize lead and copper levels in drinking water. There are currently 14 PWSs, serving approximately 2,000 CT residents, which are not in compliance with the lead requirement.  DPH is working with the PWSs to help bring them back into compliance as soon as possible and to ensure that residents served by those systems are fully informed so they can take all necessary precautions to avoid the contaminated water. A full report of all PWSs out of compliance with the lead requirements can be found on the DPH DWS website:  www.ct.gov/dph/publicdrinkingwater under “Featured Links.” [Editor’s Note:  A complete list of the systems currently out of compliance can be found at the bottom of this press release]

“We have verified that each of the systems currently out of compliance with the lead action level has notified residents of the exceedance and the steps needed to avoid the contaminated water until the system has remediated the issue and further testing confirms lead levels have decreased below the federal standard,” said Lori Matthieu, Chief of the DPH’s Drinking Water Section. 

“DPH monitors for incidences of elevated blood lead levels in children statewide and will follow all necessary steps to ensure the safety of children, should we receive reports of elevated levels,” said Suzanne Blancaflor, Chief of DPH’s Environmental Health Section. 

DWS oversees PWSs for water quality monitoring and reporting, approval of treatment plans, infrastructure upgrades, new water sources, completion of sanitary surveys and enforcement of Federal and State drinking water mandates.  Each year, DWS:

• Conducts approximately 600 PWS engineering inspections;
• Reviews approximately 400 treatment and permit applications;
• Receives over 500,000 PWS water quality results;
• Issues roughly 44 formal enforcement actions, and 1,750 informal actions;
• Loans $20 million to PWSs through the state’s Drinking Water State Revolving Fund Program (DWSRF) for infrastructure upgrades and  improvements;
• Protects the state’s over 4,000 high quality sources of public drinking water through review of the sale and use of land owned by public water systems; public water systems collectively own over 100,000 acres that protect public drinking water sources.

Consumers with questions about their drinking water should contact their PWS with questions, or consult the annual water quality report, known as a consumer confidence report (CCR), which is required to be distributed annually before July 1^st by each PWS.