November 16, 2016
The
City of Evanston confirms that the water is safe for use. This confirmation is based on water
samples collected at several locations in the James Park area and other areas
in Evanston.
On Monday, November 14, City Council approved the collection of additional drinking water samples for testing. Staff is preparing to collect water samples from a total of 68 sites, including the 15 sites where samples were collected in rounds 1 through 3, 46 additional locations where property owners had requested sampling prior to October 20, 2016, and 7 additional locations to have at least one sample from each ward.
Staff is contracting with SCS Engineers, the firm that collected the previous samples, to collect these additional samples and have them analyzed for Volatile Organic Compounds and Semi-volatile Organic Compounds (including fluoranthene and phenanthrene).
Sample collection will begin on Monday, November 28 and continue through Friday, December 2, 2016 with the first collection appointment at 7:00 AM and the last collection appointment at 5:00 PM each day. Sample collection must be completed each day by 6:30 PM to allow the samples to be packed in ice and delivered to FedEx prior to 8:00 PM in order to have next-day delivery to the laboratory that will be analyzing the samples.
Staff will be contacting the residents that requested their water be tested during the week of November 14, 2016 to schedule their collection time. Collection of the water samples take approximately 1 hour and must be collected from an indoor faucet.
Unfortunately, samples will only be collected from properties that requested testing prior to October 20, 2016. Several more property owners have requested sampling after this date, and they will be contacted if the City decides to collect another round of samples.
Round 4 water quality sampling sites map.
Water samples are tested for two types of coal-tar compounds, Fluoranthene and Phenanthrene. These
compounds are polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Neither the Illinois
Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) nor the United States Environmental Protection
Agency (USEPA) established a maximum contaminant level (MCL) for Fluoranthene
or Phenanthrene in public drinking water supply systems.
During the last three rounds of testing, the highest concentration of Phenanthrene
found was 0.054 ppb and the highest concentration of Fluoranthene found was 0.029
ppb. The potable water standard for Phenanthrene is 210 ppb and for
Fluoranthene is 280 ppb. The water testing results are significantly (99.9%)
below the potable water standards.
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