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2021 Annual Drinking Water Quality Report For the City of Whitefish Water Utility We are pleased to present to you this year's Annual Water Quality Report. This report is designed to inform you about the quality water and services we deliver to you every day. Our constant goal is to provide you with a safe and dependable supply of drinking water. We want you to be informed of the efforts we make to continually improve the water treatment process and protect our water resources. We are committed to ensuring the quality of your water. Our water source is surface water collected from the Haskill Basin watershed and from Whitefish Lake. A water filtration plant and Whitefish Lake pumping station were completed in November of 2000 at a total cost of over 6.2 million dollars. The City completed a capacity expansion to the existing treatment plant in the fall of 2021 at a total cost of over 9.3 million dollars. Financing for the project consisted of City reserves and a loan from the State Revolving Fund Program administered by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality. We are pleased to report that our drinking water is safe and meets federal and state requirements. If you have any questions about this report or concerning your water utility, please contact Craig Workman, Public Works Director at [PHONE REDACTED]. We want our valued customers to be informed about their water utility. If you want to learn more, please attend any of our regularly scheduled City Council meetings. They are held on the first and third Monday’s of each month at 7:10 PM in the City Council chambers located at Second Street and Baker Avenue. The City of Whitefish routinely monitors for constituents in your drinking water according to Federal and State laws. The test results table on the back shows the results of all contaminants detected for the period of January 1st to December 31st, 2021. Some of our data in the tables are more than one year old, since certain chemical contaminants are monitored less than once a year. Sample dates for samples from prior years are noted in the table. Our sampling frequency complies with EPA and State drinking water regulations. In the following table you will find many terms and abbreviations you might not be familiar with. To help you better understand these terms we've provided the following definitions: ppm: Parts per million or Milligrams per liter (mg/l) - one part per million corresponds to one minute in two years or a single penny in $10,000. ppb: Parts per billion or Micrograms per liter - one part per billion corresponds to one minute in 2,000 years, or a single penny in $10,000,000. NTU: Nephelometric Turbidity Unit - nephelometric turbidity unit is a measure of the clarity of water. Turbidity in excess of 5 NTU is just noticeable to the average person. pCi/L: Picocuries per liter - a curie is a unit of radioactivity equivalent to 3.7x1010 disintegrations per second. This is approximately the amount of radioactivity in1 gram of radium and the prefix “pico” means a trillionth. AL: Action Level - the concentration of a contaminant that if exceeded, triggers treatment or other requirements that a water system must follow. TT: Treatment Technique - A treatment technique is a required process intended to reduce the level of a contaminant in drinking water. MCL: Maximum Contaminant Level - The “Maximum Allowed” (MCL) is the highest level of a contaminant that is allowed in drinking water. MCLs are set as close to the as feasible using the best available treatment technology. MCLG: Maximum Contaminant Level Goal - The “Goal”(MCLG) is the level of a contaminant in drinking water below which there is no known or expected risk to health. allow for a margin of safety. MRDL: Maximum Residual Detection Limit - The Highest level of a disinfectant allowed in drinking water. There is convincing evidence that addition of a disinfectant is necessary for control of microbial contaminants. Maximum Residual Detection Limit Goal - The level of a drinking water disinfectant below which there is no known or expected risk to health. do not reflect the benefits of the use of disinfectants to control microbial contaminants. Cont.: Continuous monitoring – Instruments that monitor for the listed constituent are on-line and continuously monitor and record results. ---PAGE BREAK--- 2 TEST RESULTS: Contaminants Detected Contaminant Violation Y/N Sample Date Highest Level Detected Range Detected Unit Measurement MCLG MCL Likely Source of Substance Microbiological Contaminants Turbidity N Cont. 0.197 All samples met limits NTU N/A TT Soil runoff, Bacteria, organic material, suspended particles TOC (Total Organic Carbon) N 1.80 0.60 – 1.80 ppm N/A TT Naturally present in the environment Inorganic Contaminants Barium N Jan. 0.12 - ppm 2 2 Erosion of natural deposits; discharge of drilling wastes Copper * N Aug. 2019 0.72 90th Percentile 0.03 – 1.33 ppm 1.3 AL=1.3 Corrosion of household plumbing systems; erosion of natural deposits; Lead * N Aug. 2019 2 90th Percentile ND - 2 ppb 0 AL=15 Corrosion of household plumbing systems, erosion of natural deposits Fluoride N Jan. 0.02 - ppm 4 4 Erosion of natural deposits; Discharge from factories. Nitrate + Nitrite N Jan. 0.04 - ppm 10 10 Runoff from fertilizer use; leaching from septic tanks,. Chloride N Jan. 2017 0.9 - ppm 250 250 Naturally present in the environment Sulfate N Jan. 1.0 - ppm 250 250 Naturally present in the environment *Lead and Copper Rule Testing: The 1994 Federal Lead & Copper Rule mandates a household testing program for these substances. According to the rule, 90% of the samples from high-risk homes must have levels less than 15 parts per billion for lead and 1.3 parts per million for copper. See Lead information below. and Volatile Organic Contaminants Chlorine N Cont. 1.26 0.52 – 1.26 ppm = 4 MRDL= 4 Water additive used to control microbes Haloacetic Acids * [HAA5] N Each Quarter 45* 26 – 91 ppb N/A 60 By-product of drinking water disinfection Total Trihalomethane* [TTHM] N Each Quarter 37* 19 - 54 ppb 0 80 By-product of drinking water disinfection *HAA5 and TTHM Testing: Compliance (and HLD in table) is based on a rolling annual average of the previous four quarterly sample results. Radionuclide Contaminants Gross Alpha Particles N Jan. 2017 -0.5 1.1 - pCi/L 0 15 Erosion of natural deposits of certain minerals that are radioactive Rad. 226 + Rad. 228 N Jan. 2017 1.6 1.1 - pCi/L 0 5 Erosion of natural deposits The sources of drinking water (both tap water and bottled water) include rivers, lakes, streams, ponds, reservoirs, springs, and wells. As water travels over the surface of the land or through the ground, it dissolves naturally- occurring minerals and, in some cases, radioactive materials, and can pick up substances resulting from the presence of animals or from human activity. Contaminants that may be present in source water include: • Microbial contaminants, such as viruses and bacteria, which may come from sewage treatment plants, septic systems, agricultural livestock operations, and wildlife. • Inorganic contaminants, such as salts and metals, which can be naturally occurring or result from urban stormwater runoff, industrial or domestic wastewater discharges, oil and gas production, mining or farming. • Pesticides and herbicides, which may come from a variety of sources such as agriculture, urban stormwater runoff, and residential uses. • Organic chemical contaminants, including and volatile organic chemicals, which are by-products of industrial processes and petroleum production, and can also come from gas stations, urban stormwater runoff, and septic systems. • Radioactive contaminants, which can be naturally-occurring or be the result of oil and gas production and mining activity. ---PAGE BREAK--- 3 In order to ensure that tap water is safe to drink, EPA prescribes regulations which limit the amount of certain contaminants in water provided by public water systems. FDA regulations establish limits for contaminants in bottled water which must provide the same protection for public health. MCL’s are set at very stringent levels. To understand the possible health effects described for many regulated constituents, a person would have to drink 2 liters of water every day at the MCL level for a lifetime to have a one-in-a-million chance of having the described health effect. All drinking water, including bottled water, may reasonably be expected to contain at least small amounts of some contaminants. The presence of contaminants does not necessarily indicate that the water poses a health risk. More information about contaminants and potential health effects can be obtained by calling the Environmental Protection Agency’s Safe Drinking Water Hotline at (1-[PHONE REDACTED]). Some people may be more vulnerable to contaminants in drinking water than the general population. Immuno- compromised persons such as persons with cancer undergoing chemotherapy, persons who have undergone organ transplants, people with HIV/AIDS or other immune system disorders, some elderly, and infants can be particularly at risk from infections. These people should seek advice about drinking water from their health care providers. EPA/CDC guidelines on appropriate means to lessen the risk of infection by and other microbiological contaminants are available from the Safe Drinking Water Hotline (1-[PHONE REDACTED]). Lead: If present, elevated levels of lead can cause serious health problems, especially for pregnant women and young children. Lead in drinking water is primarily from materials and components associated with service lines and home plumbing. The City of Whitefish is responsible for providing high quality drinking water, but cannot control the variety of materials used in plumbing components. When your water has been sitting for several hours, you can minimize the potential for lead exposure by flushing your tap for 30 seconds to 2 minutes before using water for drinking or cooking. If you are concerned about lead in your water, you may wish to have your water tested. Information on lead in drinking water, testing methods, and steps you can take to minimize exposure is available from the Safe Drinking Water Hotline (1-[PHONE REDACTED]) or at http://www.epa.gov/safewater/lead. Our water system has been granted a reduced monitoring wavier for inorganic chemicals (phase 2-5) sampling. As our customers, you have a right to know why we are not sampling. We are required to monitor your drinking water for specific contaminants on a regular basis. Results of regular monitoring are an indicator that the drinking water has or has not met health standards. We will not conduct monitoring for antimony, barium, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, fluoride, mercury, nickel, selenium, and thallium because we have been granted a reduced monitoring waiver by DEQ. This waive is based on the analytical results for these chemicals. Please share this information with all the other people who drink this water, especially those who may not have received this notice directly (for example, people in apartments, nursing homes, schools, and businesses). You can do this by posting this notice in a public place or distributing copies by hand or mail. Thank you for allowing us to continue providing your family with clean, quality water this year. In order to maintain a safe and dependable water supply we sometimes need to make improvements that will benefit all of our customers. These improvements are sometimes reflected as rate structure adjustments. Thank you for your understanding. We ask that all our customers help us protect our water sources, which are the heart of our community, our way of life and our children’s future. Please feel free to call our office if you have any questions or comments.