Manassas's Water Fails U.S., State Standards
Council May Expedite Planned Plant Upgrades

By Christy Goodman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 7, 2007

Think twice before drinking the water.

The Virginia Department of Health notified Manassas that it violated state and federal drinking water standards this summer. Drinking water from Lake Manassas had exceeded the allowable levels of total trihalomethanes under the state's water regulations and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency testing.

Total trihalomethanes (TTHM) are the most common byproducts of chlorine in the water system reacting to algae, leaves and other organic materials, said Michael C. Moon, director of the Manassas Public Works Department. The water system is allowed to have an yearly average of 80 parts per billion but was told it reached 82 sometime between July and September, Moon said. Manassas uses chlorine to disinfect the drinking water from Lake Manassas.

Lake Manassas supplies water to 38,000 people and businesses. Manassas Park and Prince William County have been taking limited water from the lake because of the drought.

This summer, the drought and heat helped algae to grow in the lake. The city's last violation was in 2002, during another severe drought, officials said.

The long-term health effects of those byproducts in humans is inconclusive, and the water is safe to drink, Moon said. But TTHM has been known to cause cancer in animals, he said. A 1998 California study found that drinking five glasses of water with high levels of TTHM per day for three months might be linked to miscarriages. Those results were found to be inconclusive in a 2005 study by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Manassas is using an "overabundance of caution" to make sure the public is aware of the violation, City Manager Lawrence D. Hughes said. Each household will receive public notice of the violation, he said.

"It is something we've had in the past, but it is our goal to eliminate it," Moon said.

The Manassas City Council will vote to accelerate planned upgrades at the water plant this month, he said. The move will allow the Virginia Department of Health to review plant designs while the city opens a bid and selects a contractor before the end of the year, "so as not to face this next summer," Moon said.

The upgrade includes a switch from chlorine to chloramines, which because of its chemical mixture would disinfect the water but not create the byproducts, said Dominic Brancaccio, Manassas's assistant director of sewer and water services.

The city will work to reduce the amount of chlorine added to the water and regularly test the water while it works to decrease the organic matter in the system before the required quarterly test in December, Brancaccio said.

Nature also will assist -- this is the time of year algae dies, Hughes said.

Lake Manassas is 10 feet below capacity. There are about 3 billion gallons of water in the lake, compared with 5 billion when it is full, Brancaccio said. If the lake drops three more feet, mandatory water restrictions will be put in place.

NSF International, a nonprofit organization that helps write standards for food and water and certifies products, has listings of home products that help remove various types of byproducts in water, Brancaccio said. For information, visit http://www.nsf.org/consumer.