In one Idaho community, point-of-use treatment challenges traditional notions of onsite water treatment.
By DeWitt Smith
In the 1935 comedy Arsenic and Old Lace, two elderly spinster aunts kept knocking off elderly male boarders by proffering them arsenic-laced elderberry wine and then putting the bodies in the wine cellar. Within that context, arsenic-laced drinking water sounds scary, but don’t worry—the arsenic in your water won’t kill you. “It’s not like heavy metals that stay in your blood,” assures Dan Milholland, the chairman of the Mores Creek Rim Ranch Water District, a small system outside Boise, ID.
That’s because, at the small levels, it takes years of long exposure before arsenic can affect the body. Nevertheless, even minute levels of arsenic are no laughing matter, as the residents of Boise found out when it recently came to light that their community had a higher-than-allowable ratio of arsenic traces.
Point-of-Source Contamination
Milholland has been dealing with low-level arsenic contamination from the time the problem first came to light in a 1999 lab report. Ever since, he’s made it his mission to become knowledgeable about all the elements involved: the arsenic levels, the ways and regulations of the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, engineer reports, bureaucratic hurdles, and dealing with reluctant homeowners.
Milholland has his own general contracting business in Boise and—like the rest of the directors—is an unpaid member of the Mores Creek Rim Ranch Water District board of directors. “This is a nonprofit municipal water district, and we fall under the federal regulations of any water district serving more than 25 families,” he says. “We serve about 65 families.”
Milholland says that when he first joined the board in 1999 he had little knowledge about the subject. “Getting knowledgeable people to fill a five-person board isn’t easy in a small town,” he explains. “We only met once a month and, at that time, weren’t nearly as organized as we are now. We had someone reading meters and to check that nothing was leaking. The arsenic test is required only once every three years. And when that test came in, we learned that one of our three wells was out of compliance.”
When the board first learned about the problem, it hired an interim engineer who wasn’t working as fast as DEQ wanted. The problem was not just with the DEQ. It also affected homeowners, who couldn’t sell their properties, because the water district was deemed not in compliance on arsenic levels and was decertified. “When the FHA and VA own money on a house, the problem trickles down to the resale of houses,” Milholland says. “So we had to get the problem fixed fast.”
The Mores Creek Rim Ranch Water District is about 150 acres—about 20 miles from Boise. The rural community started as a weekend getaway place. “By the time I moved in, there were permanent residents,” he says. “It started as mobile homes, and now there are families living there.”
The water district was told there were two treatments to fix the problem: source or point of use. The first way would have cost about $378,000, to be split by 65 homes. The other method, the point-of-use treatment under the sink, was more affordable.
“When we found we were not in compliance, and set about how we could fix it, we spoke with people at DEQ,” he explains. Millholland says that the people at DEQ were concerned about more than the water at the kitchen sink. They were concerned about the system not being managed by a water master; they were worried about the management of the thing; and they also really wanted to study and look at it. Milholland believes the time they took to study the problem wasn’t as much foot-dragging as it was a bureaucratic process.
Getting the Water Master on Board
At this point, the water district hired a water master. Enter Butch Anderson.
“I’ve been in the industry since 1981, overseeing water and wastewater for 18 and a half years for a municipality, and I’m a contract operator for small water systems for a lot of subdivisions,” Anderson says. “I came on board in 2002, after the DEQ decertified the system. This has been a long, drawn-out process, because Idaho had not accepted point-of-use for arsenic treatment.”
Anderson had his work cut out from the start. “Our water district was the pioneer for Idaho to accept the point-of-use system,” he says. “The water system was disapproved July 2001, based on federal regulations.”
Since then, a lot of houses had a reverse-osmosis system, and people were drinking bottled water in the interim, he says. The measurement for the decertification was the level of over 100 parts per billion; the old standard had been 50.
“Lowering the standard to 10 caused a lot of problems, but this system has arsenic levels over 100 parts per billion in two out of three wells. It was over double the old standard,” Anderson says.
During the interim, CH2M Hill, a large civil engineering firm based in Boise, replaced the engineer. At that point, the engineers were conducting quarterly testing. The water district retained CH2M to look at the options so Anderson could go back to the board with recommendations. “Initially, they recommended wellhead or source treatment as well as point-of-use,” says Anderson.
Source treatment was out of the question for a community of 65 households. The water quantity was limited, and the water district didn’t have any property around the wellhead to build a water treatment system for waste disposal. The treatment was also very expensive for a small community to bear.
“By treating at the wellhead, you’re treating all the water instead of just a small quantity, so that affects the costs,” Anderson says. “We also looked at drilling another well as another option. But that became a limited option, because of a limited amount of groundwater.”
This evaluation narrowed the field of options. So the water district applied for funding from the state in 2002. “We also had to look at the strings attached, like environmental studies,” Anderson says.
The water district board decided on the DEQ loan, a $25,000 matching grant through the state, and, in 2003, for the state Drinking Water Planning Grant. First, it was hiring a water master; then, it was hiring engineers to evaluate the problem and suggest solutions; and then the board chose the most cost effective program. The next step was probably the most difficult—selling the solution to the homeowners.
Point-of-use was a very negative solution to most people, because of the need to enter their homes. “The only way we were going to accomplish the task of selling point of use was getting 100% agreement,” Anderson says. “The person with the private well decided to disconnect from the system, and that person is still disconnected. It was an educational process.”
Once homeowners realized the installation was scheduled maintenance, like the phone company or cable company, the process moved along. As soon as the point of use method was determined, the next step was getting bids. Two came in, then one dropped out, and that left Culligan the last man standing. “Culligan was involved in the process from the start,” says Anderson. “Culligan installed an arsenic scavenger under the kitchen sink, and the icemakers in refrigerators had to be hooked up to the reverse-osmosis system.”
As for the cost, homeowners had an increase of about $46 more a month, to an average monthly total of $96. Anderson says that includes the cost of installation, the replacement after a five-year life expectancy of the under-the-sink unit, inspections, testing, and maintenance.
“It should have been done a year ago, but there’s a lot of scheduling,” says Anderson. “We had some maintenance issues during the testing, which became an issue. So an installer had to go back to make sure everything was installed properly. That added an extra year to the process.”
Anderson takes it all in stride. “Regulations are never going to quit, and increasing water quality isn’t going to quit,” he says.
State Regulations Are Part of the Deal
Then, of course, there were the DEQ inspectors. Brandon Lowder, a drinking water analyst, and Monty Marchus, a technical engineer, did all the initial reviews. Both are based in the Boise regional office.
“The Rim Ranch Water District had excessive levels even with old standards,” says Steve Staufer, another drinking-water analyst in Boise. “They had levels in some of the wells that were about 50 parts per billion. The new standard is 10 parts.”
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| The Water Tower kit is connected to a
residential water system to purify tap
water. |
The federal Water Drinking Act was passed in 1986, and, in 1996, the EPA set new standards about containment levels. “Every state except Wyoming has the authority to implement and enforce the drinking water act,” he says. In Idaho, DEQ tests to a minimum schedule. “We try in Idaho to work with the system. The water district is formed under Idaho code, and it has very strong powers. They wanted to be respectful of homeowners’ wishes.”
He explains that fixing a problem, like the one Rim Ranch had, is not cheap. What usually happens is the DEQ directs the owner of the public water district to retain a registered professional engineer in the state of Idaho to evaluate proposals and costs in the most efficient way.
Laying everything out according to bureaucratic rules and regulations, Marchus says that prior to the point-of-use treatment, central treatment ensured that everybody got treated water. As standards tightened, the EPA acknowledged that centralized treatment is a wasted cost to the consumer.
Along with allowing point of use, was that the treatment had to be owned, operated, and maintained by the public water system, and the devices had to meet standards set by the National Sanitation Foundations.
“It can be cost-effective to put in these devices in small communities,” says Marchus. “All the devices are installed, and the current problem was identified as some plumbing changes.”
Also, the bureaucratic chain of regulations had to be followed: The district hired the engineer, the engineer developed the specs, and the contractor selected the supplier and installer. “As it was a public water system, the district had to test each device,” Marchus says, “and when all those results come in, we’re able to review the test measures and record the results, and report the monitoring for this project.”
The Light At the End of the Water Tunnel: The Onsite Solution
Milholland says that, after eight years, he’s gotten used to the inch-by-inch state procedures. “Every time we would complete something, the turnaround time for response was slow. I really gathered an education in this experience. The bureaucracy really chews up time.”
On the other hand, the Idaho Department of Water Resources loaned the water district the money it needed. Milholland learned about community presentations, with charts and explaining costs and how it all would work, and letting the residents do the math so they could vote on what system suited them best.
Finally, enter the Culligan man, Mike Glover. Glover is the service manager of Culligan, of Southwest Idaho, and has worked there for five years. He’s quick to clarify how the arsenic levels are represented. The old formula was 0.05 parts per million. The current regulations are 0.01 parts per million.
He also describes how high levels of arsenic in drinking water can cause long-term harm, such as cancer to the lungs and bladder, skin damage, and circulatory problems. Acute effects can include nausea, fatigue, and “pins and needles” sensations in the hands and feet.
As for describing what Culligan installed to fix the problem, Glover says: “It’s actually a two-part system. It’s a reverse-osmosis system, followed by an arsenic scavenger cartridge. There are two different types of arsenic found in water supplies—arsenic III and arsenic V. Arsenic V is substantially reduced through reverse osmosis. Arsenic III needs to be either oxidized to arsenic V or reduced using new iron or alumina-based absorbent medias. The arsenic scavenger cartridge contains these absorbent medias.”
The reverse-osmosis system filters the water initially and removes a high percentage of impurities, including arsenic V. “The water first passes through a 5-micron sediment filter. This is the first step in the process,” Glover says.
Next, the water passes through a carbon filter, which removes chlorine, taste, and odor. For instance, refrigerators use carbon filters to make water taste and smell better. Then, the water goes through the reverse-osmosis membrane, followed by another carbon filter, and, finally, through the arsenic scavenger cartridge.
“So, you have osmosis, which involves the passage of water through a semipermeable membrane from a region of low ionic concentration, to a region of high ionic concentration,” he explains.
How the Filter Process Works
Glover gives a quick science lesson to a reporter who’s not been in a science class in decades. “If you have a semipermeable membrane in a container of water TDS [total dissolved solids] levels are anything that is dissolved in the water.
“Through the process of osmosis, water will want to pass through this membrane from the low-TDS region to the high-TDS region. Reverse osmosis is then achieved by applying pressure to the high-TDS region that forces the water through the membrane to the low TDS region, leaving the dissolved particles behind.
“So fresh tap water is introduced to the high-TDS region to flush these particles to the drain in order to extend the life of the membrane,” Glover says. The water left on the low-TDS side is your drinking water.
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| The four-cylinder Water Tower filter
is where reverse osmosis takes
place. |
Culligan achieves this with what it calls its Water Tower filtration system. The system consists of four separate filters and a storage tank that houses the water that has been filtered. And the portable water tank and cylinders are easily installed under the kitchen sink.
“Typical installation time is between an hour and an hour and a half,” says Glover. “And if there’s an ice maker in the refrigerator, then there’s a separate line, which takes another half hour.”
Usually, the biggest hurdle is dealing with the existing plumbing, but they are all pretty standard, Glover says. The biggest problem would be a leak. “If there’s an existing leak, we notify the customer and let them deal with it accordingly,” he says.
Going back to what causes the arsenic, Milholland says the theory is that it’s because the aquifer is granite, and granite can produce arsenic.
The EPA Web site backs that up and explains further.
A recently released study by the US Geological Survey shows the likely locations of elevated arsenic in New England. Bedrock aquifer wells—often known as rock, deep, or artesian wells—are the most common type of well installed for homes in New England. And it is the bedrock aquifer that has been identified as the primary source of arsenic in the locations where it is elevated, according to the findings. The study, published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, identifies factors that may contribute to high arsenic in wells, and confirms findings from previous studies.
The EPA also says that Western states have higher levels of arsenic in their groundwater than those in other parts of the US. Without identifying the precise source of the arsenic, the EPA refers to the areas as “hotspots.”
The EPA also emphasizes the need for testing water, as arsenic has no smell, taste, or color. Only laboratory analysis can detect its presence.
Looking back, Milholland says he feels a whole lot wiser now. “If I had it to do over, I would have hired a consultant to stay on top and keep things moving better than we did,” Milholland says. “We didn’t know what we were up against. No one had ever suggested that a water district had a pollution problem. I’m an advocate for oversight for safe water, but homeowners didn’t want bureaucracy intrusion. So, that led to concern about solving this in the best interest of the community. And we had to get an access agreement.”
The units were installed and working, finally, in January 2006, that is, before the plumbing leak was discovered. Milholland deserves credit for hanging in there for the duration of this long, bureaucratic-laden process.
“We are a volunteer board of directors, and I was the most junior member of the board in 1999,” Milholland says. “In six months I was the most senior. When we were first faced with the problem, some people got scared and quit. Some sold their houses and moved.”
Milholland has high praise for Culligan. “We’re certainly pleased with Culligan’s performance,” he says. But, Culligan wasn’t the only contributing performer in this eight-year project. This was a lot of drawn-out work for a small board, which Milholland also praises.
“Our water board and many community members did an exemplary job,” he says. “There were a lot of contacts that had to be made, and visiting all the residents, and calling the residents to answer questions to make sure that no one felt they were being pushed into this. We have a good board who works hard, and they don’t get paid for all this work.”
Now that’s community service.
DeWitt Smith is an environmental features writer who lives in Ojai, CA.
OW - March/April 2008 |
