Maine’s three largest cities are among others across the U.S. identified in a recent British newspaper for using testing protocols that could hide lead contamination. But water district officials in Portland, Lewiston and Bangor say the newspaper investigation unfairly compares past testing practices to new federal recommendations released just months ago.
The British newspaper The Guardian conducted its investigation following the lead crisis in Flint, Michigan, that poisoned thousands of children. The newspaper requested testing documents from more than 80 cities in the eastern U.S., where the risk for elevated lead levels is higher because of the older infrastructure.
A little more than half the cities provided information, including Lewiston, says its Director of Public Works Dave Jones.
“We told them straight out that we followed all the rules and regulations that federal and state regulators had given us,” he says.
But according to the Guardian, Lewiston is one of 33 cities that has used water testing protocols in the past decade that distort results. The newspaper cited three techniques that the Enviornmental Protection Agency recommends against: preflushing tap water before taking samples; removing aerators, which are filters that can trap lead; and filling water samples slowly, which prevents lead from dislodging from pipes.
Lewiston was found to have done all three.
“What they’re saying is that the rules and guidelines that the EPA has recently put out were not followed when we last did our testing. The problem is, those rules and guidelines weren’t in place when we last did our testing,” Jones says.
The EPA issued its revised recommendations in February 2016. He says Lewiston last tested its water two years before that. While he’s now aware that the recommendation against removing aerators was first issued in 2006, he says the word was never passed down from EPA region chiefs.
Portland Water District spokeswoman Michelle Clements says removing aerators has never been the practice in Portland.
“We never suggested taking your aerator off before taking a sample. We did receive that notice, but it didn’t affect us,” she says.
The Guardian did cite Portland for asking testers to run water slowly when collecting samples. But Clements says there was a reason for that.
“Gently filling the water bottle was a direct recommendation from the EPA,” she says.
An EPA document on tap collection procedures from 2006 does recommend that testers place a bottle below the faucet and “gently open the cold water tap.”
But the Guardian investigation also says that Portland has asked testers to preflush their water samples, something the newspaper says the EPA has warned against for nearly a decade.
“We have no record of that,” Clements says.
That’s a claim supported by John Martins, spokesman for the Maine Drinking Water Program. In an email, Martins says prior to the latest recommendations in February, the EPA gave no guidance on preflushing.
In fact, the EPA’s memorandum on its new guidelines point out previous recommendations, like the one from 2006 against removing aerators. There is no reference, however, to any previous recommendation on preflushing.
“Scientifically, running the water for a few minutes the night before testing, I would defend that practice,” says Dina Page, water quality manager for the Bangor Water District.
Page says taps are required to remain stagnant for at least six hours before testing for lead. Preflushing before that six hours, she says, provides an equal starting point for test samples that are taken from different households.
“If you were to collect samples days and weeks after not using a particular faucet, you would find higher levels of lead,” she says.
And it would be a false high reading, Page says. Though she defends pre-flushing, she says when the EPA issued its new recommendations in February, Bangor adopted them.
Portland and Lewiston also say they’ve adopted the new guidelines. The state has also updated its guidance on lead testing on its website.
