Council to Receive "Final Update" on Water Contamination

San Angelo's elected leaders will hear a "final update" on the toxic water contamination that traumatized the community in February.  Water Chief Allison Strube will give the update in regular session during the April 6th City Council meeting.  

The Texas Council on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) worked with the city on the contamination concern.  TCEQ has long required public water systems to have an effective cross-contamination control program, including customer service inspections and annual backflow test results.

Customer Service Inspectors came from McAllen, Lubbock, Brownwood and Abilene to inspect 85 industrial sites in search of the source of contamination.  City staff are yet to release how many sites were out of compliance and need to make changes to prevent future cross contamination.  Also, TCEQ is yet to release its report on San Angelo's toxic water incident.

The City of San Angelo plans to hire additional staff to ensure safe water comes out of the tap.

The City of San Angelo will be hiring several CSIs in the near future and will be implementing a more rigorous cross contamination program citywide to greatly reduce the likelihood of an issue like this happening again.

Why did the city not have such persons in place prior to the chemical contamination?  San Angelo city ordinances require annual backflow testing.

 Backflow prevention devices used in applications designated as health hazards must be tested upon installation and annually thereafter

Backflow Preventers. Backflow preventers shall be required by the Director of Public Works in [as] deemed necessary to protect the water system from possible contamination. 

City ordinances left it up to the Director of Public Works as to which businesses needed backflow preventers.  That's not Allison Strube.  It's Shane Kelton and former boss Ricky Dickson, now retired. 

I wondered if TCEQ inspections over the last four years identified San Angelo's cross connection control program as lax.  The City of San Angelo provided one TCEQ inspection report from 2016 in response to a public information request.  TCEQ cited the city for not using the required "customer service inspection report."

The city responded in 2016 with "customer service inspections are performed by licensed plumbing inspectors in the City's Inspections Department and they will begin completing the forms and maintaining them on file."

The failure to prevent chemical contamination cost the city dearly and exposed citizens to toxic chemicals.  City Council should make clear this is not the final update on the incident.  Council should ask staff to post all investigative reports, internal and external on the city's website.  

Accountable leaders would ask why the chemical contamination occurred and why the city's water department was unable to prevent toxic substances from reaching citizen's homes.  What program did the city have in place and how well did it comply with TCEQ requirements?     

Pushing a "final update" without hearing responses to those questions and seeing official investigative reports would be a disservice to citizens.

Update 4-12-21:   City Council heard the final update and thanked Allison Strube for her presentation and for her hard work.

Update 6-10-21:  TCEQ issued a Notice of Violations to the City of San Angelo on 6-4-21.  The letter cited four failures of TCEQ's cross connection control program standards.  Three of the four violations must be corrected by early August, while one involving updating city ordinances has an October due date.How will City Council and the public be made aware of this development?