File Under: Reasons To Own Multiple Filters

You know, I get a lot of junk mail. But I'm certainly glad that between the Dell catalogs, the Comcast advertisements, and the Valpak coupons, I managed to open up this little nugget of information from WASA: back in December, the water coming from the McMillan water treatment plant had a 14-minute spike in turbidity, which is an indicator that the water supply may contain "disease-causing organisms." Local development blog DCMud has a more detailed explanation of what exactly happened (digging at a large development site near the treatment facility seems to be to blame), and also a scan of the letter, for those who might have missed it. Your fun thought of the day? An addendum attached to the letter from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers states that the spike may have released organisms that could cause "nausea, cramps, diarrhea, and associated headaches." Yup, that's disgusting. And to think, all this time you were just worried about peanut butter.

Email This Entry


Comments (2) [rss]

Yeah, I saw that too this week and scratched my head afterward. I mean, who can remember if they felt those rather common symptoms in a time period shortly following those 14 minutes? Weird.

hotpansblog.com

Is there any evidence that the nearby construction caused the problem? (DC mud does not actually claim that the two are related) According to the letter WASA sent out, the problem was due to a filter valve malfunction which was immediately detected and taken care of (well I guess it took them 14 minutes to resolve the problem, but that seems pretty fast to me).

Post a comment (Comment Policy)

Tips

About DCist

DCist is a website about Washington, D.C. More

Editor: Sommer Mathis Publisher: Gothamist

Twitter

Contribute

Latest Tip:

Check out local Singer/Songwriter Todd Wright's new project 40x40. He's writing recording and relea
[more]

Latest Photo:

Recent Comments

Subscribe

Use an RSS reader to stay up to date with the latest news and posts from DCist.

All Our RSS