Hattiesburg residents will see two Water System Reporting Violations on the back of their upcoming water bills, but it’s no cause for concern and the city’s water has not been affected.
During a Monday news conference at Hattiesburg City Hall, Mayor Toby Barker said the violations stem from two incidents: one in which the city sent the results of only 49 of 50 tests for chlorine residuals to the Mississippi Department of Health, and another in which the city missed a deadline to submit lead and copper samples by six weeks.
The first incident occurred in April, when the city’s water department collected the 50 required samples for chlorine residuals, which are due monthly. Although all of those samples passed the health department’s criteria for drinking water standards and were below levels, only 49 were submitted because of a record-keeping error.
“Know that all 50 of those samples tested below the limit, but because they all weren’t sent, we have to make the public aware of that violation.
The second incident occurred after the city missed its Sept. 30 deadline to send in the required 30 samples for copper and lead testing for the past three years.
“Once we found out about that, on November 19, we sent those 30 samples in anyway, and all of those samples tested below the limit,” Barker said. “However, because we sent them in six weeks, we did get a reporting violation for copper and lead as well.”
Barker said despite the violations, the city’s water is perfectly fine to drink.
“These two things were a byproduct of human error and reporting mistakes, so know that your water is safe to drink,” he said. “All 50 samples for every month this year tested under the limit for chlorine, and all 30 samples for copper and lead – from as (recently) as two weeks ago – tested under the limit.
“And the second thing, know that the city of Hattiesburg is not going to accept status quo. Whenever we mess up, we’re going to use it as an opportunity to get better. We aim for excellence, we believe in accountability and transparency, and we’ve used this to ensure that two more layers of accountability are in place to make sure things are submitted in a timely manner. In fact, we’ve already asked the department of health for a complete listing of timelines for next year so we can make sure these are turned in.”
Barker said there will be no fines or penalties for the violations.
