By Lyndsie Ferrell
CREEDE— On Aug. 3, the City of Creede released a statement notifying the public about a backflow prevention testing violation.
In the statement it reads, “Our water system recently violated a drinking water requirement. Although this situation is not an emergency, as our customers, you have a right to know what happened, what you should do and what we are doing to correct this situation.”
“First and most importantly, the City of Creede’s drinking water is safe to drink,” stated Water Operator Robert Schlough. “The state drinking water program requires that all public drinking water systems test a percentage of the backflow prevention devices annually. We received a violation because our water system did not test the required percentage. We also failed to notify you in a timely manner of the violation.”
The city failed to achieve the state mandated ratio of testing .50 of the city’s backflow devices, which generated a Tier 2 public notice requirement. “This was a failure to distribute public notification to consumers for a backflow prevention and cross-connection control violation in a timely manner. We were required to distribute the notice by July 1, 2018 and did not get it done until Aug. 3, 2018. Distribution of the notice and submission of the certificate of delivery, along with the distributed notice resolved the violation,” stated Creede City Manager Clyde Dooley.
Backflow prevention devices and methods are to be employed by the city to prevent backflow siphonage into the drinking water distribution system which could contaminate the drinking water. Potential cross-connection contamination sources, if uncontrolled, are water boilers, commercial icemakers, commercial refrigerators and freezers, car wash high pressure lines, fire control systems and commercial/industrial irrigation systems. These systems require testing to ensure that they meet state requirements and have not met the state’s required percentages in some time.
On Jan. 1, 2016, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment made it mandatory to have all backflow prevention devices and methods identified within the City of Creede’s water system by Dec. 31, 2020. In accordance with section 11.39(3)(e) of regulation 11, suppliers of water must ensure that backflow prevention devices used to control cross-connections and prevent contamination are tested annually by a certified cross-connection control technician and must be in compliance with state regulations.
“We are complying with state regulations and are working to test the backflow devices. We will continue, as stated in the public notice to encourage those non-family residential customers who have an uncontrolled cross-connection to install a backflow prevention assembly or incorporate an appropriate backflow prevention method and those who do have such a device in place to have them tested, repaired if necessary and certified annually,” stated Schlough.
For further information, please contact Robert Schlough at 658-2276 extension 3.