Your Parker City Water Dept
Data and Happenings.
Member Indiana Rural Water Alliance
Supt. Mick Deckman
Asst. Supt. Jimmy Wyman

Jimmy is preparing to take over Supt. duties at such time that Supt. Deckman chooses to retire. Hands on experience at the plant and in the field is being gained daily by Wyman.

The operators of Parker City Water take pride in the quality of water they are providing to you the town of Parker City. Here you will find much of the "behind the scenes" activities that take place to ensure a quality and dependable supply of water at your faucet on a daily basis.


Running the tower over after many days of 90 degree temps 2007.
Water in the top of the tank can get very warm
and lose chlorine under these conditions as it doesn't
circulate much and can get stale.

  
Out with the old, in with the new...2007.

__________________________________________________

If we were to bottle Parker City's water, would you buy it from a machine at a dollar a bottle? Probably not. But you will buy water from a machine that possibly comes from some other city's tap. Many bottled waters on the market come from other cities. The bottler then labels them with colorful names and pictures and explains how they are mountain waters and filtered waters etc. Or they may call them "pure water" as it has been distilled leaving just plain water that is "flat" to the taste. They then add chemicals, flavoring etc. to bring back the taste. Yes they may be mountain waters and filtered. A muncipality can get it's raw water from wells, rivers, resorvoirs AND mountain streams. And yes, they do filter it as we do ours. We remove all but a slight amount of iron, and all but a slight amount of hardness. We do not distill the water to remove ALL traces of impurities and these remaining traces are not bad for you. Your parents most likely drank the cold, untreated water straight from the well and they got along fine, except on wash day and mom had to take precautions from staining the white things from rust stains.
There are municipality water treatment plants now bottling their own plant water.



An October 2007 leak.

_____________________________________________

We are required to furnish for all users of our water an annual report of water quality as found by frequent testing for certain contaminents. The report is due by July 1st of each year and shows the results of testing for the previous year.
The following is a summary of the report that was provided July 2007.


Parker City Water Quality Report for 2006.

We are required to conduct water quality tests every 3 years for VOC, IOC, SOC and LEAD & COPPER contaminents. BACTERIA tests are required twice a month and NITRATE testing is required annually. In year 2006 we conducted water quality tests for NITRATE, SOC and LEAD & COPPER contaminents. All of our BACTERIA tests during the year came back satisfactory and SOC and NITRATE contaminents were NOT detected during the 2006 testing. LEAD & COPPER, IOC and VOC data can be found on the backside of this report. This report is a snapshot of the quality of the water that we provided last year. Your water comes from wells located on city property. The wells draw from the White River Basin Aquifier. From the wells the water is aerated to remove odor, filtered to remove iron and softened to remove hardness. Chlorine is added for disinfect and .3 ppm flouride is added to bring our natural fluoride level of .7 ppm up to 1.0 ppm as desired by IDEM. Drinking water, including bottled water may reasonably be expected to contain at least small amounts of some contaminents. The presence of contaminents does not necessarily indicate that water poses a health threat. The sources of drinking water, both tap water and bottled water, include river, lakes, streams, ponds, reservoirs, springs and wells. As water travels over the surface of the land or through the ground, it dissolves naturally-occurring minerals, and in some cases, radioactive materials, and can pick up substances resulting from the presence of animals or from human activity.
Contaminents that may be present in source water before we treat it include:
*Microbial contaminents, such as viruses and bacteria, which may come from sewage plants, septic systems, agricultural livestock operations and wildlife.
*Inorganic contaminents, (IOC), such as salts and metals, which can be naturally occurring or result from urban storm-water runoff, industrial or domestic wastewater discharges, oil and gas production, mining or farming.
*Pesticides or herbicides, (SOC), which may come from a variety of sources such as agriculture and residential uses.
*Radioactive contaminents, which are naturally occurring.
*Organic contaminents, (VOC), including synthetic and volatile organic chemicals, which are by-products of industrial processes and petroleum production, and can also come from gas stations, urban stormwater runoff, and septic systems.
In order to ensure that tap water is safe to drink, the EPA prescribes regulations which limit the amount of certain contaminents in water provided by public water systems. We treat our water according to EPA's regulations.

Water Quality Data from 2006.

The table lists all the drinking water contaminents that we detected during the 2006 calendar year. Unless otherwise noted, the data represented in this table is from testing performed between January 1 and December 31, 2006. The State requires us to monitor for certain contaminents less than once per year because concentrations of these contaminents are not expected to vary significantly from year to year. Some of the data, though representative of water quality, is more than one year old.

Inorganic Contaminents (IOC)

Barium (ppm) maximum level allowed is 2. Our testing result was .119 - from 2005.
Cadmium (ppm) maximum level allowed is .005. Our testing result was .001 - from 2005.
Fluoride (ppm) maximum level allowed is 4. Our testing result was .8 to 1.2 daily.
Sodium maximim level allowed n/a. Our testing result was 160 - from 2005.

Lead (ppb) maximum level allowed is 15. Our testing result was <1 to 6.
Copper (ppm) maximum level allowed is 1.3. Our testing result was .03 to .24.

Total Trihalomethanes (ppb) no limit - Our testing 19.7. By product of chlorination.
Total Haloacetic Acids (ppb) no limit - Our testing 2.2. By product of chlorination.

End of 2006 report.

Many of the testing results are given in parts-per-billion (ppb). ONE part-per-billion is comparable to "one second in thirty three and a half YEARS". Usually the health hazard from a contaminent concentration of a few parts-per-billion is expressed as: If a healthy person drinks several GALLONS of the water daily for a lifetime, he has a one in-a-million chance of developing cancer.



A letter dated September 26, 2005 sent to Town Board President Fred Ludington from the Indiana State Department of Health reads:
Subject:2002 and 2003 Water Fluoridation Quality Awards.
Water Fluoridation of community water systems has been recognized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as one of the 10 great public health achievements in the 20th Century. However, to obtain the most benefit to oral health, it is vital for a water system to maintain fluoride levels in the optimal range, which in Indiana is 0.7 to 1.2 ppm.
To support state Water Fluoridation programs and recognize water treatment facilities that are doing an outstanding job of promoting good oral health, the CDC has, (based on Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH) documentation), issued Water Fluoridation Quality Awards to the community water systems that have consistently maintained fluoride levels in the optimal range. We are pleased to inform you that your community was one of those named.

We of the Oral Health division at the ISDH also wish to officially commend and thank you and your community's water supply officials for successfully maintaining optimal fluoride levels and meeting our state's fluoridation monitoring requirements for all 12 months of 2002 and 2003. Thus, we are proud to present to you, as the Board President, the enclosed 2002 and 2003 Water Fluoridation Quality Award Certificates. Please share this award with your water supply officials and convey to them our sincerest congratulations for a job well done.
Sincerely, Daniel S. Cain. B.S., R.E.H.S.
Director of Water Fluoridation Oral Health

   


2004 Indiana Rural Water Alliance
Operator of the Year Award goes to Parker City.




The tower was washed inside and out in 2005.

As it will take some time to put in all that I want to do, bear with me.