At a meeting of Trenton’s Utility Committee, City Administrator Ron Urton gave an update on efforts to determine a cause for some households service lines having a higher level of lead than allowed by Department of Natural Resources and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Since the public announcement was made a week ago, Urton said the special hotline phone number to an engineering company has been used 40 times. In addition, Urton said water samples have been taken at schools, day care centers, and the women’s shelter. The samples were delivered by courier for lab testing with those results anticipated by the end of this week.
An initial testing of 20 residential locations in Trenton resulted in three of them having higher than allowable levels of lead in the water. That triggered the DNR to require Trenton to make a public announcement on the testing done.
Urton said Trenton has complied with the request by using four recommended methods of communication: letters directed to water customers; posting on business bulletin boards; information supplied to the news media, and telephone calls to selected locations. Trenton will submit to the DNR, certification of its public education efforts.
Urton noted TMU has obtained its own supplies to do more water sampling and will increase the frequency. Local officials will also continue to evaluate options for addressing the situation with lead service lines in older sections of Trenton.
