Is Albany Tap Water Safe to Drink?

Annual Drinking Water Quality Report for 2020

CITY OF ALBANY

10 NORTH ENTERPRISE DRIVE

(Public Water Supply ID# NY 0100 189)

Dear Customer,

We are pleased to provide you with our 2020 Annual Drinking Water Quality Report. We are proud to report that Albany water continues to meet all State and Federal water quality standards. The City of Albany has one of the finest and most reliable water supply systems in the nation.

The Albany Water Board continues our commitment to Mayor Kathy Sheehan’s goal of sustainable infrastructure, and we take our responsibility as stewards of the City’s water resources very seriously. In 2020, we continued to benefit from a permanent Conservation Easement with The Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy to ensure long term conservation of our valuable watershed properties. Our “Working Woodlands” and Carbon Development and Marketing programs continue to generate revenue that we reinvest in watershed management and protection programs.

Since 2014, we have invested over $65 million in improvements to our infrastructure. In 2020, these improvements included upgrades to the Feura Bush Water Treatment plant; a new booster pump station on Colvin Avenue and storage tank at the Harriman Campus; distribution system improvements and enhancements to our Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system. We continue to upgrade and modernize our water system to ensure we are addressing priority needs of our water source, treatment, transmission and distribution systems. We continue to update our digital inventory of water system infrastructure as an integral component of our Asset Management program to assure our investments in our water infrastructure are directed in the most cost-effective manner, and in 2020 we expanded use of Utility Cloud, our Computerized Maintenance and Management System (CMMS).

We continue to expand our public education and outreach to customers emphasizing lead in drinking water. In 2020, assisted by a NYS grant, we expanded our lead waterline service replacement program.

We are fortunate to have a water system planned and designed by visionary predecessors, and we remain committed to doing the best job possible so that future generations will be able to rely upon the pure and abundant waters of Albany’s Alcove and Basic Creek Reservoirs.

Annual Drinking Water Quality Report for 2020

CITY OF ALBANY

DEPARTMENT OF WATER & WATER SUPPLY

10 NORTH ENTERPRISE DRIVE

(Public Water Supply ID# NY 0100 189)

Introduction

The Albany Water Board issues an annual report describing the quality of your drinking water to comply with state regulations. The purpose of this report is to raise your understanding of drinking water and awareness of the need to protect our drinking water sources. We are proud to report that last year your water met all state drinking water health standards and our system had no violations of maximum contaminant levels. This report provides an overview of last year’s water quality, and includes details about where your water comes from, what it contains, and how it compares to State standards. We are pleased to provide you with this information because informed customers are our best customers.

If you have any questions about this report or concerning your drinking water, please contact the City of Albany, Department of Water and Water Supply at 518-434-5300. If you want to learn more, please attend any of our regularly scheduled Albany Water Board meetings. The meetings are normally held the fourth Friday of each month at 9:00 A.M. at the 10 North Enterprise Drive offices of the Albany Water Department. The schedule of Water Board meetings is posted on our website; www.albanyny.gov/waterquality

Where does our water come from?

In general, the sources of drinking water (both tap water and bottled water) include rivers, 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 can pick up substances resulting from the presence of animals or from human activities. Atmospheric sources of contamination enter our water sources through rain and snowfall. Contaminants that may be present in source water include: microbial contaminants; inorganic contaminants; pesticides and herbicides; organic chemical contaminants; and radioactive contaminants. In order to ensure that tap water is safe to drink, the State and the EPA prescribe regulations that limit the amount of certain contaminants in water provided by public water systems. State Health Department and FDA regulations also establish limits for contaminants in bottled water which must provide the same protection for public health.

Our water source is the Alcove Reservoir, which is surface water and is located on the Hannacroix Creek in the Town of Coeymans. This reservoir has a capacity of 13.5 billion gallons, an average depth of 25 feet and a maximum depth of 75 feet. The Basic Creek Reservoir, in the town of Westerlo, is a secondary source that may be used to augment flow into the Alcove Reservoir to maintain the Alcove elevation. During 2020, our system did not experience any restriction of your water usage due to lack of source water or any other reason.

The water source receives treatment including pre-oxidation, disinfection, coagulation, sedimentation, filtration and pH and alkalinity adjustment for corrosion control at the Feura Bush Filtration Facility. Chlorine is added as a residual disinfectant to maintain microbiological quality throughout the distribution system. Ultraviolet light disinfection is a supplemental disinfectant used at the Loudonville Reservoir.

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Facts and Figures

Our water system serves over 98,000 City residents, commercial, institutional and industrial accounts through approximately 29,000 service connections, and the Towns of Bethlehem and Guilderland through purchase water agreements. The total water treated in 2020 was 6,316,555,488 gallons. The daily water production averaged 17,258,348 gallons, with maximum daily production of 24,883,984 gallons. This year the amount of water produced for customers was 6,211,847,488 gallons, allowing 104,708,000 gallons for filter washes and other filtration plant domestic use.

In 2020, water customers were charged $2.79 per 100 cubic feet of water, which equals $3.73 per 1000 gallons. A 2.5 % increase in water charges was implemented in January 2020.

Are there contaminants in our drinking water?

As State regulations require, we routinely test your drinking water for numerous contaminants. These contaminants include: total coliform, turbidity, inorganic compounds, nitrate, nitrite, metals including lead and copper, volatile organic compounds, total trihalomethanes, haloacetic acids, synthetic organic compounds and radioactive materials like Uranium and Radium. The table presented below depicts which compounds were detected in your drinking water. The State allows us to test for some contaminants less than once per year because the concentrations of these contaminants do not change frequently, though most of our data represented here is from 2020 analysis.

It should be noted that all drinking water, including bottled drinking water, should be reasonably expected to contain at least small amounts of some contaminants. The presence of contaminants does not necessarily indicate that water poses a health risk. More information about contaminants and potential health effects can be obtained by calling the EPA Safe Drinking Water Hotline at 800-426-4791 or the Albany County Health Department at 518-447-4620.

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Non-Detected Contaminants

According to State regulations, the Albany Water Board routinely monitors your drinking water for various contaminants.

Contaminants that were analyzed for but were found to be below detection limits are not included in this report, however, all required testing was completed according to Local, State, and Federal laws. {A list of non-detected contaminants can be found on City of Albany, Department of Water and Water Supply Website.}

The contaminants that were detected in your drinking water are included in the Table of Detected Contaminants. Additionally, your water is tested from various locations in the distribution system for coliform bacteria four days per week along with free chlorine residuals and turbidities.

What does this information mean?

As you can see by the table, our system had no violations in the reporting year 2020. We have learned through our testing that some contaminants have been detected; however, these contaminants were detected below New York State requirements.

The City of Albany Water Department has implemented a program to minimize lead levels in your drinking water. This program includes: 1) the adjustment of pH and alkalinity levels to minimize corrosion; 2) the replacement of lead service lines as distribution lines are replaced; and, 3) public education. The water department conducted lead and copper testing on select 55 residences in 2018. All residences for 2018 testing were picked after a survey to include houses from all wards in the City of Albany and were built before 1939 and were confirmed with Lead present at their meters. The 90th percentile of the samples collected was 13.9µg /L. The action level (15g/L) for lead was exceeded at four (4) of the 55 sites tested. The highest level detected was 25.7 µg/L at only one location. The City of Albany has a NYSDOH grant for lead service line replacement. The Albany Water Board is undertaking lead service line replacement as part of its Capital Improvements Program when there is construction of new water mains and sewers. The Albany Water Board is developing a program for full service line replacement, including the portion on private property.

Infants and young children are typically more vulnerable to lead in drinking water than the general population. It is possible that lead levels at your home may be higher than at other homes in the community as a result of materials used in your home’s plumbing. Infants and children who drink water containing lead in excess of the action level could experience delays in their physical or mental development. Children could show slight deficits in attention span and learning disabilities. Adults who drink this water over many years could develop kidney problems or high blood pressure.

The City of Albany Water Department is responsible for providing high quality drinking water, but cannot control a variety of materials used in plumbing components. If you are concerned about elevated lead levels in your home’s water, you may wish to have your water tested. Also, you may flush your cold tap for 30 seconds to 2 minutes before using tap water for cooking or drinking. Additional information is available from the Safe Drinking Water Hotline at 1-800-426-4791 or at https://www.epa.gov/dwreginfo/drinking-water-regulations

Is our water system meeting other rules that govern operations?

We are required to continually monitor your drinking water daily, monthly, quarterly, annually or after multiple years for different contaminants and report to Local, State and Federal authorities. During 2020, our system was in compliance with applicable operating, monitoring and reporting requirements for drinking water regulations.

In 2020 NYS adopted new Maximum Contaminant levels (MCLs) for Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), Perfluorooctane Sulfonate (PFOS) and 1,4-Dioxane. Initially we are required to monitor your drinking water for these contaminants

on quarterly basis. Results of first two quarters monitoring are below detection limits for all three contaminants and are an indicator that your drinking water meets all health standards.

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Information on Unregulated Contaminants

The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) establishes periodic monitoring (every 5 years) through the Unregulated Contaminants Monitoring Rule (UCMR) to assess occurrence of select constituents from the Contaminant Candidate list for potential regulatory consideration. UCMR4 is the 4th cycle of UCMR monitoring, in 2019-2020 we were required to collect and analyze drinking water samples for 30 unregulated contaminants. Most of the contaminants were below detection level except some of the new Brominated Haloacteic acids which were monitored for 4 quarters from 8 different distribution locations. The monitoring schedule is attached, if you are interested and want to learn more you may contact Laboratory Director Dr. Rifat Hussain at 518-635-4408.

UCMR4 2019-2020 Contaminants and Sampling Schedule

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