The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation is requiring the Haines Borough’s Water and Sewer Department to submit 40 water samples for testing rather than the usual 10 after two homes recently tested positive for increased levels of copper.
The borough’s water department is required to test 10 houses per year for copper and lead. The houses selected need to meet certain criteria based on when the copper or lead pipes were installed and what kind of line they are serviced by.
“What it is testing is how corrosive your water is and is it causing leaching of copper or lead from pipes in the house,” said water/sewer operator Scott Bradford.
Two houses – one in the Fort Seward area and one on FAA Road – recently tested positive for increased copper levels, triggering DEC’s order to start testing 20 houses twice a year, or 40 houses total.
Interim manager Brad Ryan said the borough hasn’t had an issue with copper levels in the past. “We’ll go forward with the testing of the extra houses and monitor it and see what the results are,” Ryan said.
Bradford speculated the two houses may have been anomalies, because one recently had new piping installed and the other is a large house occupied by only one person. One of the problems with the test is that it is performed by the homeowner, not the operator, and involves several steps, including running the water for a certain period and collecting the water after it has been sitting during a specific time interval.
“You have to trust the people to do it right,” Bradford said.
Bradford wrote a letter to DEC explaining the circumstances of the two houses and asking if he could retest them, but he hasn’t heard back yet.
Bradford said he’s hoping if he can show the houses were anomalies, he can avoid several years of having to collect 40 samples annually. Each sample costs about $70, plus the freight of shipping to Anchorage.