Fallon may pay $1 million to meet EPA water standards

Thursday, Jan. 18, 2001 | 5:46 a.m.

"It's a huge, huge cost to bear," Fallon Mayor Ken Tedford said.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday ordered a sharp reduction in the amount of arsenic allowed in drinking water supplies, from the previous 50 parts per billion to the new limit of 10 parts per billion.

The old limit had been in place since 1942 and EPA officials were considering dropping it to as low as 5 parts per billion.

The EPA set the new level twice as high as its original proposal after water utilities nationwide protested that they would be crippled by sky-high filtration costs.

Fallon's municipal water supply tests as high as 100 parts per billion - double the old legal standard - as a result of a naturally occurring element in the basalt aquifer 500 feet below the city.

City officials already are in the process of developing new treatment systems to bring the water into federal compliance. They said Wednesday they are optimistic that some treatment technology capable of treating arsenic to 10 ppb may be cheaper to build and operate than systems that treat down to 5 ppb.

"I think it does help us," Tedford told the Lahontan Valley News and Fallon Eagle Standard.

"Now they can concentrate on a number," he said.

An estimated 3,000 communities nationally, generally small water systems, are expected to be affected by the new limits. About 2,600 people rely on Fallon's municipal water system.

Fallon voters defeated a ballot measure 25 years ago that would have spent property tax dollars on water treatment.

Efforts to tighten the federal requirement gained momentum after a National Academy of Sciences report in 1999 found arsenic in drinking water causes bladder, lung and skin cancer, and might cause kidney and liver cancer.