New water test to cost wellhead owners big bucks

The Division of Environmental Quality is set to conduct a chemical monitoring of all public water systems which will require all establishments in the CNMI to pay a minimum of $10,000 for each wellhead.

According to Ignacio Cabrera, DEQ Director, the monitoring requirements for a three-year period is part of the agency’s Safe Drinking Water program.

The cost of analysis for one set of samples is approximately $2,700. If an establishment has more than one well, then owners would have to pay more. The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. may have to pay $1 million to $2 million for the analysis of its water system.

Businesses which have been reeling from the effects of the downturn in the island’s economy have complained about the expensive monitoring cost. “It is so expensive because we are looking at parts per billion level in this analysis and they have to be done by a laboratory that is certified by DEQ to run the drinking water analysis,” said David Schmidt, environmental scientist.

Samples will be shipped to California for analysis since the DEQ laboratory is not equipped to conduct analysis on pesticide and other industrial chemicals.

In 1991 and 1992, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency promulgated regulations that require most water systems to monitor on a regular basis the presence of a large number of chemicals.

DEQ would be analyzing in water the presence of some 84 organic and 15 inorganic chemicals as well as a number of radionuclides. Every water system that has its own well or surface water source will be monitored.

DEQ would have to monitor for four consecutive quarters these organic chemicals with the first two quarters at each wellhead and the second two quarters at the point-of-entry to the distribution system. These chemicals can lead to long term and chronic health problems.

The CNMI has delayed the implementation of the program which should have started in 1993-1995 due to lack of manpower and technical expertise to carry out very complex regulations.

Mr. Schmidt, who came from EPA Region 9 in California, was hired to help assist DEQ in making sure that the CNMI’s Drinking Water Program is at par with all the other 50 states.

“This will be the first time that we are going to get a good picture of what is in the ground water that the people are drinking in Saipan, Rota and Tinian,” said Mr. Schmidt.

DEQ is looking at reducing the monitoring cost once the basic data has been gathered. “Once we have an idea of what’s out there, we will just look at the next compliance period,” said Mr. Schmidt.