Our water system recently violated a drinking water standard. Although this incident was not an emergency, as our customers, you have a right to know what happened and what we are doing to correct this situation.
Quarterly water samples were taken at Tarryhill Clubhouse on May 5, 2021, August 2, 2021, November 3, 2021 and February 2, 2022. The total haloacetic acid concentrations were 0.074 mg/l, 0.045 mg/l, 0.079 mg/l and 0.051 mg/l respectively, and averaged 0.062 mg/l for the last 12-month time frame. The average level is above the state and federal drinking water standard of 0.060 mg/l total haloacetic acids as a running annual average of four quarterly samples.
Quarterly water samples were taken for the First Quarter of 2022 in the Village of Tarrytown, including at the Tarryhill Clubhouse on February 2, 2022. The total haloacetic acid (HAA) concentration for that test was 0.051 mg/l. The running average sample result of 0.062 is above the state and federal drinking water standard of 0.060 mg/l total HAAs, even though the February test was below the state and federal standard level.
What should I do?
There is nothing you need to do unless you have a severely compromised immune system, have an infant, or are elderly. These people may be at increased risk and should seek advice about drinking water from their health care providers.
You do not need to boil your water or take other corrective actions. If a situation arises where the water is no longer safe to drink, you will be notified within 24 hours.
What does this mean?
This is not an emergency. If it had been an emergency, you would have been notified within 24 hours.
Haloacetic acids (HAAs) are disinfection byproducts formed during treatment of drinking water by chlorine, the most commonly used disinfectant in New York State. Drinking water is disinfected primarily through the use of chlorine by public water suppliers to kill bacteria and viruses that could cause serious illnesses. For this reason, disinfection of drinking water by chlorination is beneficial to public health. The amount of haloacetic acids in drinking water can change from day to day, depending on the temperature, the amount of organic material in the source water, the amount of chlorine added, and a variety of other factors.
The following paragraph summarizes and characterizes the available studies on human populations exposed to haloacetic acids, and provides a general summary of the health effects of haloacetic acids in animals, which occur at exposure levels much higher than exposures that could result through normal use of the water.
Some studies suggest that people who drank chlorinated drinking water containing disinfection by-products (including haloacetic acids) for long periods of time (e.g., 20 to 30 years) have an increased risk for cancer. However, how long and how frequently people actually drank the water, and how much haloacetic acids the water contained is not known for certain. Therefore, the evidence from these studies is not strong enough to conclude that the observed increased risk for cancer is due to haloacetic acids, other disinfection by-products, or some other factor. Studies of laboratory animals show that the two haloacetic acids, dichloroacetic acid and trichloroacetic acid, can cause cancer following exposure to high levels over their lifetimes. Dichloroacetic acid and trichloroacetic acid are also known to cause other effects in laboratory animals after high levels of exposure, primarily on the liver, kidney, and nervous system and on their ability to bear healthy offspring. The risks for adverse health effects from haloacetic acids in drinking water are small compared to the risk for illness from drinking inadequately disinfected water.
What is being done?
The Village has evaluated our operations, and plans to implement the following adjustments to our operations:
- Effective immediately, the Village will perform seasonal adjustments to our chlorine booster levels to reduce byproducts of chlorination;
- The Village will allow our water storage tank levels to fluctuate more to have better mixing of the water; and
- The Village will increase water system flushing, including during cold weather months.
- The Village is encouraging all residents and businesses to flush their taps first thing in the morning, to eliminate the stagnant water from the home and office water systems, which can lead to the cause of high test levels for HAAs in water tests.
- In addition to the above steps, the Village has also coordinated with the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (the DEP) which supplies Tarrytown with our water. They have reduced the amount of chlorine in the water, which should take further steps to mitigate the high levels of HAAs that have occurred in our water sampling.
For more information, please contact the Tarrytown Village Administrator’s Office at 914-631-1785 or at 1 Depot Plaza, Tarrytown, NY, 10591, or by e-mail at Administrator@tarrytownny.gov or the Westchester County Department of Health at (914) 813-5000.
The Village is mailing a copy of this notice out to all water system customers, and will be posting this information on our website, sharing it with the Tarrytown Chamber of Commerce, sharing it with the Tarrytown/Sleepy Hollow Public School System and will ask landlords to share this with their tenants as well.
Please share this information with all the other people who drink this water, especially those who may not have received this notice directly (for example, people in apartments, nursing homes, schools, and businesses). You can do this by posting this notice in a public place or distributing copies by hand or mail.
This notice is being sent to you by the Tarrytown Public Water Supply, New York State Public Water
Supply ID#: No. NY 5903461.
Date: Wednesday, March 23, 2022
