DUQUESNE, Pa. — The people in the city of Duquesne are paying for water they can't use. Instead, families are boiling water every day, and buying up cases of water every week, because they don't trust what is coming out of the pipes.
"I've never felt afraid to drink out of a faucet," said Duquesne resident Electa Grandison. "Now I do."
Grandison needs to buy four cases of water every week for her family to make sure they have clean water to drink each day. Less than a mile away from her home sits Duquesne's City Hall. City leaders are following suit, stockpiling bottled water for employees.
Duquesne Mayor Nickole Nesby called 11 investigates last year after brown water started coming out of faucets at her home. At the time, she wasn't in office yet. Now that she is, Mayor Nesby says the water system has a long list of problems that need a solution. She admits it is problematic to have people paying for water they don't think is safe to drink.
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A group of contaminants named trihalomethanes is creating this water problem. The contaminants form when there is too much chlorine in the drinking water. Long-term exposure to the chemical can increase the risk of cancer.
11 investigates looked through every report conducted on Duquesne's water system since 2010. Inside those reports, we found at least one test a year showing high levels of trihalomethanes above what the EPA considers safe.
11 investigates also got a copy of a notification of violations from the Allegheny County Health Department. That notification claims there is no flow meter in place to determine how much chlorine is used each day. It says there is also no alarm for under feed or over feed. The city was first warned about this in July of 2016.
We asked Pitt engineering professor Leonard Casson about this issue.
""It's a balancing act," he said. "You want to add enough disinfectant so you keep the water and the people safe without adding so much disinfectant that you form these harmful chemicals."
He says this is an all-too common problem for communities with smaller water systems.
"These smaller water systems are technically underfunded, they're older water systems," Casson said. "The people that are operating these water systems are doing the best they can generally with the tools they have."
Duquesne's public works director told 11 investigates there are systems in place to monitor the chlorine and flush it, despite what the health department report says. The public works director also pointed to the DEP only mandating two minor boil-water advisories since 2010.
The city estimates it will cost more than $300,000 to solve the trihalomethanes issue, but it doesn't have that kind of money right now. The city is applying for grants to try to get those repairs.
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