By Jesse Phillips, Winter Springs Community Association
We launched the Water Quality Initiative after my family experienced a series of health issues. We spent almost a full year trying to determine the cause, and found the only way to alleviate the symptoms was to stop drinking the city water.
When we started investigating, we found the City of Winter Springs had failed EPA standards. As of today, there have been violations in 5 of the last 6 annual water quality reports.
There are two types of violations:
- Trihalomethanes (THM) – “…a bi-product predominantly when chlorine is used to disinfect drinking water” (source). THMs are considered carcinogenic (promoting the formation of cancer). The City of Winter Springs reported TTHM (Total Trihalomethane) violations in its 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 annual water quality reports.
- Coliform — “Coliform bacteria are organisms that are present in the environment and in the feces of all warm-blooded animals and humans. Coliform bacteria will not likely cause illness. However, their presence in drinking water indicates that disease-causing organisms (pathogens) could be in the water system” (source). The City of Winter Springs reported a coliform bacterial testing violation in its 2019 annual water quality report.
All of the City’s annual water quality reports are available on our Water Quality Initiative page. We encourage our neighbors to review the documentation and share this information as appropriate.
You may join the Water Quality Initiative face book group.