If you live or work in Redmond and habitually drink bottled water, you’re probably wasting your money, said representatives of the city’s Wellhead Protection program, at the Redmond Senior Center on Jan. 8.
Redmond’s tap water is superior and plentiful, assured Kevin Murphy, who is the Wellhead Protection lead for the City of Redmond’s natural resources department and Tom Fix, water quality analyst for the city. The two were guest speakers at the Senior Center’s First Friday Coffee Chat, an ongoing series of informative presentations by city officials.
Fix said he’s been with the City of Redmond for 30 years. Back then, the city had about 20,000 people and three traffic lights, he mused. And testing the city’s water was much simpler then.
“We tested for 20 contaminants then — it’s more like 100 now and more like 100 traffic lights,” said Fix.
He added, “What we have in Redmond is a hybrid water system.”
On the west side of the Sammamish River, water comes from the City of Seattle’s Tolt Watershed.
“Seattle treats that and sends it to us. We test it and maintain it to make sure it’s fresh,” Fix stated.
On the east side of the Sammamish River, water is supplied by five wells that pump from aquifers underground and the city maintains and tests the water quality daily or weekly, following rules from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Washington State Department of Health.
Either way, regardless of where you live or work in Redmond, the water is tested for “microbiologicals that can make you sick,” such as E. coli, as well as copper, arsenic, petroleum, dry-cleaning solvents, herbicides, pesticides, asbestos, radon and so forth, Fix stated.
Referring to the wells, Fix said they are “a great responsibility but an incredible resource,” some of which have been in place since the 1950s and have saved taxpayers millions of dollars.
“Kevin’s the man that’s gonna keep them safe,” Fix noted, introducing Murphy, who joined the City of Redmond five-and-a-half years ago.
Murphy explained that all water that feeds into the wells is the “headwater” of the wells and thus, the EPA developed Wellhead Protection programs in the early 1990s.
“We monitor the health of the aquifers and do pollution prevention. It’s a three-fold attack: identify potential hazards, prevention of pollution and management if we find it,” said Murphy.
A four-person team studies use of hazardous materials at businesses and government facilities in Redmond and provides information so that those materials stay where they belong — out of the water supply — Murphy said.
They also work with the city’s Planning and Development officials to find out about new construction plans and to curtail building of facilities that could threaten the water supply.
“We ask people to make wise use of chemicals and keep water clean. And we write policies, codes and ordinance to help us protect our drinking water,” said Murphy.
“I’m so thankful for this program here,” Fix concluded. “For the first 25 years I was here, we had no such protection. We were living on luck and hope. The quality of water here is always remarkably good and we’re constantly testing and seeing it’s still good.”
For more information about the City of Redmond’s Wellhead Protection Program, visit www.redmond.gov/groundwater, e-mail groundwater@redmond.gov or call (425) 556-2756.
