The results of a test done on District 205 drinking water for lead particles have come in.
“We’re very pleased that we can say that we do not have a lead issue in our drinking water,” says 205 Superintendent Ralph Grimm who authorized the study in March.
Grimm was first prompted to do the tests in part by the public health outbreak due to high levels of lead in Flint, Michigan’s water and by a Associated Press reporter that questioned Grimm about the safety of 205 water.
The Superintendent tells WGIL he conferred with Galesburg’s water department that expressed confidence that chemicals they use to combat dangerous amount of lead particles in water were sufficient.
“I decided to go one step further and I asked our architect Bill Phillips to investigate what it would cost to do some independent sampling on our own,” Grimm says.
Although he says he was fairly confident the city’s water was safe, older pipes at some buildings left room for uncertainty.
The acceptable threshold for lead particles in water is 15 micrograms per liter and the results returned say 20 of 25 samples taken contained less than 1 microgram per liter.
The highest recorded level of the samples was 2.8 microgram per liter.
The 25 samples were gathered on March 21 from every district building between 6:15 and 9:40 a.m. and were sent to to PDC Laboratories in Peoria to be tested for lead.
Grimm says to the best of his knowledge, a test like this has never been conducted in the district.
