Our water is safe.
That message has been repeated frequently in recent weeks by the Hannibal Board of Public Works and Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR), even though trace amounts of hexavalent chromium were found in our water supply.
Prior to the Jan. 13 meeting of the BPW which DNR representatives attended, a private meeting between city officials and DNR personnel occurred. Behind closed doors city officials complained about not being notified following a discharge of the chemical into the river in late May.
During the public meeting, the DNR faced similar criticism. DNR’s response was that it does not issue a press release regarding such a chemical release when there is no health risk, which it judged there was not. So why then the big production in December when DNR officials suddenly decided to take water samples in Hannibal over a period of a few weeks?
A working theory is that the DNR, still stinging from its failure to disclose that high levels of E. coli bacteria had been found in the Lake of the Ozarks last summer, wanted to do some reputation rebuilding by testing Hannibal’s water even though it was months after the discharge.
All the time and expense of testing the water provided the DNR with exactly what it knew it would find - minute amounts of the chemical. If there was a surprise it’s that hexavalent chromium was found in slightly higher amounts coming out of the filter plant than fresh from the river.
DNR’s self-serving show did Hannibal no favors since it was unsettling to residents and put the city in national spotlight it had no business being in since trace amounts of hexavalent chromium are found in virtually every community’s water supply, and in much higher amounts in states such as California.
We hope the next time the DNR tries to escape the crosshairs of public scrutiny, it does so without shifting the focus onto someone else. While Hannibal’s water may be safe to drink, we find DNR’s actions tough to swallow.
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Our water is safe.
That message has been repeated frequently in recent weeks by the Hannibal Board of Public Works and Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR), even though trace amounts of hexavalent chromium were found in our water supply.
Prior to the Jan. 13 meeting of the BPW which DNR representatives attended, a private meeting between city officials and DNR personnel occurred. Behind closed doors city officials complained about not being notified following a discharge of the chemical into the river in late May.
During the public meeting, the DNR faced similar criticism. DNR’s response was that it does not issue a press release regarding such a chemical release when there is no health risk, which it judged there was not. So why then the big production in December when DNR officials suddenly decided to take water samples in Hannibal over a period of a few weeks?
A working theory is that the DNR, still stinging from its failure to disclose that high levels of E. coli bacteria had been found in the Lake of the Ozarks last summer, wanted to do some reputation rebuilding by testing Hannibal’s water even though it was months after the discharge.
All the time and expense of testing the water provided the DNR with exactly what it knew it would find - minute amounts of the chemical. If there was a surprise it’s that hexavalent chromium was found in slightly higher amounts coming out of the filter plant than fresh from the river.
DNR’s self-serving show did Hannibal no favors since it was unsettling to residents and put the city in national spotlight it had no business being in since trace amounts of hexavalent chromium are found in virtually every community’s water supply, and in much higher amounts in states such as California.
We hope the next time the DNR tries to escape the crosshairs of public scrutiny, it does so without shifting the focus onto someone else. While Hannibal’s water may be safe to drink, we find DNR’s actions tough to swallow.
