Union College Water Initiative: Helping Educate the Public About the Quality of their Drinking Water

Water quality is something that is incredibly important for the environment and for us humans as well. Following the lead contamination in Flint, Michigan and other dramatic instances of drinking water contamination, New York State passed a mandate that required public schools to test their water for lead contamination. This mandate was a great step in the right direction for ensuring water quality healthy enough for consumption, because lead contamination affects children most severely. However, the mandate does not require private schools, residences, or businesses to test their drinking water, though all public water systems have a continuous, low-level program of water testing. The Union College Water Initiative was established in 2017 to provide a public service to those who aren’t required under this mandate to test their drinking water, to help increase the public awareness of the importance of good water quality. This project requires a lot of public outreach and word of mouth to get water samples, and I have reached out to students on campus, faculty members, the local YWCA, Girls Inc., the local farmers market, local businesses, and churches to help provide this service for them. Once the samples are collected, they are tested using the Geology Department ICP-MS instrument, which provides accurate information in terms of heavy metal concentrations (lead, copper, zinc, and others). The results of these tests are sent back to the sample providers if they gave us their email address. The data are also uploaded to the UCWI website, available to the public, with certain information omitted such as street addresses and names of those who provided the samples. Since starting this initiative, the results of 522 samples have shown that, for the most part, the water around the Schenectady area has had below the EPA limits for lead, copper, and zinc, with several outliers that probably result from plumbing in some houses in the Schenectady water system, and probably also particularly corrosive water in some others. On campus, there was one case in a fraternity in Davidson that had high levels of lead and copper in water from a drinking fountain. This was taken care of as a result of our program. In the future, we plan to expand this program to reach out to even more people, to help promote the importance of good water quality.