After 18 years, Rochester's reservoirs still don't meet key EPA safety rule. Why?

Rochester’s Highland Park reservoir has been thrust to the front of the city’s collective consciousness, after an tragic discovery there forced restaurant and school closures and sent people looking for bottled water.

The reservoir is one of three surface water reservoirs used to hold treated, potable water for city residents.

Located in an historic Olmsted park, the reservoir is regarded as much as a pond for quiet contemplation as the holding tank it largely functions as. It is ready to drink. It just is waiting to head toward your house.

How the reservoir will finally comply with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations is still being considered years later by the City of Rochester. City officials think a 2006 rule to protect open surface reservoirs and a 2021 rule revision to reduce lead levels in drinking water could take some solutions off the table for them.

What is the EPA LT2 rule? Why should we care?

The Long Term 2 Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule, or LT2, was enacted in 2006 to address the impact of cryptosporidium in surface water used in potable water systems. Cryptosporidium is resistant to chlorine and can cause gastrointestinal illness, which can be especially dangerous, and even deadly, in those with weakened immune systems.

The rule requires any water system that stores treated water in open reservoirs, such as Highland Park or Cobb’s Hill, to be covered or have the reservoir discharge treated to inactive microbiological pathogens like giardia or cryptosporidium.

The Rochester City Council reviewed a professional services agreement of up to $650,000 with Colliers Engineering and Design for engineering and preliminary design services on the Highland Reservoir LT2 Compliance project during its Feb. 7 meeting. The stated goal of the project was “to remain on track to comply with” LT2 by Nov. 30, 2029 — more than 23 years after the rule went into place. The agreement was approved at the council’s Feb. 20 meeting.

During the Feb. 7 meeting, city Commissioner of Environmental Services Richard Perrin said the city covered its third reservoir, the Rush Reservoir, which he called the simple and straightforward way to comply with the EPA rule. Highland Park and Cobb’s Hill reservoirs are assets the community enjoys, he said.

“So we want to make sure whatever we do allows us to, first and foremost, provide clean, potable water, but at the same time, if we have a way to do that that has a community asset that doesn’t have a cover on it, then that’s what we want to look to,” Perrin said.

City officials had proposed covering the Highland Park Reservoir in 2007 but backed off due to public criticism, according to a Nov. 12, 2018 article in the Democrat and Chronicle.

The city had favored ultraviolet disinfection as a treatment, going as far as a request for proposals for ultraviolet disinfection in 2011. At the time, the project’s tentative funding was $15 million from the city’s capital improvement program.

Juggling multiple EPA rules

But the EPA’s Lead and Copper Rule emphasizes lead line replacement and other measures to reduce the amount of lead in public water. The city identified orthophosphate, a common corrosion prevention method known to prevent lead from leaching into the water, as a point of emphasis in the LCR update in 2019, which put a wrench into plans for ultraviolet treatment.

The city and Monroe County Water Authority’s request for qualification for its corrosion control system study in 2020, said it's likely the city’s water supply would exceed the EPA’s trigger level for lead of 10 parts per billion, which went into effect in 2023.

“Should orthophosphate treatment be mandated as part of a trigger level exceedance, it is likely that UV disinfection would be eliminated as a viable LT2 solution and that covered storage would be required,” the request stated.

Norm Jones, the city’s Commissioner of Environmental Services from 2014 to 2021, said the department was working diligently toward a resolution for the reservoirs during his tenure but got delayed in 2021 when the EPA revised an important regulation around lead and copper in water systems.

“That made it necessary for us to do more analysis,” he said. “We were being very structured and methodical in our steps to how we dealt with it, (and) that changed the time frame.”

In a March 2018 letter to the EPA Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water, Jones described the city’s attempt to use orthophosphate in corrosion control studies in the ‘90s. The pilot studies showed orthophosphate “caused dramatic algal growth,” which required additional and costly treatment.

“We are concerned that a requirement for the use of orthophosphates for corrosion control would have lasting negative impacts on water quality and safety for our customers,” the letter said.

In a statement, the city said it was prudent to ensure its LT2 solution is compatible with the EPA lead and copper rule, and changes in late 2023 to the lead rule gives further importance to finishing the corrosion control study before a decision on LT2, a rule enacted in 2006, is made.

Rochester's timeline

The City of Rochester provided a timeline of events, beginning in 2009, of efforts to bring the reservoirs into compliance with the LT2 requirements. The timeline begins with the bilateral compliance agreement between the city and the state and county health departments, which required additional sampling for cryptosporidium.

• The original compliance date was October 2014 for Highland Park and November 2013 for Cobb’s Hill; in 2012 the compliance agreement was extended to 2023 and 2024 for Highland Park and Cobb’s Hill, respectively.

• In 2012, Rush Reservoir is covered with a floating synthetic rubber cover, meeting the compliance deadline for the reservoir without public access.

• In 2018, Bergmann Associates, now rebranded as Colliers Engineering and Design, is contracted to re-evaluate options and conceptual designs to bring Highland Park Reservoir into compliance with LT2. The study is halted in 2020 for a corrosion control study to align with new lead regulations.

• In 2021, the bilateral compliance agreement is revised, giving the city time to complete corrosion study and determine if orthophosphate is required to control lead. The compliance dates are pushed out to November 2029 for Highland Park Reservoir and November 2035 for Cobb’s Hill Reservoir.

• Also in 2021, the city entered an agreement with Ramboll/CDM Smith for the corrosion control treatment study and remains in the testing phase, expected to take 18 months to complete.

• This year, the city entered an agreement with Colliers Engineering and Design to re-evaluate options and bring the Highland Park Reservoir into compliance with LT2 and the Lead and Copper Rule revisions.

— Reporter Justin Murphy contributed to this report.

— Steve Howe covers weather, climate and lake issues for the Democrat and Chronicle and he grew up drinking well water. Have any insight into Rochester weather? Share with him at showe@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Rochester NY reservoirs still don't meet key EPA safety rule. Why?