‘No problem with Piqua’s drinking water,’ official says

Dayton Daily News, August 25, 2009

PIQUA — City officials are assuring residents that the city’s drinking water is safe — after the city and data on its water appeared in a New York Times article. The article, published Sunday, Aug. 23, on the widely used weed killer atrazine making its way into water sources across the country claimed the Environmental Protection Agency hasn’t sufficiently regulated the chemical’s use. Piqua was used as an example of a city where spikes in measurements of atrazine in 2004, 2005 and 2007 were detected, but not reported by local water officials to residents.

“There is no problem with Piqua’s drinking water. I think it is some of the best around,” City Manager Fred Enderle said Monday, Aug. 24.

By late afternoon Monday, he’d fielded one call about the article, from a city commissioner who had heard from a constituent. He also said a couple of people paying bills at the utility billing department asked about the water quality.

Enderle said he was surprised, and upset, by the article. “He was sending a message that we have a problem. Piqua’s water is perfectly safe to drink,” Enderle said.
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