Oak Bluffs Water Has Chlorine Boost

By CHRIS BURRELL

The tap water in Oak Bluffs has tested clean for a week now, but the
chlorine added to combat bacteria levels detected early last month has
left town water tasting and smelling like a swimming pool.

"The chlorine is very strong, and it's not
pleasant," resident Selena Roman told the Gazette yesterday.
"We typically drink tap water, and we're not drinking it
now. It's horrible."

"When you flush the toilet, you can smell the chlorine, and
when you're in the shower, you feel like you're in a Chlorox
vapor," said resident Marney Toole.

Most of the 4,000 residents of Oak Bluffs rely on the public water
supply.

Oak Bluffs water officials say they started to chlorinate the water
last month at a rate of two parts per million when routine tests found
coliform bacteria, including levels of e coli. The water district
samples water at 18 sites across town.

Early last month, five sites tested positive for coliform, said
water superintendent Deacon Perrotta. Follow-up tests three days later
found three sites showing coliform levels.

The bacteria is benign unless people are suffering from some immune
deficiency, said Mr. Perrotta.

Water officials have no hard evidence to suggest a source for the
bacteria and e coli, but they suspect that the bacteria found last month
is not coming from the public wells, but rather from inside the water
mains themselves.

"We get so much usage and flow in the summer that the extra
water in the interior of the main knocks off stuff built up in there and
creates a bacteria," said Oak Bluffs water commissioner Michael
deBettencourt.

But coliform levels remained a stubborn presence for much of last
month. Subsequent tests found the bacteria at two sites, one supplying
the Martha's Vineyard Hospital and the other at Farm Neck Golf
Club.

Mr. Perrotta notified the hospital, asking if anyone had reported
illnesses or reactions such as diarrhea that could be attributed to
ingesting contaminated water. There were no such reports.

Then, on August 23, results from another resampling found bacteria
in 15 of the 18 sites. "We had a ton of hits," said Mr.
Perrotta.

He was also growing suspicious of the results. Water officials were
pumping chlorine into the system at a rate of two parts per million but
they were seeing substantial residual levels of chlorine.

"When you're carrying a chlorine residual of over one
million parts per million, the tests aren't correct," he
said.

The point is that the residual chlorine levels should be markedly
lower if they have attacked any bacteria, Mr. Perrotta explained.

Last week, water officials tested all 18 sites again, and they came
back clean. But chlorination will continue for most of this month with
the dosage gradually lessening each week.

Mr. Perrotta said the chlorine will be added this week at a rate of
1.5 parts per million and then one part per million the following week.

Mr. Perrotta, who also serves as water superintendent in Tisbury,
said public water supplies on the Island are not typically disinfected,
but when tests warrant chlorination, the more effective procedure is to
taper off the additive gradually, not abruptly.