Introduction
To comply with State regulations, Village of Nunda, will be annually issuing a report describing the quality of your drinking water. The purpose of this report is to provide an overview of last year's water quality, raise your understanding of drinking water and awareness of the need to protect our drinking water sources. Last year, we conducted tests for over 80 contaminants.  We detected 17 of those contaminants, and only found 1 of those contaminants at a level higher than the State allows.  As we told you at that time, our water temporarily exceeded a drinking water standard and we rectified the problem by initiating a boil water advisory and worked with the Livingston County & State Departments of Health, along with Applied Specialties, Inc. to trouble shoot the problem of a high finished water turbidity level. This report provides an overview of last year's water quality.   Included are details about where your water comes from, what it contains, and how it compares to State standards.
If you have any questions about this report or concerning your drinking water, please contact Troy Bennett, Chief Water Operator, 585-468-5983. We want you to be informed about your drinking water. If you want to learn more, please attend any of our regularly scheduled village board meetings. The meetings are held on the 2nd Monday of each month at 7:00 p.m. at the Nunda Government Center.
Where Does Our Water Come From?
In general, the sources of drinking water (both tap water and bottled water) include rivers, lakes, streams, ponds, reservoirs, springs, and wells. As water travels over the surface of the land or through the ground, it dissolves naturally occurring minerals and, in some cases, radioactive material, and can pick up substances resulting from the presence of animals or from human activities. Contaminants that may be present in source water include: microbial contaminants; inorganic contaminants; pesticides and herbicides; organic chemical contaminants; and radioactive contaminants. In order to ensure that tap water is safe to drink, the State and the EPA prescribe regulations which limit the amount of certain contaminants in water provided by public water systems. The State Health Department's and the FDA's regulations establish limits for contaminants in bottled water which must provide the same protection for public health.
Our water system serves 1600 people through 722 service connections.  Our water source is a man-made impoundment reservoir on Chidsey Road, holding an estimated 13,000,000 gallons of water and was completed in the early 1960's. During 2009, our system did not experience any restriction of our water source. Prior to distribution, the raw water enters two clarification tanks, Stern-Pac (a coagulant) is added to optimize settling. The slow, gravity-fed sand filters then remove the finer organic and inorganic matter and an optimum turbidity (clarity of water) is the result. The last stage of treatment is disinfection with chlorine. Chlorine is an oxidizing agent and is the most widely used means of disinfection prior to distribution.
The NYS DOH has evaluated the Village of Nunda's water source susceptibility to contamination under the Source Water Assessment Program (SWAP), and their findings are summarized in the paragraphs below. It is important to stress that these assessments were created using available information and only estimate the potential for source water contamination. Elevated susceptibility ratings do not mean that source water contamination has or will occur for this Public Water Supply (PWS). This PWS provides treatment and regular monitoring to ensure the water delivered to consumers meets all applicable standards.
For the reservoir on Chidsey Road, this assessment found an elevated susceptibility to contamination for this source of drinking water. The amount of agricultural lands in the assessment area results in elevated potential for protozoa and pesticides contamination. No permitted discharges are found in the assessment area. There is also considerable contamination susceptibility associated with other discrete contaminant sources, and these facility types include: mines. Finally, it should be noted that hydrologic characteristics (e.g. basin shape and flushing rates) generally make reservoirs highly sensitive to existing and new sources of phosphorus and microbial contamination.