"Brown Tap Water Plagues NYC Residents For Weeks
Nov 13, 2009 6:18pm
NEW YORK (CBS) ― Thousands in Manhattan and the Bronx are seeing brown when they turn on the tap. The discolored water started flowing after a water supply system was reactivated, stirring up sediment.
The water should have cleared up in a day, and residents were told the problem would be temporary, but now weeks later, the problem continues.
Baths are getting a lot shorter for many New Yorkers who have brown water gushing out of their spigots. Nina Migliorini lives in Stuyvesant Town and showed CBS 2 the residue the water left behind in her bathtub.
"This is what people are frightened about, this is what they're afraid of submerging their body in or showering their body in," she said."
Brown water may be something new for people living in other parts of New York, but it has been an ongoing problem for years in Stuyvesant Town.
Unfortunately the story was presented to the media without any scientific substantiation. No lab reports or expert opinion, and to boot, when they did the demo, the water looked pretty clear.
All that was accomplished was that Dan Garodnick got his 30 seconds of air time, and the TV anchor got to sum up the report by saying (I'm paraphrasing) "the DEP says the water is perfectly safe".
This is what happens when you go to a media war unarmed.
In an ideal world, the TA would have a PR firm (just like TS has) present the story. Any Rep worth their nickel would never present a story without substantiation.
Sorry, this was just a waste of time. Apologies to the young lady that did bring the story to the media tho, I'm sure you have legitimate fears and residents do have an honest complaint. I wouldn't want to drink the stuff either.
But that's how it is in my building too. Some days it's light brown and other days it's nasty. But it ALWAYS smells like chemicals. I spent nearly a hundred dollars on water filters for the sinks and shower so I don't have to be poisoned daily.
And good for her to stand up and bring attention to the problem. The pictures of her tub and sink on Lux are terrible. Nobody should have to live like that!!
Alice, I agree. My point is that someone needs to test the water, come up with a result that shows that it's harmful and THEN raise hell with the media and local government.
But it is outrageous that a "LUXURY" development can't do something to simply eliminate the problem. I wouldn't stand to pay those rents and then get brown water from my tap.
Who's writing Garodnick's jokes? Rosie O'donnell? Geesz, Dan, get a set of balls and stop posturing about the DEP. Big Jerry Speyer can't hurt your political career if you call him out for not properly maintaining old rusty pipes as is the obvious case here.
Well the good news is that the water is free of lead. The bad news is that the water color 13 years ago caused me to send it to be checked back then, when I had a baby.
Go Nina!!!!!!! Brownfields next!!!!
anti-siphon irrigation valves should be on all potable water feeds to lawn irrigation systems.
They need to be installed correctly, (correct direction and have to be higher then the highest sprinkler head). If not installed correctly or if defective, there are conditions where lawn irrigation water can be siphoned back into the potable supply.
Interesting comment since these problems have gotten much worse since all the sprinklers were installed.
http://home.howstuffworks.com/question166.htm