Drinking water violations see New York company hit with huge penalty (2024)

A water company and three municipalities have been fined $1.25 million after producing contaminated drinking water containing chemicals associated with cancers or birth defects.

The announcement came on Monday after the Westchester Joint Water Works (WJWW) and three other defendants in New York—the municipality of Harrison, the village of Mamaroneck, and the town of Mamaroneck—settled a yearslong case with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). As part of the settlement, the defendants must also build a $138 million drinking water filtration plant and take steps to protect source water quality.

The EPA, along with the Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, brought the case after accusing the defendants of "violation of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) in 2019 due to the presence of contaminants that are known to threaten public health in the public water system."

Some 120,000 Westchester County residents had been supplied with the water, which failed to comply with federal limits on "potentially cancer-causing disinfection byproducts resulting from water treatment."

According to a press release issued by the EPA this week: "In 2019, WJWW violated the SDWA and its Stage 2 Disinfectants and Disinfection Byproducts Rule because it supplied water exceeding legal limits for certain chemicals resulting from the disinfection process — specifically, five regulated haloacetic acids known as HAA5.

"Epidemiological studies have supported a potential association between disinfection byproduct exposure and bladder cancer and suggested an association with colon and rectal cancers. Additionally, exposure to chlorinated drinking water or disinfection byproducts may cause adverse developmental or reproductive health effects."

While the WJWW had taken "certain short-term measures to mitigate risk to its consumers, [the] defendants have failed to implement necessary corrective actions — including WJWW's failure to construct and operate a filtration plant required by an EPA administrative order and the Surface Water Treatment Rule of the SDWA."

The EPA concluded: "The consent decree establishes various interim deadlines for the drinking water filtration plant construction project and requires WJWW to continue to implement measures to ensure the safety of its water supply until the filtration plant is operational.

"The consent decree also requires WJWW to pay a $600,000 civil penalty to the United States," the documents reveal, adding: "In addition to the construction of the filtration facility, the defendants will pay New York a $650,000 civil penalty and spend at least $6.8 million on two state water quality benefit projects."

WJWW also agreed to undertake a "supplemental environmental project" to spend at least $900,000 on modifying a basin in the Rye Lake portion of the Kensico Reservoir and manage invasive species in the area. This will improve "the quality of the waters that supply WJWW's drinking water," the EPA said, adding that compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act "is not only a public health necessity but also a matter of environmental justice."

The proposed settlement, lodged in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, is subject to a minimum 30-day public comment period and final court approval. Access to the settlement agreement, and information for the public on how to submit a comment, is available on the Department of Justice's Proposed Consent Decree webpage.

Newsweek reached out to WJWW through a contact form on its website for comment.

"Everyone living in the United States deserves safe drinking water," said Assistant Administrator David M. Uhlmann of the EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. "Today's agreement requires Westchester Joint Water Works to construct a new filtration system to prevent contaminated drinking water and to protect the quality of water for a water system that serves multiple communities, including at least one that has been overburdened by environmental impacts. Westchester residents should expect nothing less."

"Today's agreement kickstarts a path to ensuring a reliable and healthy source of water for 120,000 residents of Westchester County," said Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim for the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division. "The building of a much-needed water filtration plant will address the source of the Safe Drinking Water Act violations and will help secure the area's long-term needs,"

Earlier this month, Newsweek compiled a map showing the U.S. states rated the best in terms of drinking water safety, after some states showed high levels of contamination and lead was found in drinking water in Colorado schools.