The Peru Gazette

By John T. Ryan

An Editorial

If you are a Peru resident who doesn’t care for the taste of chlorinated water or you’ve been concerned about those periodic Town of Peru warning letters regarding disinfection by-products you may have gone to local unmonitored “springs” and filled your containers with that great tasting “spring” water. My advice is to stop!  After many months of procrastination, I brought a sample of the “spring” water I’ve been consuming to a local lab for testing. While the water tested negative for ecoli bacteria, it tested positive for coliform bacteria and the lab advised me to immediately stop drinking the water unless it was boiled. I took a second sample to the lab and received the same laboratory report. The water came from the popular “spring” a few hundred feet from the Harkness Methodist Church. The water is not safe to drink.

I had the Harkness spring water tested after receiving a phone call from a friend who became ill after drinking water from a spring located at the corner of the Soper and Turner Roads in Schuyler Falls. His doctor diagnosed him as having giardiasis, a gastrointestinal ailment characterized by cramps, nausea and dehydration that develops following consumption of water containing giardia. Giardia is a parasite associated with the feces of animals or humans. My friend was very sick for approximately ten days.

John Kanoza, the Clinton County Health Department’s Director and Engineer of Environmental Health, lives in Peru and says it best, “I choose to use Peru’s water because it is good quality water and it is disinfected.”  Kanoza said that the Health Department gets at least one or two reports every year of someone getting sick after having drunk spring water.  He said infants and the elderly are the most prone to sickness. He added that oftentimes a spring appears to be safe, but if you trace it back to its source you find a pond which can easily become contaminated.  Kanoza emphasized, “We try to discourage people from using spring water.”

Kanoza also said that the Town of Peru Water Department recently installed new activated carbon media; therefore, residents shouldn’t be receiving any future Health Department issuances about elevated disinfection by-products. That’s very good news! I’ve been drinking Peru water directly from the tap for the past few days and to my surprise I’ve actually found it to be very good.  Needless to say, there will be no local more unmonitored “spring” water in our household!