U.S. Water News Online
DAVENPORT, Iowa -- Hundreds of residents in the Quad-Cities area have been participating in an Environmental Protection Agency research project for the past year.
And, officials at Iowa-American Water Company, which participated in the $3 million national study in 2000, are waiting to see how their product performed.
The EPA study, known as Water Evaluation Trial, was conducted to show whether the Safe Drinking Water Act is protective enough where public health is concerned. It looked at the incidents of gastrointestinal problems among the people taking part in the trial.
A total of 400 residential customers within Iowa-American's service area, including Davenport, Bettendorf, Riverdale and Panorama Park, were recruited for the trial.
``We were under the microscope, basically,'' said Joel Mohr, operations supervisor at Iowa-American Water. ``We were blinded in the study and not allowed to know who they recruited, so we couldn't have any influence over them.''
The test households were each given a water treatment device that was attached to faucets in the homes and contained an ultra filter and ultraviolet light, which created a ``bug-free water product,'' Mohr said.
They were tied to their tap water, even having to fill water bottles from their taps to drink at work or anywhere else they might need water to keep the study from being compromised.
Half of the Quad-City participants were given a placebo product -- one that looked identical to the real device, but did nothing to change the water that came from Iowa-American's east river station.
After six months, the devices were switched and the 200 people who first had the placebo then were given the real thing.
Researchers collected data on the number of gastrointestinal problems the participants had over the one-year trial period.
Iowa-American officials hope six months of drinking the purer water resulted in fewer incidents of health problems.
``This is just making us crazy,'' said Brock Earnhardt, the company's vice president and manager. ``We are confident, though, that we're doing as good a job as can be done.''
The lead contractors of the research project came from the University of California at Berkeley's School of Public Health. The results of the study should be available in the next few months.
Return to the U.S. Water News Archives page Or Return to the U.S. Water News Homepage
Editor@uswaternews.com
*Your Name:
*Your Email:
*Friend's Email:
Use a comma to separate e-mail addresses:
*Your Comments:
Hi, I thought you might like to read this article.
*Required Fields