FRISCO, Texas —Renowned water activist Erin Brockovich spoke to hundreds of residents Thursday night as concerns over water quality take center stage in Collin County.
Last month, The North Texas Municipal Water District came under fire during its regularly scheduled chlorine maintenance.
The NTMWD services 1.7 million customers and 10 counties—including Collin, Dallas, Denton, Rockwall, and Kaufman Counties.
Complaints about water with a strong chlorine smell began to surface within the Facebook group “Safer Water, North Texas,” which has more than 12,000 members.
Many residents still say they’re experiencing burns, rashes, and that their pets won’t drink the water.
Brockovich, who was portrayed by Julia Roberts in a 2000 biographical film, said Thursday that she started getting flooded with emails about the chlorine burn.
“I wake up in the morning, and I have a thousand emails from the same community—that’s a flag—something is going on,” Brockovich said.
For over a decade, the NTMWD has conducted chlorine burns with its water supply—which last for about a month.
Residents are warned before the burn on the NTMWD website.
The organization adds pure chlorine to the water as a preventative measure to protect the water system from potential contaminants.
Officials say the use of chlorine combined with flushing distribution lines helps disinfect the supply and remove organic matter.
According to the EPA and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality—the process is a safe and acceptable practice.
But there’s a catch, chlorine burns can increase trihalomethane levels.
Trihalomethanes may slightly increase the risk of cancer and could cause other health problems.
The EPA requires that THM levels stay at 80 parts per billion or less in public water systems to remain safe.
The NTMWD has since released water samples taken during the burn, and results say they're within EPA guidelines.
Plano also did its own independent testing, and even though some THM levels were heightened over 80 parts per billion—the city concluded an average of samples would be safe in the eyes of the EPA.
But Brockovich’s water expert, Bob Bowcock, disagreed.
“You don’t get to do that (referring to averages) when you’re doing testing for a specific time,” Bowcock said.
Bowcock, who was at the event Thursday night, said that there are better and safer ways to do chlorine burns or disinfect water for that matter.
After getting a tour of NTMWD’s main facility, Bowcock said he’s never seen an entity use so much chlorine.
“Things that we did 50 years ago that got us here today, don’t work taking us forward,” Brockovich said.
WFAA asked Brockovich if she would drink the water here herself.
“After a chlorine burn? And what I just learned? No, I would be suspicious of it. But I’m suspicious of all water because I know what goes on behind the scenes," she said.
Brockovich came to Texas with Bowcock on her own dime, though residents had to pay $20 at the door to hear her.
Organizers say that the cost was to help pay for renting out the building where Brockovich spoke.
In 1996, Brockovich won a class action lawsuit worth an over $330 million in southern California over water quality.
She said today that her goal in North Texas is not litigation, but cohesiveness.
“Oftentimes when we have these meetings like we are tonight—they (NTMWD) will say ‘oh we didn’t know that we’ll start working with Bob—we’ll start making a change.’”
Brockovich said at the meeting that the NTMWD was issued a violation yesterday by the TCEQ.
Late Thursday, the NTMWD said, “The North Texas MWD Wylie WTP public water system was issued a notice of violation on April 4 by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for failing to report sample results for drinking water constituents for the 2017 monitoring period at one of their entry point facilities. This violation is not for a health-based situation or an exceedance of a drinking water standard or maximum contaminant level.”