Tyler Responds to Letter From Erin Brockovich

TYLER — City officials are responding after activist Erin Brockovich sent a letter to the Tyler city council concerning what she calls a significant misinformation campaign about the water quality problem in Tyler. At a news conference on Wednesday, Mayor Martin Heines said he’s asked the city manager to hire an independent, third party expert to evaluate the facilities and protocols of the city’s water department. This comes in the wake of accusations from Brockovich that the water isn’t safe, and that city officials are lying to residents. The concerns were raised by a surge in haloacetic acids in the Tyler system. The mayor said he remained confident in the Tyler water system.

In her letter, Brockovich said they were not primarily concerned about an MCL violation for HAAs back in May and reported in late October. She said they were most concerned about are the repeated calls to their offices about high levels of chlorine taste and odor in the drinking water in Tyler for months leading up to the TCEQ Violation reporting requirement of late October. According to Brockovich, “the problem in Tyler, Texas is you are misusing chloramine (chlorine + ammonia) in your treatment process to control the formation of regulated disinfection byproducts.” She claims this misuse has lead to the ultimate destruction of the city’s distribution system.

She wants three things from the city:
1. May we please have the water quality data for all tests performed at the treatment plants and the distribution system from June 1, 2015 through the present?
2. May we please have copies of the water treatment plant operations logs from June 1, 2015 through the present?
3. May we please have the Scope of Work, name and contact of the third party investigator recently retained by the City of Tyler?
Thank you all very much for your time and assistance in obtaining the requested information in a timely manner.

Tyler had the following response to the request:

“We are in receipt of an email from Robert W. Bowcock with questions regarding our water system,” said City Manager Ed Broussard. “We are in the process of reviewing his request for particular documents. In response to the question about the scope of the third party review the Mayor has requested, I believe the Mayor made it very clear in his news conference yesterday that it will not focus solely on the haloecetic acid peak we had in May, but rather on the system as a whole. As mandated by law, the City of Tyler complies with TCEQ standards for the operation of the water plant and treatment of water. Continuous monitoring of the water system in accordance with TCEQ rules and regulations, along with annual inspections by the TCEQ indicate that we are in compliance with their standards for water treatment. When we were not, customer notification was required and delivered. The third party independent engineering firm review will verify compliance with TCEQ standards and evaluate for any potential improvements we could consider. This review process has already begun.”