Reports: Fort Mill, Tega Cay serving up clean water

Municipalities have to release annual water quality reports for their customers. According to the latest, local drinking water has a clean bill of health.

The tests cover all of 2015. Both Fort Mill and Tega Cay released the results last spring as required by the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. Tega Cay had two reports, one for the system serving newer Tega Cay and the other for historic Tega Cay, the former Tega Cay Water Service system.

All the reports showed good water quality. None of them found contaminants outside levels deemed acceptable by federal standards.

Because Tega Cay purchases water from Fort Mill — after Rock Hill draws it out of Lake Wylie — many of the test results are the same for both municipalities.

Turbidity, or the amount of sediment in water, peaked at 27 percent of the allowable limit. Nitrates (fertilizer use, septic tank leaching, sewage or natural causes) and fluoride (added to promote dental health, also a fertilizer discharge) only reached 26 percent and 18 percent, respectively.

Chlorine dioxide, a water additive to control microbes, maxed out at 9 percent. Chlorite, a byproduct of disinfecting drinking water, reached 52 percent.

Fort Mill lead and copper results are from 2012. Both metals can come from corrosion of household plumbing materials and natural sources. The town only reached 60 percent of the lead limit allowed, 2 percent for copper.

The newer area of Tega Cay reached 47 percent for lead, 1 percent for copper. Historic Tega Cay recorded no lead, 3 percent for copper.

Chlorine, added to water to control microbes, reached 45 percent of the allowable limit in Fort Mill, compared to 28 percent in both parts of Tega Cay. Two other contaminants, both from the disinfection process, never reached higher than 67 percent in Fort Mill or 89 percent in Tega Cay.

This story was originally published November 7, 2016 at 2:02 PM with the headline "Reports: Fort Mill, Tega Cay serving up clean water."