Was Deerfield Water Contamination Report Delayed by Highland Park Lab?

Delayed delivery of a report from Highland Park’s water testing lab kept Deerfield from issuing its boil order Monday as early as it could have, according to a report issued Friday from Village Manager Kent Street to Mayor Harriet Rosenthal and the Village Board of Trustees.

A discussion of the report and remedies from preventing delays from happening in the future tops the agenda for the next meeting of the Board at 7:30 p.m. Monday at Village Hall.

Deerfield buys its water from Highland Park, further purifies it and distributes to its citizens and businesses.

Deerfield’s water is tested five times a week and sent to an Illinois Environmental Protection Agency approved laboratory operated by the City of Highland Park. The lab knew Saturday samples taken Friday contained fecal coliform but did not inform the Village until Monday.

“The fecal coliform test results were available at this time (Saturday) and had the laboratory clearly reported these results or the (Deerfield) Village Water Operator asked further about the results, the Village of Deerfield would have known to issue a boil order,” Street said in his report.

Highland Park Public Works Director Ramesh Kanapareddy is offering Deerfield any assistance the Village seeks and insists all reports were furnished according to procedure.

“It is our impression that Deerfield is looking at investigating this matter on their end to find out on the reporting protocol and City has offered to sit down with them to improve the protocol,” Kanapareddy said in an email to Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering. “Our job is to give results to Deerfield and we have done that in a well-documented manner.”

The Board will discuss the report Monday including recommendations Street has made to improve reporting. The fill memorandum is available on the Village’s website.

At this point, the Village is continuing to investigate all the circumstances leading up to the boil order to improve its procedures in the future. “We’re not trying to place blame,” Rosenthal said. “We’re trying to uncover.” The order was lifted Wednesday.

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