Before water reaches your tap, Cleveland runs thousands of tests and closely monitors Lake Erie

cleveland's five-mile-crib water intake

A new water quality report showed there were no violations of federal water quality guidelines at any of Cleveland water department’s four plants in 2018. Picture here is the Five Mile Crib, the water intake for the system's Baldwin Treatment Plant.Gus Chan, Plain Dealer file photo

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Delivering drinking water to more than 1.4 million people takes more than just pumping water from Lake Erie to more than 80 communities in Greater Cleveland.

Before that water reaches the tap, it goes through a purification process that involves teams of chemists in four water plants who test more than 160,000 samples a year.

This year’s water quality report, a study prepared annually, showed there were no violations of federal water quality guidelines at any of Cleveland water department’s four plants in 2018.

A copy of that report is available online.

How extensive is monitoring?

Cleveland starts collecting data before the water ever enters one of the four intake sites in Lake Erie.

Sensors in the lake take readings in the lake from several depths in a water column, measuring the water for acidity, chlorine, temperature and algal levels

Readings are collected near the intakes, each of which is about five miles off shore. Readings also are taken from bouys about 15 miles out where dead zones -- areas with low oxygen levels in the water -- tend to form.

The city shares that data with other water systems along the lake shore and with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Together they monitor changes in the lake that could have an impact on water systems.

NOAA, for example, now provides forecasts for algal bloom a couple of times a week.

The water plants monitor about 20,000 different things in real time, adjusting as necessary, water Commissioner Alex Margevicius said in an interview with cleveland.com.

And more samples are taken from the system once the water leaves the plants.

“The more data points the better,” Margevicius said.

What about lead?

Cleveland still has some lead pipes in use.

Beginning in the 1990s, when lead concentrations were well above the federal limit of 15 parts per billion, the city began using a compound of phosphoric acids to line the pipes, creating a barrier between the lead sides and the water flowing through the pipes.

That practice quickly lowered the lead levels in Cleveland water to well below the federal limits.

Over the last 10 years, those levels have continued to decline to a point where EPA is looking to Cleveland to see if its practices can be applied elsewhere, Margevicius said.

The levels of lead in Cleveland’s water were less than 2 parts per billion in 2018, about one-eighth the federal limit and about one-twelfth it’s high point in the 1990s.

What happens next?

Cleveland is looking at improvements to the 5 Mile Crib, the water intake visible from downtown Cleveland that supplies the Baldwin Treatment Plant.

The crib had ports at various levels in the intake structure that extends up from the bottom of the lake.

The improvements would allow the system to shift which ports are used to draw in water, depending on the conditions in the lake, Margevicius said.

That would make it easier to treat the water.

If, for example, high algal levels are detected near the surface, the lower ports on the column could be used to take in water. If high levels of manganese are detected at the bottom of the lake – something that can occur in areas with low oxygen levels – water could be drawn in from the upper ports.

The improvements are just getting to the design stages, Margevicus said. Actual upgrades to the crib are probably a couple of years away.


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