COLUMBIA, S.C. — Columbia Water recently released its annual water quality report. According to the agency, the water is safe but now the city needs your help to evaluate lead and copper levels.
At Crust Bakehouse on Rosewood, water isn’t just a necessity but it’s kneaded. The water quality is a pretty big piece of its recipes.
“It’s almost for a loaf of bread can be up to 70 percent water and usually around 60, 65 over half of it is water. And if it’s not of great pristine quality then you’re eating that stuff,” the bakery owner, Zachery Gates said.
He said if the water is bad the bread is bad too.
“Honestly I wouldn’t want to sell bread to people if it tasted funny and they would question the quality of it. I would probably have to stop until it got fixed or go buy jugs of filtered water,” he said.
According to the recently released consumer confidence report from Columbia Water, that won’t be necessary.
“We’ve been meeting the regulatory and we’re actually below the regulatory action level, so even the proposed action level coming up,” Alejandra Beier with the agency said.
This means the drinking water meets safety requirements from the EPA and DHEC.
While this study happens annually, the city agency is looking for participants in another study that will help evaluate copper and lead levels.
“Every three years we have to meet a quota of samples so we have to collect and we require customer assistance for that,” she said.
By law the city has to evaluate these chemicals and must sample supplies from customer faucets.
The agency says the goal is to eliminate them in the water and the more studies done the closer it is to that goal. If you’d like to participate in the study, click this link and look for the QR code on the report.