Experts are using strong language to warn Maui residents in Lahaina and Upper Kula not to filter their own tap water.
Brita filters, devices connected to refrigerators or sinks and even robust, whole-home systems are unlikely to address the “extreme contamination” that can happen after a fire.
“You can pull in contaminated or dirty water from the outside, even when those lines are underground,” said David Cwiertny, a civil and environmental engineering professor at the University of Iowa. The state health department’s environmental health division told Maui County, which operates water delivery systems for most residents, to test for 23 chemicals. Those are just the ones for which the federal government has set limits for drinking water.
Four days later, the California State Water Resources Control Board announced people could drink it as long as it didn’t smell. Two and a half weeks later, that agency announced there was benzene in the water. New contaminants also have been discovered recently. The chemicals that Hawaii’s state government told Maui County to test for are called volatile because they tend to become airborne, like gasoline that turns to vapor when it drips from the pump onto your car.on the Marshall Fire in Boulder County Colorado, shows a group of heavier compounds, called “semi-volatile,” can contaminate damaged water lines as well, even when benzene and other better-known chemicals are not there.
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