Ron Seely digs deep into Madison’s water woes:

Students at East High School were among the roughly 9,000 people who, for a short time at least, were drinking city water contaminated with high levels of an industrial pollutant that can cause liver, kidney or lung damage.

Nobody would have known that by reading the Madison Water Utility’s consumer confidence report data for that year.

The federal health standard for the chemical, carbon tetrachloride, is 5 parts per billion. In October 2000, the level in the city’s well No. 3 tested at 8.3 parts per billion.

But the utility’s annual drinking water quality report listed the maximum level found at only 2.9 parts per billion. Utility officials say it was a typo.

More:

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• More Money and Action
• Some mains in system date to 1880