All of the water retailers and public water suppliers are obligated to report annually to their customers on the levels of contaminants in the drinking water. The origins of such state-mandated annual reports, Yoo says, can largely be traced to the voluntary communications efforts forged by local water retailers in the 1980s. There were news stories about shallow ground water and soil contamination, and people were drawing conclusions that it meant the drinking water was contaminated. That's when we decided to provide annual water quality reports. The answer is absolutely yes.
People have a right to that information.
In the valley's agricultural past, wells and water towers, such as this one that remains in Campbell, were used to irrigate crops. While MTBE has been available as an octane booster for more than 20 years, its clean-burning properties became integral to regional air quality compliance under the federal Clean Air Act of 1992. According to Di Marco, MTBE now composes 11 percent of the local gasoline supply. Yet despite approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and certification by the National Academy of Sciences, MTBE's impacts on the environment and public health are not fully understood. Such contamination may be just a matter of time, however.