The 2012 Drinking Water Report has been published and should have arrived in your regular mail from the US Post Office. It provides an annual summary of the water quality and usage. Franklin is a ground water community. All our water comes from aquifers under ground. Out of sight, out of mind but very important. Hence, the EPA is watching to treat the storm water runoff before it gets into the Charles.
There is whole lot of fine print in the annual report. It is worth spending a few minutes to read. One section on fluoride reports:
Fluoride occurs naturally in all water supplies in tract amounts. In many Massachusetts communities the fluoride level is adjusted to about one part per million (ppm or mg/l) so that it is optimal for better oral health. At this level it is safe, odorless, colorless, and tasteless. There are now over 3.9 million people in 140 Massachusetts communities and 184 million people in the United State who receive the health and economic benefits of fluoridation.
Worthy of note: in the water process flow shown above this paragraph on the Drinking Water Report, it states that fluoride is added to Franklin's water. In the paragraph itself, it implies but does not explicitly state that fact. Since MA has 351 communities, only about one third actually add fluoride. This is significantly less than the US as a whole which has approx. two thirds of the population getting fluoride. (184 million out of 313 million)
As a ground water community, one or more of the wells will turn up a bad test once in a while requiring a notification like the following:
As a ground water community, this is the major reason why the DEP which issues the permit for Franklin to draw from its wells, imposes the water conservation measures each year. We have the capacity to pump what we need to. The DEP fears we would draw down the aquifer more than we should, hence the restrictions.
 |
| annual water conservation for Franklin |
The annual drinking water report can also be found on the official Franklin webpage
http://franklinma.virtualtownhall.net/Pages/FranklinMA_DPW/General_Pages/2012_CCR.pdf
We Look Forward to Seeing You Soon!!
