Finally fulfilling a promise made in July, Seminole County this week posted on its website the results of monthly water quality tests for the carcinogen 1,4-dioxane, which is known to have contaminated some of the county’s drinking water wells.
County officials previously provided the data to the Orlando Sentinel, which published it Sunday.
But it wasn’t until early Tuesday that the county posted the same data on its website through the Utilities Engineering page. However, on that page there is no direct link to the data.
The information can be found by visiting the county website at seminolecountyfl.gov and typing “dioxane” in the search field on the page and hit enter. Click on “1,4-Dioxane | Seminole County” and then scroll down below the heading “Seminole County’s Water Utility” and click on the link “Recent 1,4-Dioxane Testing Results.” The data is from May 2023 through December 2023.
It shows the consistent presence of 1,4-dioxane at the county’s Markham Regional Water Treatment Plant — which receives water from about half-dozen wells in the northwest quadrant of the county — although it is far below the Environmental Protection Agency’s health advisory levels of 0.35 parts per billion (ppb). Concentrations of the chemical at that plant ranged from less than 0.04 ppb in September 2023 to 0.187 ppb in November.
Data from January and February of 2024 was not available because samples were contaminated due to laboratory errors, officials said.
The other four water treatment plants on the data sheet show levels regularly below 0.04 ppb. County officials say all of the water, including that from the Markham facility, is safe to drink.
In July 2023, the Sentinel published a series of articles entitled “Toxic Secret,” which described how the county became aware of the presence of 1,4-dioxane in its water through tests in 2013, including some measurements at levels exceeding the federal government’s recommended range, but chose not to publicize the results. In response, county commissioners promised “transparency” to their constituents.
Asked last week why that transparency had not been forthcoming, county officials said the data has always been available to residents at their request. They said they only got around to posting results on the county website Tuesday after giving them to the Sentinel four days earlier.
Officials noted that they still plan to post all data regarding 1,4-dioxane, and other water quality test results, into an interactive map and dashboard on the website. That will likely happen by mid-May, they said.
Using the dashboard, residents will be able to click on a spot on a county map and find information on their water provider, source of their water and testing results for that specific area.
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Even so, compiling the data is taking a significant amount of time, officials said, since much of the information and test results are being collected and organized by several consultants contracted by the county.
“We just need to get all the data and put it together in a form or fashion that’s easy to read,” Kristian Swenson, assistant county manager, said last week..
Meanwhile, county commissioners Tuesday listened to a presentation regarding Seminole’s plans to create informational dashboards on the county’s website that would provide interactive data on a vast array of additional information including building permits, property tax revenues and road projects.
Commissioners and county staff acknowledged it would take several months to provide the complicated data — including information about water quality — on the website in an easy-to-read fashion.
“It is not lost on me that because we didn’t move in some fashion fast enough for a local news outlet that somehow we are now not transparent,” Commissioner Amy Lockhart said. “We are not lacking transparency. We are creating a method by which transparent data is more readily available.
“All of the information is currently available. It’s just not in a pretty, clickable, colored website.”
Commissioner Bob Dallari called Lockhart’s comments “a valid point.”
