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Arsenic is a cancer-causing agent. That change will mean big increases for customers of the local water companies whose arsenic levels are in the 10 to 20 PPB range: Green Valley Water and Community Water of Green Valley. The new rules could mean no impact or could cost up to $1,100 a customer in Las Quintas Serenas in Sahuarita, where officials have found that water drawn from shallower wells contains acceptable levels of arsenic and hope to draw all their water from shallower wells. The two Farmers Water Co. wells in Green Valley comply with the stricter standard, while the company’s one well in Sahuarita does not, Chief Executive Officer Warren “Toops” Culbertson said. Culbertson said it is too soon to estimate the cost impact of bringing the Sahuarita well into compliance. And officials of Rio Rico Utilities and Valle Verde Water in Nogales say their wells already produce water below the new arsenic standards. Costs of compliance Manny Oros, general manager of Green Valley Water, said his company will have to spend about $1.2 million to construct reverse osmosis treatment plants for its two wells, which have arsenic levels of 13 and 14 PPB. Spread out over the company’s 3,900 customers, Oros said, that means each customer will have to pay between $250 and $300, probably spread out in rate increases over a 10-year period, which would mean about $2 to $2.50 a month. In addition, operating expenses might increase about $7 a month, in part to pay for the cost of disposing of the filter media and the cost of pumping water through the media. Bills now average $14.63 a month, Oros said. The company covers the area south of Placita de la Cotonia and west of Interstate 19. The company currently chlorinates water from its two wells, but does not treat the water in any other way. Oros said he expected to begin construction next year, and said the new rates are at least two years away, because it takes the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) two years to approve rate increases and the company is still gathering data to file with the ACC to support a rate request. Green Valley Water already has a 38 percent rate increase request pending before the ACC, based on cost increases unrelated to compliance with arsenic standards. Community Water Company of Green Valley also expects to absorb an increase that customers will share, though General Manager Michael Weber said he believes existing and expected lawsuits might delay the imposition of or weaken the new standards. Weber did not have cost figures, saying the company has not decided which of several technologies to use, but he said it is clear that the rule will cost the company. Its four wells most recently have produced water with arsenic levels in the 11 to 17 PPB range, after earlier samples were in the 9 to 12 PPB range. Engineering study Weber said he has budgeted $25,000 for an engineering study to present treatment alternatives. He said the company now uses chlorine very occasionally, and the main options open to the company include ion exchange, membrane or absorptive technologies. Weber said that in ion exchange technology, water passes over or through a substance used to draw arsenic out of the water, in the way that a household water softener works. Most ion exchangers tend to pull out a variety of substances, and would not work for Green Valley water because they would draw out so many sulfates and other non-threatening substances that their usefulness would be expended before they removed enough arsenic to meet standards. Weber said membrane technology, including reverse osmosis, involves forcing the water through a membrane that traps particles, including arsenic and other large molecules. It is similar to smaller units that many homeowners have under their sinks. Absorptive technology, Weber said, is similar to ion exchange, in that water is forced through a substance, except that newer media that are being developed, in particular granular ferric hydroxide, target arsenic more efficiently, and don’t expend themselves on other constituents of the water. Las Quintas Operator and Manager Steve Gay said his three wells measure 8, 12 and 14 PPB, and the deeper the well, the higher the arsenic level. Treatment plants would cost $500,000 each for the two wells that would be out of compliance. That would mean a cost of $1,100 per customer for the utility’s 900 or so Sahuarita customers. “We don’t know [the impacts] yet. We are madly trying to dodge it [filtration],” Gay said. If the company can meet the standards by plugging the bottom 300 feet of its deeper wells, those around 800 to 900 feet, and drawing water from around 500 feet deep, it will avoid incurring costs of filtration, Gay said. Now in compliance Don Baker, vice president and general manager of Rio Rico Utilities, said all his wells are in compliance with the new standard. Frank Randall, the owner of Valle Verde Water in Nogales, said the wells he has tested recently are all producing water below the 10 PPB level, but he has not yet had all the wells tested. Arsenic exposure has been associated with cancer deaths, and the EPA under the Clinton administration proposed changing the 50-year-old standard of 50 PBB to 10 PPB, provoking an outcry about the cost it would impose on smaller, rural water companies. The Bush administration put the proposed rule on hold, then announced the 10 PPB standard. Water industry officials have filed lawsuits that challenge the scientific basis of the new rule, saying the impacts of arsenic exposure below 50 PPB are not really known. However, health advocates maintain that the 10 PPB standard is not strict enough, and that even at that level, arsenic exposure is associated with cancer deaths. Arsenic occurs naturally and much of the groundwater in Arizona contains levels of arsenic between 10 and 20 PPB, officials said. © 2002 Green Valley News & Sun  All Rights Reserved. Reproduced with permission from the Green Valley News and Sun.