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City of Salem Water Update: SSU's Water is Safe

Dec 30, 2024

Dear Campus Community,

Last month we shared with you the City of Salem’s water notice. As you may recall, the city’s water supply is regularly tested, and they distribute annual reports. The 2023 report shows better than acceptable results for all potential contaminants sampled from the city’s water supply system, including for lead.

The city’s water testing announcement was related to their improvement efforts in response to changes made to the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. Phase one of their work is to determine what the piping materials are for the city’s water infrastructure, including service pipes that connect to residential or commercial buildings.

The city shared those buildings constructed after 1986—or which have undergone extensive renovations since that date--should not be of concern. This guidance allowed us to remove many of our buildings from the potentially impacted list. Then in response to the city’s correspondence regarding lead-contaminated service lines at Salem State University, we conducted a series of independent testing of 19 buildings to assess the presence of lead in service lines across campus.

All testing rounds utilized the “first draw” method, as this approach represents water that has been sitting in pipes for an extended period. This allows for the greatest potential accumulation of metals that may leach from plumbing, providing the most accurate indication of potential contamination within the water system. New England Environmental, a MA DEP state certified laboratory, utilizing DEP testing methodologies performed all testing.

The results of this testing indicated that there were non-detectable levels of lead, which means we have no actionable steps to undertake. However, the facilities department remains committed to ongoing monitoring and transparency to ensure the continued safety of our water supply.

As a reminder, our water bottle filling stations, which are in buildings across campus, have filters designed to remove lead along with other potential contaminates according to the manufacturer. 

Although I felt our drinkable water sources would meet the governmental standards, we took this matter very seriously, and I am glad that the quality of our water falls within mandated standards.

Thank you, and I hope you have a nice new year!

Luigi Marcone
Assistant Vice President for Capital Planning and Facilities