THE City of San Fernando Water District (CSFWD) and its partner PrimeWater City of San Fernando reiterated Monday, August 20, that it is committed to maintaining the standard and high quality water supply and services it provides to its concessionaires.
This came as last July 29, a post was published by a certain Veronica Apostol, accusing the CSFWD about the existence of live earthworms in the cooking pot her mother placed to save the dripping water from their faucet. The post immediately went viral on social media.
A day after the post was published online, PrimeWater and the water utility immediately conducted an initial investigation at the location of the account of Ulderico Apostol, the father of Veronica, at Santo Nino Viejo in the City of San Fernando.
PrimeWater said in a statement that its team was greeted by Emily Apostol, Veronica's mother, who said he did not actually see the "worms" come out of the faucet. She only assumed that they were from the water service line since she placed a cooking pot under the faulty faucet to collect the dripping water overnight, and discovered them the next morning.
"Our team proceeded to inspect the water meter and found out that the plastic strainer is intact. This plastic strainer filters any foreign material (other than water) from entering the plumbing system. A similar plastic strainer was also installed on their faucet," the statement said.
The team also conducted a chlorine residual test and found that the chlorine content of the water was at 1.5mg/l (normal chlorine level is between 0.3mg/l to 1.5mg/l). This level is lethal enough for any micro-organisms and other bacteria to survive and still be present in the water lines, the statement added.
Veronica Apostol, the person who published the viral post, was notified of this activity via Facebook Messenger, according to PrimeWater.
PrimeWater officials, together with the CSFWD Monitoring Unit, after thorough investigations, concluded that it is impossible for these organisms to have existed in the water lines due to the following: a) the presence of the water meter strainer; b) pressurized main line; c) high chlorine residual content; d) a leaking faucet would have only had a "needle-point" opening that is very small even for worms to pass through; and, e) owners did not actually witness the worms come out of the faucet.
These worms could have only crawled their way into the cooking pot while it was placed under the leaking faucet, it said.
On August 6, PrimeWater management and technical heads, together with representatives from the City Health Office of the City of San Fernando, conducted a joint investigation to determine the real cause of the presence of these parasites.
The City Health Officials noticed that the drain pipe of the kitchen sink does not have a "P-Trap."
A P-Trap is a plumbing fixture that prevents the formation of clog within the plumbing system and stops sewer gases from passing inwards.
With Apostol's permission, the drain pipe was pulled out for inspection and was later found to have an infestation of worms. A scrape sample was taken by the city health officials for further laboratory analysis.
PrimeWater replaced their make-shift drain pipe with a proper "P-Trap" drain fittings free of charge.
Around 2 p.m. of the same day, Veronica Apostol published an online statement stating that the "worms" found on their sink last July 29 were not from the water lines but from the drain pipe of their kitchen sink.
"The City of San Fernando Water District and PrimeWater City of San Fernando would like to inform the general public that there is absolutely no cause for alarm. We regularly conduct flushing operations on strategic locations, bacteriological test, and chlorine residual monitoring to ensure that the water that flows through our water lines is safe and potable," the statement added.