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Re: AP phosphate test kit
On Mon, 16 Jul 2001, Scott wrote:
> Do you think it is possible that the kit can give a reasonably accurate
> reading even if total dissolution doesn't?
Not unless it was designed to work that way, which was a question that I
left open for them to answer.
> have you contacted your municpal water supplier to
> obtain a water quality report? These usually list at least all of the
> chemicals (metals, minierals, organics, etc.) that the EPA specifies
> limits for (about 200). Water suppliers produce such reports annually,
> as required by Federal (and often state) regulations, and they or
> summaries of them should be public information.
Phosphate is not an EPA regulated component in drinking water, so water
utilities don't have to provide phosphate levels. Many do anyway. It is
generally regulated as part of a waste water discharge permit, but that is
another matter entirely.
My water utility doesn't report phosphate because -- as they told me -- it
isn't regulated in drinking water and they have never detected it in any
of the city's wells. Currently all of our water supply comes from about
70 deep wells. The city lab's detection limit was 0.5 mg/l P, which I
thought was a little too high to be useful, so I checked published USGS
analyses of water from other wells in the same aquifer and area as the
city's wells. In all cases P was undetectable at 0.01 or 0.02 ppm (0.03
or 0.06 ppm PO4). That was low enough for me.
The utility told me that they don't add phosphate and have no plans of
adding it in the future, so what I get out of my tap should be pretty much
the same thing that comes out of the ground.
AP (Brian Bridgewater) replied to the email I sent them after my test on
the new kit. I may send them a water sample so we can be sure what it
is that causes their kit such problems.
Roger Miller