EPA rules City of Decorah had water monitoring violation

City of Decorah residents will soon be finding door hangers on their front doors--a message from the city's Water Department.  The notifications are being required by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which says the city had a water quality monitoring violation during January.

But city officials say there's a simple explanation.  During January they were required to test for bacteria in the drinking water nine times.  The first six tests went smoothly.  But when the city shipped the final three tests to a laboratory, the samples froze.  By the time the city had learned of the problem, it was already past January 31st.

City officials say the other six tests revealed no problems with the drinking water.  Nine more tests in February and nine more tests in March also revealed no problems.

But the E.P.A. requires communities that cannot prove their water quality met federal standards to make an official public notification of the matter.  Decorah officials will do that by hanging messages on the front doors of houses throughout the city--a project that will start later this week.