In January, Heidi Yelin, CUC’s water quality laboratory manager, said Saipan’s public water system contained total coliform.
The summary of the safe drinking water total coliform rule sample in February showed that six routine samples were conducted and not one of the 77 samples collected were found to contain total coliform.
Yelin said the Rota public water system also complied with the total coliform rule during the February monitoring period.
In her report to Division of Environmental Quality Director Frank Rabauliman, Yelin, however, said the samples taken from Rota revealed conflicting statements regarding acceptable sample temperatures.
“The three Rota samples were invalidated and the language in the relevant Standard Operating Procedure and the Quality Assurance Manual was revised to be consistent,” she said.
Microbiological samples must be collected and stored in ice and must arrive at the CUC laboratory no more than two hours after collection, she added.
But the evening flight was delayed and CUC laboratory staff took possession of the samples at the airport at past 8 p.m., or more than five hours when the samples were collected, she said.
On Tinian, she said they collected six routine samples on Feb. 22.
The analyst noticed a crack in one of the sample bottles so the sample was rejected and not analyzed. Five others were analyzed but later invalidated since they were received more than two hours after collection.
But Yelin said none of the valid samples collected on Tinian last month contained total coliform.
“So Tinian complied with the Total Coliform Rule for the February 2010 monitoring period,” she said.
