The New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board is facing state violations following news reports that employees falsified months of drinking water samples.
The Louisiana Department of Health issued three violation notices in late November and early December, faulting the agency for inadequate sampling and monitoring at its water treatment plants on either side of the Mississippi River at various points in 2022 and 2023.
Local and state officials say the public's health has not been compromised as a result of the violations.
The citations follow reports by the Louisiana Illuminator and Fox 8 in November that water board employees routinely skipped sampling assignments and falsified documents to cover it up. One of the employees has been fired, and two others had previously left the utility, according to the Illuminator.
In a statement Friday, the S&WB said it has instituted several corrective measures, including camera monitoring in agency vehicles, cross referencing sampling reports with vehicle GPS data, and installing new software to allow for continuous monitoring.
Additional testing after the news reports have turned up no issues, officials said.
“Public health is our top priority,” agency officials said in a statement. “We maintain the public was not at risk, but we take these allegations very seriously.”
One of the violations, on the East Bank, found the S&WB didn’t collect enough water samples as a result of falsifications. The news organizations found employees regularly skipped sampling assignments and falsified documents to cover up the missed work between December 2022 and June 2023. The report showed that 150 sampling assignments were skipped over a seven-month period, representing 8% of all assignments.
The S&WB said “a limited number of discrepancies were found,” noting health department findings that 147 of 150 testing sites were in compliance in December 2022 and 173 of 180 were in compliance in June 2023.
The other two health department violations were related to faulty equipment, and it’s not clear if they involve employee misconduct. On three different occasions in September and October 2023, the S&WB did not repair monitoring equipment within five working days as state regulations require, according to the notices.
The S&WB is required to determine the reasons the equipment was not repaired on time and to propose corrective actions to state authorities within 30 days of receiving the violation notices, which are dated Dec. 4. It was not clear on Friday afternoon if those notifications had been sent. An inquiry with the health department was pending.
The utility is also required to place a notification in a local newspaper within 45 days and distribute a direct mail or hand delivered notice to all affected customers within 90 days.
The S&WB said those notifications were forthcoming.