Mailing Water Quality Reports

 “Water Quality and Health in Alabama’s Black Belt”

Water Quality Report

Dear Customer Name,

As promised, in return for you participation in our study, The University of Alabama in conjunction with Hale Empowerment and Revitalization Organization (HERO) is pleased to present you with this water quality report.

Contact:

If you have any questions about this water quality report please contact:

Jessica J. Cook (JJ), University of Alabama Ph.D. student, at 205-499-0458, or jjcook@crimson.ua.edu

Joe Brown, University of Alabama professor, at 205-348-0418, or joebrown@bama.ua.edu

Thank you for your time and cooperation.

Sincerely,

Jessica J. Cook

Ph.D. Student Biological Sciences

Your Water Quality Results:

 

Indicator	Your Sample Results	Recommended Value	Meets EPA Recommended Value
Thermo-tolerant coliforms Bacteria		Zero in 100 ml sample	Y/N
Free Chlorine Residual		Detectable level of free chlorine (>0.1 mg/l)  at the household tap (applicable only for those customers on the water supply system (not well)	Y/N
pH		Normal pH between 6.5-8.5	Y/N
Turbidity		1 NTU	Y/N

 

PLEASE NOTE.  These data are based on one drinking water sample only and may not be indicative of your drinking water quality over long term periods.  We do recommend treating water by boiling if your drinking water sample tested positive for thermotolerant coliform bacteria, as this may indicate contamination.    To treat water by boiling, bring water to a rolling boil for at least one minute before consumption.   Note that many commercially available water filters (for example, Brita) may not be designed to remove bacteria or other waterborne microbes potentially present in water.  

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Above is the final water quality report that will be sent out to all of the residents of Hale County. For the past week I have been battling my printer to print out all of the labels for each of the residents that JJ/I collected samples from. As a "child of technology," I am afraid to say that I missed the majority of computer class. I had completely forgotten how to print an address directly onto an envelope. After a day of wasting envelopes and printing on them over and over again, I decided that labels were the way to go. I went to Office Depot and bought some Avery white blank labels and use an online software and have been knocking these addresses out. 

Some of the addresses on the excel spreadsheet JJ sent to me did not have names, so I typed "Current Resident" as the name. About 25 of the individuals that we collected water samples from did not have addresses. I used YellowPages.com to find those individuals addresses; if they did not have their address listed in the Yellow Pages I gave the individual a quick phone call. Each of these individuals I spoke with on the phone were very apprehensive about giving me their mailing address. On the first couple of phone calls I told people I was with The University of Alabama and they were confused. I decided after the first couple people to start by introducing myself and saying I am working with HERO. I figured everyone in Hale County has some sort of fimiliarity with HERO. 

I picked up the New College/University of Alabama official letterhead and hope to start filling in the data portion and customer name for each of the participants in this study. Hopefully, I won't have as many problems printing the actual report as I did printing on the envelopes. I believe we are going to send out the water quality report through the University. I am not really sure how that will work logistically, I will have to ask Margaret in the New College office.

I spoke with Dr. Brown today and he wants me to conclude this project with a paper that explains what I did in this study (participating in water sample and data collection, preparation and distribution of water quality reports, data collection for the EPA proposal) and outline how this study contributed to my learning and the people of Hale County.

For the rest of the week and over the weekend, I hope to complete filling out and printing the water quality reports.

Justinn