WPB mayor: Testing shows toxins in water below danger level but advisory still in place

West Palm Beach Mayor Keith James said testing shows toxins from an algal bloom are now below danger levels but the city's water advisory will remain in effect as state officials seek more information.

It was a frustrated and, at times, angry mayor who said during a news conference Thursday that he had hoped to be telling residents that he could lift the advisory warning children, pregnant women, nursing mothers and other people with kidney or liver ailments that they should not drink the city's water.

Test results from water samples obtained on Tuesday and Wednesday and flown to Tallahassee for testing by the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) showed that cylindrospermospsin, a toxin produced by blue-green algae, was now below federal threat levels, James said.

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That, he added, was what the state Department of Health had told him would be required before the advisory could be lifted. But just as the city was about to lift the advisory, DEP officials told the mayor to hold off while they conduct additional testing.

James said he was not given a timeline for how long DEP's review will take, extending a public health problem that has angered and frightened residents, damaged the mayor politically and strained his relationships with officials from Palm Beach and South Palm Beach, whose residents rely on West Palm Beach for their drinking water and who have complained that they weren't given adequate notice of the problem.

James tried to take some comfort from the test results showing the toxins were below federal threat levels. 

"This is very, very promising news for our city and our water customers," he said. "But, I have to caution, we are not officially out of the woods just yet. However, we are one step closer to lifting the advisory, and that is very encouraging."

With the DEP still conducting its own reviews, there is no timeline for when the advisory can be lifted.

"Currently, the city is working with the appropriate regulatory agencies, the Department of Health, the Department of Environmental Protection," James said. "And we will lift the advisory once we receive the green light from them. They seemed to have moved the goal posts on us, to use a football analogy. It is somewhat frustrating when you don't always know the rules of the game."

In addition to incurring the frustration of his fellow government leaders – some of whom he said he's offered apologies – James has taken heat from residents who believe he did not act quickly enough to notify the public of a threat to its drinking water.

Some of that anger stems, James said Thursday, from information relayed in an editorial from The Palm Beach Post, which he said maligned him by suggesting he deliberately kept the public in the dark for days about a potential threat to the city's drinking water.

Specifically calling out Tony Doris, the newspaper's editorial page editor and a former West Palm Beach beat reporter, and Rick Christie, the paper's executive editor, James angrily demanded an apology for giving people the impression he sat on important information regarding the city's drinking water.

He said that, while the city's Public Utilities Department became aware of elevated toxin levels on May 20, he was not told about the problem until 11:24 a.m. on Friday morning when he received an email from Public Utilities Director Poonam Kalkat.

Ten and a half hours later, at 10 p.m., the city issued the water advisory.

A member of the city's staff distributed copies of the email from Kalkat to James, who said any suggestion that he sat on the troubling water news was "nothing less than a bold-faced lie."

"What is even more upsetting is that the author of this editorial had never asked me or any of my staff to explain what the mayor knew and when the mayor knew it," James said. "We never got that question."

James defended Kalkat's decision not to immediately tell him about the threat to the city's water supply.

Cylindrospermospsin is not a toxin for which the city regularly tests and there is no proscribed protocol for how to handle results that show levels above the federal threat level, James said.

Kalkat said her staff needed to conduct follow-up tests to make sure the elevated levels weren't a false positive. 

James said he plans to assemble a committee of experts to give him feedback on how the city should respond in similar cases in the future.

For now, residents should continue to heed the water advisory, he said.

That means pregnant women, nursing mothers, people with kidney or liver ailments and young children should not drink city water. The water is safe for bathing and showering, city officials said, and it remains safe for people to drink if they are not in one of the groups of people identified in the advisory.

James said he is not in one of the vulnerable groups and has has been drinking the tap water. He admonished himself for giving tap water to his dog, something he said the advisory warns against and something he said he will stop doing.

There is good news in that tests show this public health threat could end soon, he said.

But state officials will be making that call.

"We are somewhat frustrated because we don't know when the end will be," James said.

wwashington@pbpost.com