Toledo Scales Back Microcystin Testing in Its Drinking Water; an Oklahoma City Alligator?
Alligators aren't known to frequent OKC. Arto Hakola / Shutterstock.com
Also: The standardized testing backlash continues and Arizona closes its state genealogical library.
Here is some of what we’ve been reading today …
TOLEDO, Ohio: Although the levels of toxic microcystin found in Lake Erie near the city of Toledo’s drinking water intake on Wednesday were double the levels detected two days earlier, municipal authorities will scale back daily testing for microcystin. As the Toledo Blade reports, samples will be drawn daily, but they’ll only be tested weekly. The toxic risk isn’t causing too much alarm for Toledo-area water authorities:
Even at 1.0 parts per billion, though, the concentration of toxic microcystin in raw lake water is so small that water-treatment plant operators shouldn’t have a problem neutralizing it, according to Doug Wagner, superintendent of the city of Oregon’s water-treatment plant.
“I wouldn’t even break a sweat at 1.0 ppb,” Mr. Wagner said. “A lot of people are panicking over nothing. We can treat at 5.0 ppb with our eyes closed.”
Last summer, Toledo-area residents were warned to not drink municipal water because of high, potentially harmful microcystin levels. [Toledo Blade]
OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma: The Sooner State’s capital city isn’t a place where you’d expect to discover an alligator. But police in Oklahoma City found such a creature in a drainage ditch when investigating a report of an abandoned car on Wednesday. Alligators live in the southeastern portion of the state, NewsOK reported, but are not native to the central part of the state, where Oklahoma City is located. “I’ve been in this for about 16 years, and this is only the second one that I’ve heard of," Jon Gary of the city’s animal welfare division said. "We have no idea how he ended up here." [NewsOK]
HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania: The standardized testing backlash continues in public schools, this time in Pennsylvania, where educators, school board members and administrators testified before their state’s House Education Committee on Wednesday, according to The Morning Call. Said one assistant superintendent of Pennsylvania System of School Assessment exams: "I have never met a leader of a university or the owner of a business who asked me for a student's PSSA score . . . I propose that the state allow districts to establish a menu of more meaningful data indicators to meet accountability standards." [The Morning Call]
PHOENIX, Arizona: Researchers and historians in the Grand Canyon State are fuming after learning that the genealogical library at the Arizona State Capitol will be closing its doors on Friday. The library’s collections will be consolidated with the state archives a few blocks away, according to The Arizona Republic, which reports that the news came suddenly and with no outreach to research groups. [The Arizona Republic]
ORLANDO, Florida: Here are some stats that the local Chamber of Commerce probably isn’t too pleased with. Orlando’s housing market, according to the Orlando Sentinel, “ranked among the highest in the nation for underwater houses and financially toxic foreclosures during the second quarter.” [Orlando Sentinel]
Michael Grass is Executive Editor of Government Executive’s Route Fifty.
NEXT STORY: Need to know if your neighbor's a felon? In Tennessee, there's an app for that