Monroe County Water Authority: Air quality has no impact on water

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Over the past few days, News10NBC has received several calls and emails asking whether the poor air quality from the Canadian wildfires will impact our drinking water.

The Monroe County Water Authority says the wildfire smoke will have no impact on the quality of water coming from your tap. Here’s a brief explanation:

“As far as our water quality, that comes out of our treatment plant. What you are drinking, there’s really no impact,” said Chris Lamanna, director of production and transmission at the Monroe County Water Authority. “Even our raw water quality coming in from Lake Ontario, we haven’t seen anything of any substance. There is no increase in any particulate matter or anything like that that we can detect “

The water authority has a state-of-the-art filtration system that draws up to 50 million gallons of water a day from Lake Ontario. It’s treated at the Shoremont Plant in Greece or the Webster Plant.