MEETING NOTES

Rotarian Beth North introduced this week’s guest speaker, Purdue graduate Matt “Water” Gavelek, the Senior Environmental Health Specialist with the St. Joseph County Health Department.  Matt works for the county on the Drinking Water Protection Plan.  Matt explained that St. Joseph County has one of the largest aquifers in the state of Indiana and it is one of the best places to get water from.  There are a lot of areas in our county that have a large amount of individual septic systems and these systems are adding nitrates to our water.  Nitrates are an issue because they can cause “Blue Baby Syndrome” and other medical issues that we are still learning more about with research.  High level of nitrates 10 ppm (parts per million) or more in the water, according to EPA standards.  A lot of people in St. Joseph County live within the cities and have city water and sewer, but for those in the county that are not, this can be an issue.  The biggest issue is that we do not know the long term effects that this is going to have on our water system and aquifer.  Matt and his office are focusing their efforts on long term solutions to this problem.  They are currently working on over 20 alternatives to the issue, and are hopeful for the future.  Thank you to Matt for speaking to our club and teaching us how we can work together to make sure everyone in St. Joseph County has safe drinking water.