Monitoring Violation of the Water Testing Schedule

Public Notice

Monitoring Violation of the Water Testing Schedule

The City of Oelwein (PWSID 3353088) has incurred a monitoring violation per 567 Iowa Administrative Code (IAC) 41 for failure to collect and/or report all required bacteria samples for the month. Only five out of the required seven samples were collected. Even though these were not emergencies, as our customers, you have a right to know what happened and what personnel did to correct these situations.

The City of Oelwein Public Works Department is required to monitor your drinking water for specific contaminants on a regular basis. Results of regular monitoring are an indicator of whether or not our drinking water meets health standards. During July 2026, Public Works staff did not monitor or test two samples for coliform bacteria and therefore cannot be sure of the quality of our drinking water during that time.

What should I do?

There is nothing you need to do at this time.

What Happened? What is being done?

Public Works staff collected two samples on 7/2/26 and sent them to the laboratory for analysis. After the 30 hour hold time, the samples were due to be analyzed on 7/3/26. The laboratory was closed for the 4th of July holiday and the samples were discarded. Therefore, we only completed five of the seven required samples for the month of July. To assure this never happens again Public Works staff reviewed and adjusted the sampling around the holiday schedules of the laboratory.

Providing clean drinking water is an essential city service that the City of Oelwein works on daily. The city sincerely apologizes for this sampling error.

For more information... 

For more information, please contact Thomas Stewart or Herb Doudney at Public Works office at 319-283-1197.