A former water supply monitor in New York City pleaded guilty for falsifying records that involved the purity of the city’s drinking water.
32-year-old Daniel Storms admitted in Federal District Court in White Plains, N.Y., that he did not complete all of the required checks before recording the water’s turbidity level and measure of cloudiness in February 2005.
According to the New York Times, Storms is the second city employee to plead guilty for falsifying water quality records. In August 2005, Dieter Greenfeld also admitted that he made false entries while monitoring turbidity. Greenfeld was later sentenced to two years of probation.
If convicted, Storms could face five years in prison.
Both Storms and Greenfeld were employees of the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, which is responsible for running the city’s water. New York City’s system is the largest in the country.
The New York Times reported that the department has been under careful scrutiny after pleading guilty to violating federal clean-water acts in 2001.
New York’s water is required to be monitored for turbidity every four hours, day and night. If the turbidity records are not up to water quality standards, then New York could be forced to build a multi-billion dollar filtration system.
Source: New York Times