Water plant official loses license

A state board Thursday revoked for three years the license of a north Arkansas water treatment plant operator after inspectors found that he falsified water-quality reports.

In issuing the revocation, the Board of Health unanimously approved a committee’s finding that Matthew Mosley, the treatment plant operator at Ozark Mountain Regional Public Water Authority, had submitted false reports on water turbidity, or cloudiness, to the department.

The authority provides water to cities and rural water associations serving about 20,000 customers in Boone, Marion, Searcy and Newton counties.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, high turbidity levels are often associated with the presence of viruses, parasites and some bacteria.

Jeff Stone, director of the Health Department’s engineering section, said he hadn’t received reports of illnesses caused by the water. Monitoring for bacteria by the authority and the water systems it serves “appeared normal without any unusual bacteriological results,” he added.

During an audit last year, the Health Department found that data from equipment at the plant indicated that turbidity limits had been exceeded in some instances that hadn’t been reported to the department.

In an order Thursday, the health board upheld its licensing committee’s finding that Mosley knowingly submitted false turbidity data in monthly reports in December 2016 and 2017, supplied false turbidity data from 2015 and 2016, and violated a requirement to report high turbidity levels to the Health Department.

Mosley argued that the reports he submitted were based on manual measurements because the plant’s automated monitoring system didn’t properly record turbidity levels. For instance, he said reports from the system didn’t indicate times when the treatment plant was offline.

“If we have a problem with reporting, how can I report that data if I know that it’s wrong?” Mosley asked the board.

But Stacy Cheevers, chairman of the Drinking Water Advisory and Operator Licensing Committee, said after the board meeting that data extracted from the manual measuring instrument didn’t match what Mosley had recorded.

At a hearing in October, Mosley was also unable to explain in some instances whether he made a measurement himself or used data from the automated system, said Cheevers, who is plant manager for the Beaver Water District. The Health Department also found data indicating “very elevated” turbidity levels in treated water, he said.

“We’re very familiar with the plants and how they operate, and the numbers were very disturbing when we looked through them,” he said.

Andy Anderson, chairman of the water authority’s board, said the water board “is unanimous in their belief that the infractions alleged do not merit revoking Matt’s license.”

“It will deprive him of his livelihood, and it will put our system in jeopardy,” he said.