Central Alabama Water’s laboratory is no longer testing drinking-water samples for safety, and another lab is now performing those tests, according to public records filed with the state’s environmental agency.
Added to the utility’s operations in the 1990s, CAW’s EnviroLab was the largest certified laboratory operated by any public water system in Alabama and was the backup lab for the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, according to CAW’s website and its social-media posts. The lab also tested water for smaller public systems in Alabama.
“CAW has transitioned away from operating a state-certified laboratory for compliance purposes,” CAW Chief Operating Officer Timothy Harris wrote in a March 26 email to ADEM.
The email was a formal update regarding laboratory personnel, certifications and current operational status, Harris wrote. Beginning March 13, CAW contracted with an external lab to perform all regulatory compliance sampling and analytical services, the email continued.
ADEM and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency require certified labs to monitor public drinking water to ensure it’s safe for human consumption in accordance with the Safe Drinking Water Act. Labs test water for contaminants such as E. coli that could cause acute illnesses and for those that could lead to long-term health problems.
Drusilla Hudson, who served as EnviroLab’s manager for 10 years before retiring in February, said the lab no longer met state and federal regulatory requirements after its staff was cut in half as part of a mass layoff CAW conducted in March.
“At this time, with who they got left in the laboratory, they can't do it,” Hudson said. “So they’ve started outsourcing the samples.”
The utility laid off three of the lab’s top leaders – the chief chemist, the quality control supervisor and the water-quality superintendent, she said.
CAW’s email to ADEM names nine people, including Hudson, “no longer associated with laboratory operations” and seven who “remain employed.”
Under Alabama administrative code, drinking-water testing labs that ADEM certifies should comply with an EPA manual that outlines necessary personnel. Qualified people should serve in leadership and oversight roles, according to the manual, and labs should have sufficient staff with the necessary education, training and experience for their assigned functions.
Public water systems must use certified laboratories for nearly all required monitoring, according to ADEM.
Lists on ADEM’s website of certified in-state chemical and bacteriological labs have been changed since last week. CAW’s lab no longer appears on the lists.
CAW declined multiple requests from WBHM to answer specific questions. John Matson, public relations manager, said in a written statement that the utility “is meeting all state and federal regulatory requirements related to drinking water safety and quality.” CAW also has a longstanding policy of not commenting on personnel matters, he wrote.
CAW facing financial challenges and lawsuits
According to the EPA Manual for the Certification of Laboratories Analyzing Drinking Water, certified laboratories should notify their certifying authority – in CAW’s case, ADEM – of major personnel changes within 30 days. If ADEM determines the lab can no longer produce valid data, it should revoke the certification, the manual states.
The employee layoffs are part of drastic budget cuts CAW recently made. The utility has been grappling with financial challenges for years and has not adequately maintained its aging infrastructure. A state law restructured the utility and its board last year, shifting majority board representation from the city of Birmingham to suburban areas.
CAW also has been dealing with a plethora of lawsuits, including ones related to the restructuring, discontinuation of fluoridation and termination of managers and employees. Last week, a Mountain Brook resident filed a class-action lawsuit accusing the utility’s leaders of extreme mismanagement and citing the alleged “elimination” of the water-quality laboratory as one example.
Arguments against outsourcing
Jim Hicks claims in his suit, filed in Jefferson County Circuit Court, that CAW Chief Executive Jeffrey Thompson and five of seven CAW board members did away with the water-quality lab without a validated replacement protocol, regulatory approval or a transition period. They made decisions without adequate information, expert consultation or genuine deliberation, the lawsuit states.
CAW’s board of directors has not voted to eliminate the lab or to outsource its functions. At the most recent board meeting, on March 20, the board approved a resolution giving Thompson sweeping authority to make decisions without board approval.
The current board has been in office almost a year, and its hiring of Thompson through an opaque process in November was controversial. Thompson immediately replaced CAW’s entire senior management team.
Hicks’ lawsuit claims the lack of an in-house laboratory creates a public-health threat.
“Outsourcing introduces delays, reduces direct accountability and creates gaps in the chain of custody for water quality data — increasing the risk of undetected contamination reaching consumers,” the suit states.
In addition, ratepayers bear the cost of any regulatory violations and corrective or enforcement actions, it continues.
According to information on CAW’s website, EnviroLab conducted hundreds of daily tests and approximately 62,800 tests annually to ensure the quality and safety of its drinking water.
Hicks requests that a judge appoint a receiver to prohibit any further disbandment of the lab’s functions.
Two former water works board members also are asking a judge to step in to prevent structural changes at the utility until a federal court rules in their case, which challenges the constitutionality of state laws that transformed the board into a regional one. The judge in that case denied a motion for a temporary restraining order last week but could still grant a preliminary injunction that makes the same requests.
Richard Rice, an attorney for the two former board members, said outsourcing the lab’s functions would mean shifting testing responsibility from people who live in the community and have family in the community – and therefore a vested interest in the safety of the water – to a third-party contractor with none of those concerns.
Calvin Grigsby, another attorney for the former board members, said he thinks what’s happening with the lab is part of a larger effort to transfer jobs, contracts and related economic benefits from the city of Birmingham, where he said most employees live, to surrounding areas.
“It may appear that they're just firing employees, but what they're doing is moving the business economics to other counties,” he said. “That means the businesses in Birmingham don't have customers, the property values in Birmingham go down. So there's a ripple effect.”
In the email to ADEM, Harris wrote that Pace Analytical Services is the lab now conducting all of CAW’s sampling and testing for regulatory compliance.
According to Pace’s website, it has three locations in Alabama – in Tuscaloosa, Decatur and Mobile.
Testing for other systems
EnviroLab also has stopped conducting water-quality testing it previously performed for other public water utilities in Alabama, Hudson said.
James Clark “Julio” Davis, the mayor of Graysville, a small town northwest of Birmingham, and superintendent of its water and gas utility, said CAW notified him last month that its lab would no longer test Graysville’s samples. A lab in Leeds, an eastern suburb of Birmingham, is now testing Graysville’s water, Davis said, adding that it charges less than CAW did.
“CAW is not available to serve as a backup laboratory for compliance or analytical services,” the email from Harris states.
Alabama had only seven certified drinking-water chemical labs, including CAW’s EnviroLab, according to a document that was on ADEM’s website last week. CAW’s lab was one of 32 certified, in-state bacteriological labs, according to this document that also was replaced this week.
CAW’s EnviroLab is not a backup lab for ADEM, said Lynn Battle, chief of ADEM’s Office of External Affairs, in a written response to questions from WBHM.
Assurances lab wouldn’t be downsized
Hudson said several CAW managers, including Harris, told her before she retired that EnviroLab would not be downsized.
She said she doesn’t know “who made the final decision to terminate all the leadership that knew anything about the lab and leave it with somebody who didn't know anything about the lab. That don't make business sense to me.”
According to Harris’ email, current lab personnel are not performing “compliance analytical work.” Hudson said those employees are now collecting samples and packaging them to be sent elsewhere for testing.
Potential lab building leased
The CAW board voted at its March 8 meeting to find a tenant to lease a building the previous board purchased in 2023 to be a new home for EnviroLab, which currently resides at CAW’s main campus in Birmingham.
“The cost is prohibitive right now, and we don’t have use for the building at the moment,” BirminghamWatch reported Thompson said at the meeting. “We have an existing lab building here on this campus, so the building can potentially generate some revenue for the utility.”
