RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany — Elevated amounts of nitrate recently found in the tap water at the Air Force’s Sembach Annex should not be cause for concern, military water experts say.
The elevated levels were found in a routine, annual test last week.
The issue was resolved quickly, with follow-up testing a few days later showing that the presence of nitrates in the drinking water was within German and U.S. environmental quality standards, according to officials with the 435th Medical Group Bioenvironmental Engineering Flight at Ramstein Air Base.
The flight is required to test for nitrates in drinking water at military installations in the Kaiserslautern military community once a year.
The latest annual test for nitrate at Sembach came in at 13 milligrams per liter — above the recommended maximum concentration level of 10 milligrams per liter, said Lt. Col. Vira Em, the bioenvironmental engineering flight commander.
The main source of nitrates in water is typically fertilizer, Em said. "For us, considering Sembach is a rural farm area, that’s probably the potential source. It’s not unusual."
Following the test result, bioenvironmental engineering consulted with the 735th Civil Engineer Squadron, which operates and maintains the water distribution system at Sembach.
"It could have been something in the treatment when we collected samples, because our resample shows we are below [standards]," said Heiko Welp, chief of environmental quality.
A re-test of the tap water showed nitrate levels to be at 4 to 5 milligrams per liter, he said.
Bioenvironmental engineering will conduct quarterly tests for nitrate "just to make sure everything is OK," Welp said.
While nitrate is a normal part of the human diet, found in such vegetables as spinach, lettuce and beet root, prolonged exposure can be harmful to infants and pregnant women. Free bottled water is available to pregnant women who work at Sembach, or families with an infant, at the Sembach child development center and at Building 86 on Einsiedlerhof.
No families presently live at Sembach, Em said. And only two babies less than 1 year old attend the child development center there. "They were using bottled water to mix formula," Welp said.
Em and Welp noted that whenever water quality test results indicate a contaminant above maximum standard, the military is required to notify the public. That same requirement extends to municipal water agencies off base, they said.
