Charlotte, NC – As part of its celebration of National Drinking Water Week, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utilities invites media to Devonshire Elementary School this Thursday, May 7, for the following activities:

Water Education Stations
Utilities will host rotating educational stations for Devonshire students from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday. A ceremony celebrating Water Week and the importance of safe drinking water will be held at 11:30 a.m. with Councilmember Patsy Kinsey and winners of the Water Star award and the annual Water Week poster contest. Devonshire Elementary is located at 6500 Barrington Drive in northeast Charlotte.

Unveiling of Grease Free Cleaning Trucks
To promote proper disposal of cooking grease and oils, Utilities recently applied decals to nine of its wastewater cleaning trucks. Vibrant, bilingual messages will be rolling through Mecklenburg County neighborhoods reminding customers that grease should be absorbed, contained and thrown in the trash.

Customers pouring grease down drains is the leading cause of sanitary sewer overflows in our community. Properly recycling or disposing of grease is simple, inexpensive and can prevent costly plumbing problems. One of the cleaning trucks will be on hand at Thursday's Devonshire Elementary celebration.

Release of New Water Quality Report
The 10th annual Water Quality Report will be mailed late this week to 445,000 postal customers countywide, as federally required, to inform them of drinking water test results from calendar year 2008. Our community's tap water again meets and exceeds state and federal drinking water standards, and, again, Utilities had no water quality violations.

Utilities conducts more than 150,000 tests on drinking water annually, and this report summarizes the substances detected in Charlotte-Mecklenburg's tap water. Customers can find the report and a list of all the substances tested for but not detected in their tap water at www.cmutilities.com on the "Publications" page.