Hicksville Water District Warns Against Fraudulent Water Testing Scams

The Hicksville Water District (HWD) was recently contacted by a local resident about a water testing kit that they received in the mail from a private company based in Bay Shore. This issue has come up in the past, and the HWD wants to remind residents that, unlike the District’s samples, the results of these tests are unreliable and are not verified by the Nassau County Health Department. The HWD urges residents to proceed with caution when engaging with these companies that are trying to take advantage of them strictly for their own profit.

“The companies that send out these testing kits to residents are simply trying to pressure them into purchasing their home water filters based on questionable water sample results,” said HWD Chairman Nicholas Brigandi. “The results provided by these tests are likely to be inaccurate and do not reflect the actual quality of the Hicksville Water District’s drinking water. We have invested more than $50 million in the installation of the most state-of-the-art treatment technology available to ensure that our water meets and exceeds all state and federal guidelines before it is distributed to residents’ homes.”

The resident who notified the HWD of the scam received a text message from the filter company saying that she should be concerned about her water and that they would send a representative to her home with a “special filter system” to fix it. They would only speak about her results verbally over the phone and not in writing, adding to the suspicious nature of the interaction. Luckily, this resident denied a home visit and contacted the HWD for clarification. Residents who receive a testing kit that they suspect to be fraudulent should notify the HWD and file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission and the office of the New York State Attorney General.

The HWD routinely tests its water for more than 170 parameters at treatment facilities designed by engineers and approved by the health department. The District budgets more than $250,000 per year for testing and each round of testing costs more than $2,000, all of which are conducted by New York State Health Department-certified water plant operators. The tests conducted by these private filtration companies are not regulated and do not sample nearly enough water.

“Free testing cannot be relied upon for accuracy or for determining the need for any water treatment,” continued Chairman Brigandi. “Those tests collect a couple milliliters of water while we collect gallons of water to be sampled each time we do it. Providing high quality water to our residents is our mission and we have decades of water quality reports that show we are succeeding.”

Every year, the HWD releases its annual drinking water quality report in accordance with the New York State Health Department. Residents can view the report on the District’s website at www.hicksvillewater.org/hwd/water-quality-report.