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A report on the environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking” in the Baldwin Hills area of Los Angeles is being questioned by local residents and environmental groups. The report found no evidence of environmental or health impacts. Critics claim that it fails to consider potential long-term impacts and questioned the selection of one reviewer [...]
Continue Reading →Centers for Disease Control investigators found the deadly amoeba Naegleria fowleri in the tap water of two Louisiana residents who died from primary amoebic meningoencephalitis in 2011. These are the first cases in the US that have been linked to N. fowleri in household plumbing served by municipal water. According to the Food and Drug [...]
Continue Reading →Cadiz has been trying to sell groundwater from the Mojave desert to Southern California cities for 15 years. The environmental impact report for the project was accepted last week by the Santa Margarita Water District in Orange County. Santa Margarita also agreed to buy one-tenth of the project’s proposed annual yield. If it goes ahead [...]
Continue Reading →The EPA announced yesterday that it has completed its sampling of water from private homes in Dimock, PA. The sampling program was undertaken based on concerns regarding contamination from nearby hyrdaulic fracturing, or “fracking”, operations. However, the EPA did not detect elevated levels of any of the contaminants studied.
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24 million gallons of spilled jet fuel have contaminated an aquifer in Albequerque, and are making their way towards the wells that serve as the city’s primary source of drinking water. The spill occured over a period of 40 years at Kirtland Air Force Base, two miles from the nearest drinking water well. The plume [...]
Continue Reading →A plan to sell groundwater from the Mojave desert to the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California hit a roadblock when testing showed that the water contains 14 – 16 parts per billion of chromium-6. The public health goal in California is 0.02 parts per billion. The plan may still go ahead, but Metropolitan is [...]
Continue Reading →A study by the US Geological Survey found high levels of nitrate in 25 percent of the Upper Santa Ana Watershed, high levels of perchlorate in 11 percent of the of the aquifer system, and moderate levels in a further 53 percent. This aquifer system is used to provide drinking water to the Inland Empire. The study [...]
Continue Reading →The City of Redlands has begun work on an $8.5 million improvement project to bring its surface water treatment plant into compliance with EPA regulations for disinfection by-products. Assistant utilities director Chris Diggs explained that, “when organics – (or the) carbon – come in contact with chlorine these certain acids are formed. And these acids are [...]
Continue Reading →Officials at the Ohio Department of Public Health are offering free arsenic testing to owners of private wells in the State. The data will help them work with the US Geological Survey to identify areas where groundwater contains dangerously high levels of arsenic. Arsenic is a naturally occuring contaminant in many parts of the US, and has been linked [...]
Continue Reading →Warmer summers could cause more frequent blooms of toxic blue-green algae (also known as cyanobacteria), and cause them to produce more toxins. Cyanobacteria are naturally occuring in reservoirs, and blooms in drinking water supplies have been linked to gastrointestinal disorders, and other illnesses.
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Global Warming Favors Proliferation of Toxic Cyanobacteria – [...]
Continue Reading →A study by the US Geological Survey has identified the presence of contaminants in potentially harmful concentrations in some New England bedrock groundwater supplies. Among the natural and man-made chemicals most commonly detected were arsenic, uranium, radon, nitrates, MtBE, and chloroform. Many of these were frequently detected above their EPA’s Maximum Contaminant Level.
“This study confirmed [...]
Continue Reading →A press release from the National Ground Water Association yesterday details steps owners of private wells should take to ensure the safety of their drinking water after a flood. In addition to contamination of the well water with bacteria and chemicals, they also point out the danger of electrical shock if the well’s electrical system has [...]
Continue Reading →Surveys and retail trends show that consumers are looking for ways to use plastic water bottles less often due to growing concerns about chemicals leaching from the plastic. One beneficiary of this trend are reusable glass bottles.
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Wary of Plastic, and Waste, Some Consumers Turn to Glass – The [...]
Continue Reading →The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection has tested water quality in private wells since 2002. The results show that a significant number of those private wells contain levels of arsenic, mercury, nitrates, and volatile organic chemicals deemed unsafe by the US Environmental Protection Agency for public drinking water systems.
Overall, one in eight [...]
Continue Reading →The Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority’s will hold a meeting to discuss its decision to use chloramines as a secondary disinfectant. The proposed change will effect approximately 60,000 customers in Charlottesville and the surrounding Albemarle County. The use of chloramines is approved by the EPA for drinking water disinfection, but some negative health impacts have been reported, including [...]
Continue Reading →A recent study suggests that psychiatic drugs could cause autism. Researchers at Idaho State University found that Prozac, Effexor, and Tegratol activated the same genes in fathead minnows that are associated with idiopathic autism in humans. While these drugs have been detected in drinking water, they have not been found at the levels used in [...]
Continue Reading →Researchers at the Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation and the University of California, Davis discovered that viruses were present in a quarter of Wisconsin drinking water systems that do not disinfect their water. The authors of the study believe that this has a significant impact on the health of those communities: between 6% and 22% of all cases [...]
Continue Reading →Researchers at the Marine Biological Laboratory and the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth found that arsenic at the maximum level deemed safe by the EPA was damaging to the pups of pregnant and/or breastfeeding mice. The EPA currently limits the level of arsenic in public drinking water systems to 10 parts per billion (drinking [...]
Continue Reading →Nick Phillips at Water Technology has an excellent article on the advantages and limitations of installing a UV purification system for household use. The take-home message: UV is great for people on private wells, but can be compromised by very hard water.
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Residential UV: Pros and cons – [...]
Continue Reading →North Carolina is expected to pass legislation opening the state to hydrolic fracturing, or “fracking” later this summer. However, there is concern that the state’s groundwater supplies could be at greater risk from the toxic chemicals used than those in places like Pennsylvania. The News & Observer reports that:
“North Carolina’s natural gas reserves are much closer to [...]
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