EPA Archives - Environmental ADR

Our Drinking Water Regulation Is So Weak Even Flint’s Water Got A Pass

July 6, 2016 by Environmental ADR Editor Leave a Comment

WASHINGTON — Federal drinking water rules are so relaxed that not even the city of Flint, Michigan, has been cited for a violation, even though many Flint residents have been relying on bottled water for drinking and cooking since last year.

The Natural Resources Defense Council said Tuesday that 18 million Americans got water from systems that violated federal standards last year, according to federal data.

And the environmental advocacy group said an untold number of water systems break the rules without landing in the Environmental Protection Agency’s database of water regulation goofs — including Flint.

“Flint’s absence in the federal data system raises the question: If Flint’s extraordinary lead contamination problems are not included in the EPA’s official compliance data,” the NRDC’s report says, “how many other municipalities’ serious lead problems are being swept under the rug by officials responsible for protecting public health?”

An EPA spokeswoman noted it’s up to states to notify the agency of drinking water violations by municipal water systems.

“EPA recognizes there are ongoing challenges in compliance with the Lead and Copper Rule and is working closely with states, who under the Safe Drinking Water Act are the first line of oversight of drinking water systems and take the majority of enforcement actions,” the spokeswoman said in an email. The Lead and Copper Rule is the main federal regulation for limiting lead levels in public drinking water. Read More

When It Comes to Environmental Protection is New York Lagging Behind?

May 16, 2016 by Lester Levy Leave a Comment

New York State and City take pride in being leaders and trendsetters when it comes to legislative and regulatory action to protect consumers in a number of areas, including banking and insurance and commercial transactions. But when it comes to environmental protection, there are ways in which New York seems to be seriously lagging compared to the extent of efforts in many other jurisdictions.

The latest account of a serious lapse in environmental protection in New York is the subject of a recent article published in Crain’s New York about long-known, but largely unaddressed, concerns about Perchloroethylene, or “Perc,” a solvent used in the dry cleaning of clothes for many decades. There is a lot of literature on this subject that was developed over many years of scientific study. The inquiry focused on concerns of potential health risks to those who work at dry cleaning establishments, inhale perc’s fumes and drink water that contains it high concentrations of perc from its release into drinking water aquifers and such.

According to the article and other sources, USEPA deems perc a “likely carcinogen” that can harm the liver, kidneys and blood, and the immune, reproductive and central nervous systems. In response to this and its independent scientific findings the State of California banned the use of perc in 2007. Ironically, the article reports that Jack Nicholson turned into the Joker when he fell into a vat of it in the first Batman movie. I, myself, have mediated hundreds of perc cases, both large and small, involving releases of this contaminant into the environment in other states throughout the country. [Read more…]

The Next Water Crisis Is Looming—How Can Tech Help?

April 14, 2016 by Environmental ADR Editor Leave a Comment

Have you ever wondered if the water in your house is safe to drink? While many have been angered by the news that children in Flint, Michigan were exposed to abnormally high amounts of lead in their drinking water, clean water is actually a problem for millions of Americans.

Chicago is busy replacing 900 miles of hundred-year-old, potentially hazardous lead pipes, while Fresno is dealing with cancer causing chemicals in wells.

The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates US water infrastructure is nearing the end of its useful life and will need to be replaced, probably costing around a trillion dollars. And the Environmental Protection Agency estimates 16% of water is lost every year through old systems and that over the next 20 years water system upgrades will be a $200 billion market.

And of course, clean water is not only a US problem. Far from it.

Over 663 million people lack access to clean water worldwide. According to the World Health Organization, 1.6 million people die every year from diarrheal diseases due to a lack of access to clean water and basic sanitation. Ninety percent of those who die are children under five, the majority living in developing countries.

Water is not only essential for sanitation, drinking, and cooking but necessary for agriculture, industrial activities, recreation and healthy environmental ecosystems.

As the world’s population continues to grow and urbanize, and as the climate changes, the International Food Research Institute predicts that by 2050 more than 4.8 billion people and half the world’s global grain production will be at risk due to water stress.

Where access to this most valuable of resources is contested, conflict ensues. From Syria and Iraq to Peru and the Ukraine, water continues to play a pivotal and increasing role in conflict, and water-related conflicts have significantly escalated since the turn of the millennium.

The irony about the global water challenge is that we live on a planet awash in water, yet we can only utilize a tiny fraction of it in the form of accessible fresh water.

That’s where we believe new technology and innovation can help. Read More

Read the entire article at SingularityHub.

This was originally published on SingularityHub written by Darlene Damm and Nicholas Hann.

Water Is Broken. Data Can Fix It.

March 28, 2016 by Environmental ADR Editor Leave a Comment

Water Is Broken Data Can Fix It

AS a nation, we have become disciples of data. We interview 60,000 families a month to determine the unemployment rate, we monitor how much energy we use every seven days, Amazon ranks sales of every book it sells every hour.

Then there is water.

Water may be the most important item in our lives, our economy and our landscape about which we know the least. We not only don’t tabulate our water use every hour or every day, we don’t do it every month, or even every year.

The official analysis of water use in the United States is done every five years. It takes a tiny team of people four years to collect, tabulate and release the data. In November 2014, the United States Geological Survey issued its most current comprehensive analysis of United States water use — for the year 2010.

The 2010 report runs 64 pages of small type, reporting water use in each state by quality and quantity, by source, and by whether it’s used on farms, in factories or in homes.

It doesn’t take four years to get five years of data. All we get every five years is one year of data.

The data system is ridiculously primitive. It was an embarrassment even two decades ago. The vast gaps — we start out missing 80 percent of the picture — mean that from one side of the continent to the other, we’re making decisions blindly.

n just the past 27 months, there have been a string of high-profile water crises — poisoned water in Flint, Mich.; polluted water in Toledo, Ohio, andCharleston, W. Va.; the continued drying of the Colorado River basin — that have undermined confidence in our ability to manage water.

In the time it took to compile the 2010 report, Texas endured a four-year drought. California settled into what has become a five-year drought. The most authoritative water-use data from across the West couldn’t be less helpful: It’s from the year before the droughts began.

Read the entire article at the New York Times.

This article was originally published in the New York Times written by Charles Fishman.

Supreme Court Deals Blow to Obama’s Efforts to Regulate Coal Emissions

February 10, 2016 by Environmental ADR Editor Leave a Comment

WASHINGTON — In a major setback for President Obama’s climate change agenda, the Supreme Court on Tuesday temporarily blocked the administration’s effort to combat global warming by regulating emissions from coal-fired power plants.

The brief order was not the last word on the case, which is most likely to return to the Supreme Court after an appeals court considers an expedited challenge from 29 states and dozens of corporations and industry groups.

But the Supreme Court’s willingness to issue a stay while the case proceeds was an early hint that the program could face a skeptical reception from the justices. [Read more…]

Unsafe Lead Levels in Tap Water Not Limited to Flint

February 10, 2016 by Environmental ADR Editor Leave a Comment

In Sebring, Ohio, routine laboratory tests last August found unsafe lead levels in the town’s drinking water after workers stopped adding a chemical to keep lead water pipes from corroding. Five months passed before the city told pregnant women and children not to drink the water, and shut down taps and fountains in schools.

In 2001, after Washington, D.C., changed how it disinfected drinking water, lead in tap water at thousands of homes spiked as much as 20 times the federally approved level. Residents did not find out for three years. When they did, officials ripped out lead water pipes feeding 17,600 homes — and discovered three years later that many of the repairs had only prolonged the contamination. [Read more…]

President Obama Appoints Water Czar to Address Flint Water Issues

January 21, 2016 by Environmental ADR Editor Leave a Comment

Yesterday evening, the Department of Health and Human Services designated Dr. Nicole Lurie, an agency assistant secretary, to lead the federal government’s response to the elevated lead levels allegedly found in the drinking water being provided by the City of Flint, Michigan, to its residents. This designation came on the heels of a meeting between Flint’s mayor and Valerie Jarrett in Washington, D.C. The federal government has elected to play a significant role in addressing this crisis, with President Obama signing an emergency declaration on Saturday which provided Flint with access to up to $5 million in federal funds. The crisis began in 2014 when Flint stopped getting water from Detroit and began obtaining its drinking water from the Flint River in an effort to lower costs.

The appointment of a federal “czar” to coordinate a federal response to contamination of a local drinking water system is somewhat unusual. However, it is likely that the political nature of this issue, coupled with the fact that U.S. EPA may have been aware as far back as April 2015 that Flint’s water supply was at risk for lead contamination, likely contributed to this decision. For those that watched the Democratic presidential debate on Sunday, the Flint water issues were discussed by the candidates, with blame not surprisingly being directed at Republican Governor Rick Snyder. [Read more…]