This week's NEWS

ACE is the place of the Happy Hardware (or is that soft water?) Man: AWWA goes to San Antonio!  Beware of the "let us test your water" offer hanging on your doorknob! Exposure assessment is an important element of good epidemiology. Community-wide UV disinfection of drinking water provides opportunity for assessing occurrence of GI illnesses in groundwater systems. But, is there a placebo effect if some know what treatment is or isn't being provided? Los Angeles will remove two more open distribution reservoirs to address Stage 2 and LT2 rules. Is dilution the solution to tritium pollution? If you can get your arsenic into the soil, maybe phytoremediation by your friendly, frondly ferns will help? To boat and fish is human, to water ski is unforgivable... when it comes to certain California drinking water source reservoirs.

A personal note from the Publisher:

With heavy heart, the death of Carol Tate of MWH is reported. A quality person, a good friend, an outstanding engineer, and a trailblazer for women in engineering and water quality, Carol will be remembered at a memorial service June 3 at 2:30 pm at the Creekside Community Church, 1350 Danville Boulevard in Alamo, CA.

Quick Links Navigation:

Federal Updates

• EPA's Inspector General reports on serious challenges facing small water systems (PDF, 1.58 MB)
  Commentary: At EPA's request, the OIG dropped its recommendation that EPA consider changing from a "one size fits all" to a "regionalized" regulatory approach. "EPA stated that while potential occurrence and related exposure to a contaminant may vary by region, the health effects do not.  EPA develops regulations to protect the public from potential health risks... regardless of where they are or the size of the system.  In doing so, regulations are established that are risk-based, as opposed to a "one size fits all" approach." (p. 13 of report)

State Updates

• California has finally adopted the Stage 1 D/DBPR and amended its Radionuclides rule; both effective in June
  Commentary: Four and a half years after the federal Stage 1 rule went into effect, California's primacy agency has been able to overcome the state's molasses-like administrative morass that must be satisfied before a new rule can be promulgated... even when the rule is essentially identical to what the feds adopted way back when. Other states use an "adopt-by-reference" procedure.
• New York proposes adopting the federal arsenic MCL; public comments until July 29

Lead

• More evidence that chloramines may increase lead levels by dissolving pipe deposits (Environmental Science and Technology, April; PDF file, 256 K)

Compliance

• Los Angeles takes major step toward simultaneous compliance with DBP and SWT rules; open reservoirs will be eliminated (LADWP News Release, May 30)

Water Treatment

• California's largest wholesale water treatment agency gets Board approval for design of significant, new pilot-testing facility (PDF file, 173 K);  background (PDF file, 664 K)
• New Jersey regional utility's prior-planned switch from chlorine gas to hypochlorite gets a nudge by leaks (Bergen County Record, May 25)

Arsenic

• USGS reports on arsenic-groundwater modeling effort in New England (USGS media release, May 25); the report (Environmental Science and Technology, May; PDF file, 405 K)
  Commentary: The model developed by USGS is being used for exposure assessment in an epidemiologic study of bladder cancer, which occurs at an above-average rate in some northeastern states. When combined with the estimate that private bedrock wells supply about 40% of the population in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, and with the significant number of wells that have arsenic above the EPA MCL of 10 ppb, this led to the study hypothesis that increased bladder cancer risk may be related to "elevated" arsenic in drinking water.  Models are excellent tools for such analyses.  However, interpreting results is a challenge without direct correlation of cancer incidents with the consumption of drinking water with high arsenic.
• Update on study of using ferns to remove arsenic from contaminated soil (Technology News & Trends, May)

Privately Owned Utilities

• A few small California privately-owned water systems give investor-owned utilities a black eye (LA Times, May 30; free registration required)
• Some high-profile water quality problems have colored the assessment of private-entity operation of municipal systems (LA Times, May 29; free registration required)

Microbiological

• Case-controlled waterborne disease study using UV disinfection for community's entire groundwater supply comes to Wisconsin towns (Chetek Alert, May 24); info on the researchers
• Occurrence of Cryptosporidium in U.S. wastewaters (IWA Journal of Water & Health, April)
• Microbial Source Tracking (MST) is focus of July 28 workshop in Indiana by The Environmental Pathogens Information Network (PDF file, 138 K)
  Commentary: MST = ARA + CUP + PFGE + Rep-PCR (etc., etc.). The workshop will look at pathogens and indicator organisms, survival in the environment, and modern methodologies for assessments.

Source Water Protection

• California water quality regulators shut down water-skiing on drinking water source reservoir (LA Times, May 28; free registration required)
  Commentary: California state law prohibits body-contact recreation on dedicated drinking water terminal reservoirs unless the legislature gives a specific or county-wide exemption, which they have done several times --  but not in Orange County.

Perchlorate

• Widespread, low-level perchlorate in groundwater in some parts of New Mexico and Texas may be from atmospheric deposition (Abstract, Environmental Science and Technology, April)

Algae

• European research on the toxicity of "blue algae" (Cyanobacteria)

TCE

• Former poultry vaccine lab property is source of TCE in Delaware town's well; carbon filter will be maintained until multi-million-dollar cleanup is complete (Wilmington News Journal, May 26)

Radiological

• Negotiated agreement provides "progress" in groundwater cleanup of tritium at Illinois nuclear power plant (Chicago Tribune, May 24)
  Commentary: Let's see, do we have this right?"To lower tritium concentrations in groundwater near the plant, Exelon will pump water from a contaminated pond to the Kankakee River. Once the water is pumped out, it is expected contaminated groundwater will flow into the pond from surrounding land. That water, in turn, will be pumped to the river through the underground pipe from which tritium spilled 22 times between 1996 and early this year..."  Sounds good to me!

NEWS CONTINUES BELOW

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Water Security

• New report from the National Academy of Science on terrorism and the chemical infrastructure (Note: Not specifically related to drinking water systems.)

Fluoridation

• Residents in 90% of Oklahoma towns not getting adequate fluoride in water (Channel Oklahoma, May 26)

Funding

• North Carolina county identifies funding sources for improving drinking water quality (Stanly News and Press, May 26)

Publications

• New book focuses on groundwater and health; there are five other books in the WHO series on drinking-water quality  (IWApublishing)

Laboratory Issues

• USEPA and USGS are looking for collaborative partners for the National Environmental Methods Index (PDF file, 133 K)

Desalination

• New technology may offer significant advance (Photonics.com, May 22)

Water Reuse

• Australian town may be first for planned indirect potable reuse of treated wastewater (The Age, May 26)
  Commentary: While this may be a first for Australia, it resembles what happens regularly in many other countries.

Private Wells

• 150 Michigan homes will finally get safe water after 10-year wait; nitrates and chlorides from oil waste impacted private wells (Muskegon Chronicle, May 25)
• Minnesota will test hundreds of private wells for fluorochemicals used/disposed by 3M; state will update guidance on PFOA and PFOS (Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 25)

Conferences

• AWWA's Annual Conference and Exposition to be held in San Antonio June 11-15

International

• Preventing contamination of groundwater is necessity as 2/3 of Africans depend on groundwater for drinking water (Durban Mercury, May 25)

Miscellaneous

• POU device sales company uses questionable "test kit" practices in Louisiana city (Shreveport Times, May 25)
  Commentary: The sidebar in the article appropriately refers readers to the City of Shreveport's CCR and other water quality information, including the Better Business Bureau's fact sheet on water quality, which includes the following: 

  "...and to avoid falling for water filter fraud, a red flag should go up anytime a salesperson or telemarketer suggests any of the following:

  An offer for an in-home test to check the safety of your water—In-home water tests can often be used by con artists to create a false impression that you must purchase a water filter to protect your and your family’s health."

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