This week's NEWS

Canadian judge rules that Calgon's UV patent is not valid. Boil water advisories come in all sizes: From Vancouver, Canada's 2 million people to 200 souls in Casmalia. USEPA goes into listening mode: Is bottled water a substitute for safe piped drinking water? What good is public notification if the public doesn't have a clue what it means? AwwaRF research agenda is proposed. Could some sun and a few shakes be all that it takes... to solve world water safety crisis? The question of who gets to decide on fluoridation has a bizarre twist in Canada.

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Federal Updates

• USEPA sets a "listening session" December 12 to get input on NTNC water systems using bottled water for SDWA compliance (Federal Register, November 15)
• Ground Water Rule: A minor correction to a table of analytical methods (Federal Register, November 21)
• National Drinking Water Advisory Council will meet December 14-15 in Fort Worth, TX (Federal Register, November 21)
  Commentary: The focus of the meeting is on small water system issues, but other topics will be discussed, including revisions to the Total Coliform Rule.
• USEPA wants public comment on draft toxicology reviews for blue-green algae toxins (Federal Register, November 20)

State Updates

• USEPA gives Minnesota tentative approval for a whole bunch of SDWA-related regulations (Federal Register, November 16)

Legal Issues

• Canadian court finds Calgon's UV patent claim invalid: Calgon vs. City of North Bay; Calgon's reaction (Yahoo Finance, November 15) 
  Commentary: The judge's decision was clear and... colorful: “'We don't have to kill the little buggers, we only have to give them a vasectomy'. That is how Dr. Sam Stevens described the effects of irradiating Cryptosporidium parvum with low doses of ultraviolet light, in his testimony at the trial of this action for patent infringement.  The plaintiff, Calgon Carbon Corporation ("Calgon") obtained Canadian Patent No. 2,331,525 (the '525 patent) for that method. That the method is useful is beyond question. But was it new? For the reasons that follow, I find that the patent was anticipated by the prior art and is invalid." 
• Lawsuit seeks answers for customers who claim continuing impacts from 2005 Cryptosporidium outbreak in Wales (BBC News, November 16)

Water Treatment

• Chlorine-gas leak damages Colorado city's water treatment plant equipment but treatment uninterrupted (Pueblo Chieftain, November 14)
• Delaware town will drill new well and build water treatment plant for iron removal, pH adjustment, chlorination, and fluoridation; hopes there is no TCE (Bethany Beach Wave, November 15)
• Minnesota town's new water treatment plant will remove iron, manganese, and radium from groundwater (Isanti County News, November 15)

Microbial

• Heavy rains and mudslides impact Canada's greater Vancouver region, which has an unfiltered water source:
  • Boil-water advisory impacts two million people in Vancouver, Canada (Globe and Mail, November 17) 
  • BWA lifted for half the people; bottled water running short (Vancouver Sun, November 18) 
  • 900,000 in British Columbia still battle rain; BWA still in effect (Toronto Star, November 20)
  • B.C. water murky, but germ-free (Toronto Star, November 21)
  • Official says B.C. water warning could last weeks (Globe and Mail, November 21)
• Small California water system notifies residents of bacterial problems (Santa Maria Times, November 18); BWA lifted; old storage tank blamed (Lompoc Record, November 21)
• E. coli  found in one of numerous small systems on Washington island (Bainbridge Island Review, November 20)
• AWWA has new second Edition of Waterborne Pathogens manual (M48)
• Study confirms public water supply as source of 2002-03 outbreak with two different pathogens in Swedish community (Abstract, IWA Journal of Water and Health, November)
• Could a really cheap, simple water disinfection system be the answer to worldwide health problem? (Pretoria News, November 16)

Water Research

• AwwaRF's Research Advisory Council proposes an array of 22 projects for 2007; board will make final list

Compliance

• TOC violation notice leaves Colorado town's residents perplexed (Denver Channel, November 21)
  Commentary: This news story, and most particularly the video, illustrates the difficulty in explaining to the public an exceedance of a water treatment parameter that doesn't render the water unsafe. The fact that the city and their consultants had to refer the media to the regulatory agency raises the question about the validity of public notification mandates for such parameters.  
• Small Canadian town ordered to train water treatment plant employees after water quality testing failure (Halifax Chronicle Herald, November 17)

Lead

• Blood-lead tests on Goldsboro, NC, children correlate with switch to chloramines, but city's water-lead tests in compliance (Raleigh News and Observer, November 20); suggestions offered to reduce potential lead risk in water (Raleigh News and Observer, November 20)

Perchlorate

• While perchlorate levels in Japanese milk may be higher than in U.S., what does it mean? (Environmental Science and Technology, November 16)

Disinfection Byproducts

• Mississippi town hopes that drilling a $1 million "shallow" well will resolve both color and DBP issues (Clarion Ledger, November 17)

Arsenic

• 7-ppb arsenic level causes state's largest utility to shut down a well. 7 ppb? Oh, that's right! It's New Jersey! (Princeton Packet, November 17)
• AWWA seminar: Arsenic Treatment - Second Generation to be held December 8 in Utah
• Symposium on Arsenic in Groundwater-A World Problem will be held November 29 in the Netherlands
• New city water line would solve two Michigan mobile home park water systems' arsenic problems (Flint Journal,  November 21)

Source Water Protection

• "Integrating Drinking Water into Watershed Protection": Free USEPA Watershed Academy webcast on November 29
• AWWA's Source Water Protection Symposium will be held January 28-30 in Savannah, GA
• USEPA designates sole source aquifer in New York to protect water quality (USEPA Region 2 release, November 15)
• Massachusetts DEP grants 3 cities $1.5 million to protect drinking water (Standard Times, November 16)

NEWS CONTINUES BELOW

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Copper

• Florida community has slightly elevated copper level in source water (High Spring Herald, November 17)
• Chlorine dioxide treatment credited with resolving copper problem in Wisconsin system (Green Bay Press-Gazette, November 19)

Fluoridation

• Fluoridation debate in Montreal area requires a lesson in Canadian government (The Suburban, November 15)
  Commentary: On the face of it, this debate seems really weird. How can one city (large though it may be!) prevent a smaller city from re-initiating a 50-year water treatment practice? It's something about "agglomeration council," "demerged" or "reconstituted" cities, and "waiting for Quebec," but it would take a class in Canadian Civics 101 to sort it out.
• Florida dentists campaign to keep fluoridation plan on track (Treasure Coast Palm, November 19) and editorial says "stick with the fluoride" (Palm Beach Post, November 20)
• Juneau, Alaska's legislature narrowly rejects re-starting fluoridation (Juneau Empire, November 21)
• An excellent overview of drinking water fluoridation in Maine (Bangor Daily News, November 20)
• Grand Rapids, MI, sculpture will commemorate historical fluoridation event (South Bend Tribune, November 17)

Fluoride

• World Health Organization report on fluoride stresses problems with high naturally occurring levels; the full report
  Commentary: The WHO assessment is consistent with those by U.S. agencies (CDC, USEPA, etc.) in indicating the primary adverse chronic health effect of elevated fluoride is dental or skeletal fluorosis, with no demonstrable links to cancer, birth defects, or a myriad of other health issues. The WHO Guideline for fluoride is 1.5 mg/l.

PFOA/C8

• C8 science panel outlines study plans: 10 elements, completion in 4-5 years, but some results in early 2007 (State Journal, November 16), and the panel insists it must do its own study on DuPont workers (Beacon Journal, November 16)
• New Jersey city defends its water quality and handling of PFOA sampling (New Brunswick Home News Tribune, November 17)

Desalination

• World's third-largest desalination plant starts up in Perth, Western Australia (Australian, November 19)

MTBE

• California water system considers rate increase to help with cost of dealing with recently-discovered MTBE (La Cañada Valley Sun, November 16)
• Eight years after MTBE spill, health fears grow in Massachusetts (Lowell Sun, November 18)

Nitrates

• California coastal city issues warning after nitrate levels from standby wells spike above MCL (San Luis Obispo Tribune, November 17); warning lifted with change in source wells (San Luis Obispo Tribune, November 18); increased nitrates blamed on years of septic tank discharges and fertilizer use (San Luis Obispo Tribune, November 21)
• Nebraska city issues warning about nitrates in private wells (KHAS-TV, November 16)

Private Wells

• Ohio township's well owners with bacteriological problems want city help (News-Herald, November 20)

Water Quality Publications

• IWA's Journal of Water and Health November 2006 Table of Contents

Water Reuse

• The latest WateReuse News

International

• Health Canada proposes guideline for herbicide MCPA

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