This week's NEWS

The NEWS is coming to you one day early this week so that readers in the U.S. can get up-to-date before initiating their long Thanksgiving weekend. Unfortunately, there probably won't be many "thanks given" for safe drinking water because most Americans pretty much take it for granted. Of course, our readers are the exception! Happy Holiday!

Good advice is available for utilities facing potential shortages of water fluoridation chemicals. Now that California has a perchlorate MCL, what's the implementation drill? New water treatment plants address variety of water quality problems. Large proposed ocean desalting plant in California gets over major hurdle. Risk communication 101: What do you tell the public? Everything! When do you tell them? Sooner!

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State Updates

• Minnesota's winter Waterline newsletter (PDF file, 781 K)
  Commentary: Ammonia and nitrification in distribution systems are discussed. In addition to the use of ammonia for disinfection using chloramination, Minnesota has detected significant ammonia levels in untreated ground water sources.

Legal Matters

• When last week's issue of the SDW.com NEWS went out, the federal appellate court's website was temporarily down; here is the ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals on Portland, OR and New York City challenge to EPA's application of the LT2ESWTR (PDF file, 51 K) 
• Florida community sues six alleged polluting industries for ground water contamination, which brought them a "free" community water system (Lakeland Ledger, November 17)

Water Treatment

• Ohio SRF helps city upgrade water treatment plant with GAC to address DBPs
• A Tale of One City: Two sources, two water treatment plants; existing reverse osmosis and planned nanofiltration for shallow aquifer in Florida (Jupiter Courier, November 17)
• Ventura, CA's new water treatment plant is online (Ventura County Star, November 16); ultrafiltration membranes featured in plant
• Regional water treatment plant will address iron and manganese with ozone and filtration for three Massachusetts towns (Boston Globe, November 18)
• California city receives $5.5 million state grant for a new ground water plant to address iron, manganese, salts, taste issue (Ventura County Star, November 16)

Compliance

• State officials slam Massachusetts city for water treatment plant security and operations issues; outside firm hired to run plant and assess problems (Eagle Tribune, November 19)
  Commentary: This is the latest in a series of actions related to Lawrence's water treatment problems. A state consent order was issued in May after the brand-new treatment plant started up and testing was found to be deficient. (See SafeDrinkingWater.com NEWS, May 9)

Aesthetics

• Minnesota town gets great water from Minneapolis, but its old cast-iron pipes turn it "red and murky;" cement lining planned (Minneapolis Star Tribune, November 18)

Laboratory Issues

• On-line access to Standard Methods is available

Microbiological

• Pennsylvania city hurries up filter-cleaning process to address conditions that resulted in BWA (The Herald, November 12); Greenville BWA lifted after negative tests for Giardia (The Herald, November 18)
  Commentary: There is obviously more behind this story than a single finding of Giardia in the raw river water.
• West Palm Beach, FL, mayor wants $3 million for water treatment plant repairs (South Florida Sun-Sentinel, November 17); independent preliminary report points to short-circuiting of disinfection process and operations problems (PDF file, 4.24 MB)
• The recent boil water episode in Barnstable, MA, is believed to be related to another incident two weeks earlier (Barnstable Patriot, November 16)

Disinfection Byproducts

• Reverse dosimetry: Interpreting trihalomethanes biomonitoring data using physiologically based pharmacokinetic modeling (Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology, November 15)
  Commentary: If a layperson (at least in the world of toxicology, risk assessment, and advanced statistics) can work out the difference in forward and reverse dosimetry and can figure out just what PBPK is, then the idea of assessing exposure to a chemical based on what is found in a human begins to make sense... sort of! Oh yeah, then there is that Monte Carlo thing!

Perchlorate

• California DPH provides clear guidance to water systems on implementation of the recently adopted new perchlorate MCL and monitoring schedules
• Several California cities and water district say state regulator's clean-up order is "impotent" (Morgan Hill Times, November 16)

Fluoridation

• Information on shortages of drinking water fluoridation chemicals: 
  • AWWA provides guidance to water utilities on FSA shortages and alternatives
  • CDC has an excellent fact sheet related to temporary shortages of fluoride chemicals 
  • CDC's good general information on fluoridation additives  
• Canadian community debates need for public notice during brief interruptions of fluoridation caused by shortages (London Free Press, November 19)
• Retired Alaska environmental official says "listen to the science;" fluoridation is safe and effective (Fairbanks Daily News-Minor, November 18)

NEWS CONTINUES BELOW

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TCE and PCE

• Arizona residents come to hear EPA's decision to keep filters on air discharge from Superfund cleanup plant but are outraged to hear they got TCE in the drinking water (East Valley Tribune, November 16), but the utility reports that blending resulted in delivered water below MCL (Arizona Republic, November 17); and Editorial: Notice should have been given (East Valley Tribune, November 19)
  Commentary: The newspaper opinion probably reflects the feelings of most consumers and certainly is the advice given consistently by Risk Communication experts:"Even if the risk is slight, even potentially nonexistent, those entities that provide drinking water and the government whose mission is to safeguard general health and safety have a duty to quickly inform the public about any anomalies."
• U.S. Air Force and EPA put their dispute about cleanup of tainted ground water from Massachusetts base on hold; will collect more data! (Cape Cod Times, November 19)
• ATSDR issues retrospective water distribution report for Camp Lejeune (PDF file, 5 MB)
  Commentary: ATSDR is trying its best to reconstruct the past by doing retrospective epidemiology on exposures to TCE and/or PCE hoping to see what correlation exists between drinking water exposures and adverse health outcomes. It is tough to do this without knowing how ground water moved and how the drinking water was distributed in order to assess exposure. A tough job in the present, but doubly so when you're looking back 20 years or more!

Desalination

• Proposed Southern California desalination facility gets important thumbs-up (North County Times, November 16); state coastal commission gives conditional okay (San Diego Union Tribune, November 16)
• Huge desalination plant proposed for Victoria, Australia, becomes political football in election season (Sydney Australian, November 19)

Lead

• Testing for lead at Waterloo-region schools in Canada shows one daycare with slightly elevated levels (Cambridge Times, November 16)

1,2,3-Trichloropropane

• IRIS Toxicological Review of 1,2,3-Trichloropropane (External Review Draft)

pCBSA

• Byproduct of DDT production continues to impact Michigan city's wells; no end in sight (Morning Sun, November 18)

Bottled Water

• Survey in UK shows restaurant patrons get bottled water pushed on them; some are too "wimpy" to demand tap water (National Consumer Council press release, November 16)

Water Contamination

• Feds likely to look at problems with fly ash primarily associated with coal-based energy generation (Annapolis Capital, November 15)

Private Wells

• Pennsylvania community to hold its first "Test your Well" event to help private well owners (New Carlisle Sun, November 15)

Conferences 

• AWWA's Inorganic Contaminants Workshop, January 27-29, 2008, in Albuquerque

International

• New WHO book: Chemical safety of drinking-water: Assessing priorities for risk management

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