This week's NEWS for April 1

AP admits that the drugs were in their reporter's bloodstream... not in the water! Congress passes drinking water security bill that tells Homeland Security to keep their fingers out of the drinking water. Noted invasive mussels researcher caught raising quaggas and zebras in his swimming pool... his three favorites are Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Bottled water industry and drinking water folks agree: Drinking water has no calories.

Then there's the "real" This Week's NEWS:

Search for source of Colorado salmonella contamination continues. What does climate change have to do with safe drinking water? EPA wants to know. And now a water treatment "segway" to the underdeveloped nations of the world? Demonstration treatment systems for hexavalent chromium get go-ahead funding in Glendale, CA. POU/POE devices may be economical for small-water-system compliance.

Quick Links Navigation:

Federal Updates

• USEPA proposes regulations for aircraft "public drinking water systems"
• USGS report summarizes private domestic well water quality data for CDC health tracking program, and NAWQA has data on over 2700 wells from 1991-2004 (PDF file, 3.24 MB)
• USEPA's draft National Water Program Strategy: Response to Climate Change is available for public comment
• USEPA's TCR/DS Advisory Committee will meet again April 9-10 in Washington, D.C. (Federal Register, March 26)

State Updates

• Tennessee's draft Sanitary Survey Manual (PDF file, 3.6 MB)
• Washington has an updated version of its drinking water regulations and a tech tip for small water systems on pump controls (PDF file, 272 K)
• Iowa gets USEPA approval for a number of new SDWA regulations (Federal Register, April 1)

Waterborne Outbreak in Alamosa, CO:

• Colorado health official: Source of salmonella contamination may not be found (Pueblo Chieftain, March 28)
• City will initiate continuous chlorination; state takes another look at disinfection waivers for ground water systems (Denver Post, March 30)
• Number of cases at 326 but no new ones in the past five days (Denver Post, April 1)
• State of Colorado health agency website on Alamosa 
• Living without safe piped water... can lead to interesting situations (Denver Post, March 30) ...and lawsuits! (Pueblo Chieftain, March 28); showering may soon be available (Denver Post, March 29)
  Editor's Note: The cause of the last big salmonella-caused epidemic in drinking water in Riverside, CA, in 1965 was never positively determined. The outbreak was described in two articles in the Journal of American Water Works Association in February, 1966, and September, 1966.

Water Treatment

• Illinois city plans $11 million water treatment facility fix to address BWAs and TTHM violation (Peoria Journal Star, March 30)
  Commentary: At first glance, the city's position that its SWTR turbidity compliance monitoring point should be AFTER the reverse osmosis process seems rational. However, it appears that the reverse osmosis process only treats well water which is then blended with the water treatment plant effluent before entering the distribution system. Blending for compliance is sometimes allowed for certain constituents like nitrates, but it is not appropriate where the purpose of the treatment is pathogen control.
• Advanced Membrane Technologies for Treating Brackish Ground Water, Seawater, and Reclaimed Water seminar on May 7 at Stanford University
• New UV water disinfection system being investigated (Australian Broadcasting Corp., March 25)
• The "Miracle Water Distiller" (Colbert Report)
  Commentary: This is not an April Fool's Day joke, just as Dean Kamen is nobody's fool.  The "vapor compression" device may not be a panacea, but any contribution to solving the drinking water quality problems in developing nations is welcome.

Chromium

• Glendale, CA, gets $2 million of state funding for chromium demonstration scale testing (Glendale News Press, March 26)

Legal Matters

• Kingston, NY, city wins settlement in nine-year-old lawsuit about the design of filters at water treatment plant (WCAX, March 27)
• It wasn't the MTBE contamination, it was the failure of Fortune 500 developer to disclose; Maryland families get $100,000 each via lawsuit (Baltimore Sun, March 27)

Disinfection Byproducts

• North Carolina town plans to switch to chloramines to address THMs at over twice the MCL (NBC 17, April 1)

Arsenic

• Higher number of people afflicted with arsenic-related illness in Bangladesh may be attributed to users abandoning water-purifying devices due to lack of maintenance (Dhaka Daily Star, March 31)
• High arsenic levels plague residents in private Michigan system, but developer may stand in way of city providing safe water (Flint Journal, March 29)
• Minnesota town gets funding help to build new wells and water treatment plant (Fergus Falls Daily Journal, April 1)

Fluoridation

• Texas city is ready to start fluoridating by April 15 (Palestine Herald, March 28)

NEWS CONTINUES BELOW

Municipal Bottled Water Services With the rapid expansion of the bottled water market, many utilities are considering bottling municipal water for reasons ranging from revenue generation to public relations. Malcolm Pirnie has worked with over 20 utilities on municipal bottled water issues, providing services that have included supervision of bottling operations, quality control of bottled product, flavor profile analysis (FPA) testing, shelf-life determinations, feasibility studies, program planning, equipment procurement, and facility design. This unique breadth of knowledge allows Malcolm Pirnie to provide unmatched experience to utilities exploring bottled water options. For more information on these services, please contact Brent Alspach at balspach@pirnie.com, or Michael McGuire at mmcguire@pirnie.com.

Aesthetics

• Longview, WA, city council's planned "blind taste test" may affect decision on new water treatment plant (Longview Daily News, March 26)
• Everett, WA, city water named the best in the northwest... or part of it (KING 5, March 28)
• Minneapolis consumers notice seasonal odor from tap water (MyFox Twin Cities, April 1)

Perchlorate

• California county to pay for perchlorate cleanup (San Bernardino County Sun, March 27); cleanup for Rialto (San Bernardino County Sun, March 30)

Lead

• Interruption in corrosion-control chemical feed may have caused high lead sample results in Massachusetts water company (Milford Daily News, March 27)
• No notice given to Ohio school district after state's tests for lead were high (WBNS TV, March 28)

Perfluorochemicals

• Cleanup of Mississippi River site in Minnesota may cost 3M $18 million; no drinking water sources threatened (Minneapolis Star Tribune, April 1)

Research

• Australia CRC research: Point of Entry/Use Treatment for Delivery of Potable Water (PDF file, 2.96 MB)
  Commentary: The report, based on a study of POE/POU devices to treat poor quality water sources, concludes, in part: "Preliminary cost calculations suggest that POE may be cheaper than building centralised treatment plants with widespread distribution systems for towns with less than 150 households... The trials...indicate that commercially available equipment can produce safe drinking water generally at a lower cost per household than centralised treatment if a distribution per household network is in place.  ...the key issue associated with POE/POU systems...is the maintenance, operation, and monitoring of these systems..." 
• Modeling Coagulation to Maximize Removal of Organic Material  (AustralianCRC, PDF file, 1.6 MB)

Source Water Protection

• 2008 USDA-CSREES National Conference featured many presentations related to source water protection issues
• USEPA's April Watershed News

Water Reuse

• Australian forum key speaker says recycled water is safe (Science Alert, April 1)

PPCPs

• West Virginia water groups in wait-and-see mode on pharmaceuticals in drinking water (Huntington Herald-Dispatch, March 31)
• North Carolina waits on federal research into the drugs-in-water issue (Rocky Mountain Telegram, March 31)

Water Contamination

• Tainted ground water is studied for cleanup at three Utah Superfund sites (Deseret Morning News, March 30)
• Beetle-fighting chemical makes its way into Wyoming water (Jackson Hole Star-Tribune, March 31)

Private Wells

• Arkansas well owners warned of contamination by flooding (Fayetteville Arkansas Times, March 30)

Conferences

• NWRI's Graduate Student Research Conference is April 4 in Washington D.C.

Relevant Links

To post a job on Job Reservoir, please visit the following address:
http://www.jobreservoir.com/postajob.html

For feedback or a news story suggestion, please visit the following address:
http://www.safedrinkingwater.com/contact/feedback.htm

To recommend safedrinkingwater.com NEWS to a colleague, please visit the following address:
http://www.safedrinkingwater.com/contact/sharenewsletter.htm

For e-mail delivery problems, please send an e-mail to info@safedrinkingwater.com.

To view the staff for safedrinkingwater.com NEWS, please visit the following address:
http://www.safedrinkingwater.com/about/staff.htm

To subscribe to safedrinkingwater.com NEWS, please visit the following address:
http://www.safedrinkingwater.com/subscribe/subscribe.htm