Water in the News Water in the News
Non-point source pollution, such as runoff from farmlands and urban storm water, is one of the greatest threats to water quality today.
EPA Office of Water
Lead is a heavy metal toxin that can impair the function of many organs and systems in the body. Once ingested, it travels through the bloodstream and hampers the ability of red blood cells to carry oxygen.
ENN, 10-23-2000
Lockheed concedes that in its more than 60 years of manufacturing aircraft in Burbank, dozens of underground storage tanks on its sprawling 300 acre property leaked solvents and other toxic chemicals into the groundwater - helping to turn much of the east San Fernando Valley into a federal Superfund cleanup site.
LA Times, 10-5-00
New York, April 19 (Bloomberg) A program to upgrade 102 sewage plants that discharge into New York City's drinking water supply is behind schedule, jeopardizing a 1997 agreement allowing the city to avoid building a $6 billion water filtration plant, the New York Times reported.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said the pace of sewage cleanup is an important factor in the agency's decision to continue allowing the city to avoid filtering its drinking water.
New York Times 4-19-00
Los Angeles, April 17 (Bloomberg) California officials plan to recycle toilet water into drinking water. Officials plan to filter and monitor 3.2 billion gallons of wastewater annually, then combine it with groundwater so no more than 20% of a drinking sample will consist of the recycled toilet water.
Associated Press 4-17-00
About 157,000 public water systems in the United States draw all or part of their drinking water from underground sources. The White House said new research shows that groundwater supplies can be contaminated from a range of sources, including failed municipal sewage treatment systems and individual septic tanks.
Reuters 4-17-00
Washington (Reuters) Secretary of State Madeleine Albright announced a global initiative to protect world water supplies and reduce the five million deaths caused every year by drought or water-borne disease.
"Our citizens cannot be secure if the air we breathe, the food we grow and the water we drink are at risk because the global environment is in danger," she said in a speech at an Earth Day event in Washington.
Reuters 4-10-00
One billion people do not have access to safe water and 2 billion lack proper sanitation, according to a new report by the World Commission on Water for the 21st Century. Access to clean water should be seen as a basic human right, the commission contends, as well as a key factor in the fight against diseases such as typhoid and cholera.
BBC News 3-14-00
MTBE molecules travel unusually fast through soil and into groundwater once gasoline gets into the environment.
Denver Rocky Mtn. News 7-27-99
Marion, OH (Water Technology) An investigation into higher-than-normal occurrences of leukemia in Marion County, Ohio, has led to the discovery of benzo(a)pyrene in one well that supplies drinking water and thallium in another.
The contaminants were detected in raw water in wells owned by Ohio American Water. Ohio EPA has shut down the wells for further testing.
Water Technology 4-14-99
In a four-year test of 103 brands of bottled water, the environmental advocacy group, Natural Resources Defense Council, found that a third of the tested brands contained bacteria or other chemicals exceeding the industry's own guidelines or the most stringent state purity standards.
KGTV Channel Ten News Article, March 1999