What's in your water?
http://www.jdnews.com/articles/water_59906___article.html/clean_drinking.html
as recently as 1998, close to 1,000 community drinking water supply systems (affecting about 18
million people) violated the EPA's Surface Water Treatment Rule. The rule was aimed at guarding
against viruses, as well as a microorganism known as giardia, in drinking water supplies.
Furthermore, between 1999 and 2001, four of five wastewater treatment plants and chemical and
industrial facilities in the United States polluted waterways beyond what their federal permits allowed.
October 6, 2008 - 2:37PM
During the recent 2008 annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, leaders in government, business, and civil
society came together for talk and action. Hollywood actor Matt Damon also participated in the conference as part of
his commitment to the Global Water Challenge, which helps provide sanitary and clean drinking water to the world's
poorest populations. Damon co-founded the H2O Africa Foundation, which spreads public awareness about the
continent's water crisis and gathers support for clean water projects there.
In more developed parts of Africa and other parts of the world, today's clean drinking water is taken for granted. This
has not always been the case, however. In the United States, for example, the Clean Water Act was passed just a little
over 30 years ago, in 1972. This law was created because severe health problems that are linked to polluted drinking
water—including stomach illness, anemia, and irreversible damage to the nervous system—had become a huge
concern. Too often, bacteria or toxic chemicals were discovered in people's water. This problem was caused by too
many contaminants getting into the water supply and not enough effort spent on treating the water prior to public
consumption.
The Clean Water Act, along with the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974, has allowed the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) to give out about $80 million in wastewater treatment assistance across the United States. These efforts
have helped get nearly 80 million more citizens connected to modern sewage treatment facilities than were connected
in 1968. The proportion of reported disease outbreaks that can be attributed to problems at public water
treatment systems has steadily declined, from 73% in 1989-1990 to 30% in 1995-1996.
Still, as recently as 1998, close to 1,000 community drinking water supply systems (affecting about 18
million people) violated the EPA's Surface Water Treatment Rule. The rule was aimed at guarding against
viruses, as well as a microorganism known as giardia, in drinking water supplies. Furthermore, between 1999 and
2001, four of five wastewater treatment plants and chemical and industrial facilities in the United States
polluted waterways beyond what their federal permits allowed.
During this week's lesson, you will learn how to use some interactive tools to investigate both protectors and potential
polluters of your drinking water. You will also find out how the EPA watches over the public's drinking water supply,
which includes regulating how much pollution wastewater facilities and other industries can release into local
watersheds.
Before you dive into this lesson, get a printed map of your area's watershed, if possible. The map should include the
watershed's boundary, primary bodies of water, major cities (including where you live), and counties.
Keeping Tabs on Your Water
Where a community gets its drinking water—from groundwater, surface water, or a combination of both—varies from
place to place. Regardless of a community's water source, however, commercial operations that might pollute these
supplies—from farms to energy production plants to car repair shops—must all get a water discharge permit from the
EPA. These permits help track commercial operations and enforce their compliance with regulations, including those
outlined by the Clean Water Act. Although these industries are allowed to release certain chemicals or other potentially
hazardous materials, they are only permitted to discharge a certain quantity and certain concentrations of each
chemical.
Begin your investigation at the EPA's Office of Groundwater & Drinking Water page What contaminants may be found
in drinking water? Read the introduction, and then click on the list of contaminants the EPA regulates. If possible, print
the PDF of the same list as a handy reference. As you review the list of the six categories of contaminants—
Microorganisms, Disinfection Byproducts, Disinfectants, Inorganic Chemicals, Organic Chemicals, and Radionuclides—
group each individual contaminant by what type of facility or operation is usually responsible for discharging it. A few
may be discharged naturally, but most come from human activity. Which, if any, of these contaminants might be a
pollution source in your local watershed?
To learn more about each of these contaminants, also review the information of each contaminant the EPA regulates
page. What kinds of health problems can each contaminant cause?
Next, visit the EPA's Envirofacts Web site and enter the data warehouse for Water. For this exercise, you may want to
coordinate with classmates so that each of you, or teams of you, researches a different county in your watershed.
Under the question "What public water systems for my county have violations reported in Envirofacts?" type in the
name of a county that lies within your watershed, along with your state's two-letter abbreviation. Click to find out about
what has happened in your chosen county.
Your search results gives you a list of violators. Click the name of each entity to investigate the details of the violation.
The details may include a specific contaminant based on sampling, or they may identify the violation as a "Consumer
Confidence Rule," which usually means that the entity has not provided adequate sampling and reporting to the EPA.
Review the details of each violation. Record the entity's name, contaminant type, the primary water source type
(groundwater or surface water), and date range of occurrence, as well as date of response and compliance. With
classmates, list the contaminant violations by year that were reported over the last five years or more. Have there been
any years that consumers may have been at higher risk than others because of compounding violations?
If you have time, you can also use the Envirofacts Data Warehouse for Water form for finding out "What companies
have been issued permits to discharge waste water into rivers" in your area of interest.
Check the Scores
To get a more comprehensive look at water pollution in your state, check out the Environmental Defense Fund's
Scorecard. Choose the Clean Water Act Status section, and then click on your state. Review the information for your
area. You can also "Zip to your community" using a zip code at the bottom of the left-hand menu. Compare scorecard
data with that of a different zip code or state.
It is also important to read About the Scorecard, including the page explaining the Caveats on the Water Quality data,
which basically explains why Scorecard analysis is somewhat limited in its accuracy and completeness