Tag Archive for: Safe Drinking Water

Tap Water is Generally Safe to Drink. But Contamination can Occur.

/in , /by /USA Todayby Daryl Austin

The World Health Organization notes that only about 73% of the world’s population have access to drinking water that is both nearby and free from contamination, leaving billions of people who aren’t afforded such a basic luxury. Even worse, at least 1.7 billion people have to drink from a water source that’s contaminated by human waste.

And while there are notable exceptions such as the Flint water crisis, those of us living in the United States have few reasons to worry about such the safety of our drinking water. “In relationship to the risk of illness associated with other countries around the world, our drinking water ranks fairly highly as we use advanced testing measures to ensure that drinking water is safe and free from both chemical and microbial contaminants,” says Rachel Noble, a distinguished professor of marine sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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What Frequent Water Main Breaks Say About America’s Aging Infrastructure

/in , /by /KPBS by John Yang, Kaisha Yang

U.S. drinking water is among the world’s safest and most reliable, but aging infrastructure across the country is posing challenges. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that there’s a water main break every two minutes. Shannon Marquez, professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University, joins John Yang to discuss why these problems are so common.

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A Key Atlanta Water Main Break Is Now Fixed, But A Boil Advisory Is Still In Place For Many, City Says

/in , /by /CNN by Elizabeth Wolfe, Rebekah Riess and Amy Simonson

Crews in Atlanta have completed repairs to a key water main whose break, among others, contributed to a huge swath of the city spending days without safe drinking water – though a boil advisory remains in effect for many homes and businesses “out of an abundance of caution,” officials said Wednesday morning.

Water service is “slowly being brought back online to allow system pressures to rebuild,” they said in a news release, following a vast, sometimes intermittent breakdown that began Friday and highlighted the decaying infrastructure criss-crossing a major Southern hub and many other major American cities.

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Opinion: Californians Have a Right to Safe Water, Yet Many Don’t Have It. Is Help on the Way?

/in , , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Tom Philp

Twelve years after California became the first state in the nation to declare a “human right to water,” achieving this basic societal goal of securing clean water for all 39 million state residents is more daunting than ever.

 

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California Invests in Critical Central Valley Water Infrastructure Projects

/in , , /by /Courthouse News Serviceby Natalie Hanson

California’s water authorities will spend $15 million in three crucial water management zones within the drought-ravaged southern Central Valley.

The hub of agricultural production in the Golden State, the Central Valley has also faced the most dire impacts from another historic drought, as thousands of wells went dry last year and many communities faced a total lack of safe drinking water.

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Safe Drinking Water Resources are Underway for Tribes in the Coachella Valley

/in , , /by /KESQ by Staff

Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia and local tribes celebrate the passage of Safe and affordable drinking water for Native American tribes, also known as AB 2877. “One of the goals is to help prevent future situations like what occurred at oasis mobile home park but ensure tribal lands, specifically underserved tribal areas, can receive and be prioritized to receive state water infrastructure grants,” says An official from the office of Assemblymember Garcia’s office.

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Grants Awarded to Restore Safe Drinking Water for Lake Morena Residents—but Process May Take Until 2024

/in , /by /East County Magazineby Karen Pearlman

For more than two years, Lake Morena Village area water users have been drinking bottled water because of formidable nitrate levels in the region’s wells, the main source of water for drinking in the rural San Diego county burg.

In September 2019, the county issued a do-not-drink order for about 125 customers of the Lake Morena Views Mutual Water Company, one of the two main water suppliers in the area.

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Opinion: Water Infrastructure — The Unmet Needs of Low-Income Communities

/in , , /by /The Hillby David Coursen

To meet the promise of its day one executive order on Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities, the Biden administration needs to provide low-income communities, communities of color and Indigenous people the same access to clean and safe water that the rest of our nation takes for granted. Biden’s COVID-19 relief plan makes a down payment on that promise by funding improved access to clean water for the overburdened communities of Indian Country.

 

 

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Is Your Drinking Water Safe? Here’s a Guide to Common Central California Contaminants

/in , , /by /The Fresno Beeby Monica Vaughan

Do you know whether your drinking water is polluted with a contaminant? If so, this guide provides a summary of known health risks of contaminants, and how you can protect you and your family if your water is known to be polluted. If you’re unsure, click here to find out if your water system is contaminant and what pollutants are above healthy levels.

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BPA Added to California Toxic Chemical List Despite Challenge

/in , , /by /Bloomberg Lawby Maeve Allsup

California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment can list bisphenol A under the state’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act despite challenges regarding the lack of evidence of its harm to humans, a state appeals court said Monday.

The agency added BPA, a chemical used to coat food and beverage packaging, to the so-called Proposition 65 list in 2013, based on a study published by the National Toxicology Program’s Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction.

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