U.S. Marines Dying from Drinking Water Contamination

By William Levesque, St. Petersburg Times

The last years of Marine veteran Ian Colin MacPherson’s life were spent fending off one puzzling ailment after another. Rashes. Headaches. Vertigo. Nausea. And finally, the abnormally aggressive prostate cancer that killed the Riverview man at age 46 in 2004.

MacPherson always figured he must have been poisoned. But by whom?

His widow, Jody MacPherson, believed she found the culprit last year: MacPherson’s beloved Marine Corps. “They killed him,” she said.

Camp Lejeune, a sprawling Marine base on the North Carolina seaboard, is the site of what some scientists call the worst public drinking-water contamination in the nation’s history. Its water wells were tainted with cancer-causing industrial compounds for 30 years, ending in 1987.

An estimated 500,000 to 1 million people – including Marines and family living on base housing – drank, bathed and cooked using that fouled water.

Congress has dubbed ill Marines “poisoned patriots,” and in 2008 lawmakers ordered the Marines to notify those who might have been exposed.

So far, almost 10,000 affected Floridians have registered with the Marines to take part in a health study, the highest total for any state except North Carolina. About 1,500 claims have been filed against the government seeking $33.8-billion in damages.

Among the chemicals detected in high concentrations at Camp Lejeune are a metal degreaser, trichloroethylene (TCE) and a degreaser and dry-cleaning agent called tetrachloroethylene (PCE).

PCE appears to have been dumped by a private dry cleaner near one of the water wells, while the TCE was dumped by the Marines, according to documents and investigators. Federal limits on the chemicals are 5-parts-per-billion. The highest level of Camp Lejeune water for TCE was about 1,400-parts-per-billion. PCE was found at levels over 200-parts-per-billion.

The Marines discovered the water contamination in 1980, yet waited four years to close contaminated wells and then minimized the danger to Camp Lejeune residents, critics say. Two wells were later reopened for almost two years during a water shortage. In 1985, Lejeune’s commander told residents “minute” levels of contaminants had been found, failing to disclose that a lab had informed the Marines that water was “highly contaminated.”

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Source:  TampaBay.com

Ken Salazar Helps Mediate Water Wars

By Kristi E. Swartz, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, in Georgia to discuss the longstanding water war between Georgia, Alabama and Florida, waged a tri-state water war of his own out West, he said.

As a former attorney general for Colorado, Salazar helped hash out a water-allocation plan between Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska, which had been feuding since 1984. The combatants spent $60 million on lawyers and engineers — efforts that “did not yield a single drop of water,” Salazar said.

But the western states’ success in finding a solution makes Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue optimistic about doing the same here, Perdue spokesman Bert Brantley said. “The governor sees wide opportunity for us to make some real progress,” Brantley said.

Georgia, Florida and Alabama have been fighting over who controls the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River — an argument tied to how metro Atlanta manages its water.

At a court hearing in Jacksonville, Fla., earlier this month, Senior U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson criticized the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for taking decades to determine how to allocate water from Lake Lanier. The lake is the source of drinking water for more than 3 million people living in North Georgia and metro Atlanta. Magnuson predicted it would take some time before he issues a ruling.

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Source:  ajc.com

Save Thousands of Gallons of Water Washing Your Car

It’s that time of year again.  Water is running freely down driveways and along gutters in my neighborhood in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  We’re in the middle of the high desert but my neighbors, like millions of Americans across the country, are indulging in one of the traditional pleasures of summer-washing the car.

Shirts off, hoses opened wide.  Water and foaming agents run down the street and will eventually end up in our city storm drainage system, then back into the Rio Grande for cities downriver to drink.

On average people use 100 gallons or more of water to wash their car, depending on the type of hose and how much time they spend.  Hundreds of thousands of individuals across the country are using thousands of gallons of water each summer to wash their cars.

But there are simple alternatives that leave your car just as clean and shiny.  For example there is a waterless carwash formula that uses the same technology used to car for race cars.  The formula includes coconut and soy, organic soy solvent, water-soluble polymer, and no fragrances, dyes or phosphates.  It’s better for the environment and you use no water.

Just like many threats to our environment, there are simple, affordable alternatives.  It is just a question of clearly establishing our priorities and breaking old habits.

To order your waterless carwash or other water-saving products, visit the products section of our site and become part of the solution!

Ask Your Senators to Save Our Waterways from Uncontrolled Pollution

Source:  National Resources Defense Council

In 2001 and 2006, the Supreme Court issued decisions that have been interpreted to mean that the Clean Water Act — which protects America’s water bodies from unregulated industrial pollution, oil spills and destruction by filling — might not apply to many water bodies that are “isolated” from others, that are located far from “navigable” waterways or that are dry for portions of the year. The wetlands and streams affected by these decisions are vital to communities and the environment: we rely on these waterways to replenish drinking water supplies, lessen flood damage, purify water and support wildlife habitat.

Since the first Supreme Court ruling in 2001, government agencies have declared thousands of water bodies unprotected by the Clean Water Act. More lose protection all the time, and the government’s ability to enforce the law has been hamstrung by questions about which waterways remain protected and which ones do not.

The Clean Water Restoration Act would ensure that Clean Water Act protections once again apply to all water bodies that were covered by the law before the Supreme Court’s misguided rulings. By clearly outlining what water bodies the law protects, Congress can ensure that the Clean Water Act will comprehensively guard against polluted rivers, streams, lakes and wetlands. While campaigning, President Obama indicated that he would support and sign legislation fixing this problem.

What to do:
Send a message urging your senators to co-sponsor the Clean Water Restoration Act (S. 787).  Click here to take action.

Learn more at NRDC

Violent Protesters Disrupt World Water Conference

Several hundred stone-throwing protesters disrupted the opening of the World Water Forum, an international gathering in Istanbul designed to address the growing demand for fresh water, and to find ways to avert conflicts over the limited resource. Outside the meeting riot police clashed with stick-wielding protesters, eventually using tear gas and water cannons to break up the protest. The police also arrested 17 activists who tried to enter the meeting hall.

The need for new environmental policies was highlighted last week when the United Nations warned that nearly half of the world’s people will live in areas with acute water shortages by 2030. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said water scarcity is a “potent fuel for wars and conflict.” Water shortages have been named as a major underlying cause of the conflict in Darfur in western Sudan. Water is also a major issue between Israel and its Arab neighbors, and the states of Central Asia, one of the world’s driest places, where thirsty crops such as cotton and grain remain the main source of livelihood [Reuters].

But the protesters denounced the meeting as a front for multinational companies seeking profits and promoting privatisation…. They say that the council, aided by the World Bank, has driven projects that have raised water costs and worsened scarcities in the developing world [The Guardian].

Chile has provided the starkest example of how water privatization can leave poor citizens without access to the vital resource, as water resources are considered private property in Chile and can be traded with little government oversight. Private ownership is so concentrated in some areas that a single electricity company from Spain, Endesa, has bought up 80 percent of the water rights in a huge region in the south, causing an uproar. In the north, agricultural producers are competing with mining companies to siphon off rivers and tap scarce water supplies, leaving towns like [Quillagua] bone dry and withering. “Everything, it seems, is against us,” said Bartolomé Vicentelo, 79, who once grew crops and fished for shrimp in the Loa River that fed Quillagua [The New York Times].

Article Source:  Discover Magazine Blogs

Oil Companies Buying Up Billions of Gallons in Water Rights in the Parched American West

In preparation for future oil shale mining projects near the Rocky Mountains, six oil companies have gained rights to billions of gallons of water in the American West, potentially jeopardizing water supplies throughout the region, according to a new report by Western Resource Advocates [pdf], an environmental group. It is still preliminary to speculate on the implications of the findings, but many are concerned that if the companies put their rights to use, water will be shifted away from agriculture and community use.

Using public records, the report examines more than 200 water rights held by six energy companies, including Shell and ExxonMobil, which, it is estimated, are collectively entitled to divert at least 6.5 billion gallons of water from rivers in western Colorado, as well as almost 2 million acre-feet of water from the state’s reservoirs, which is enough to supply the Denver metro area for six years. Shale oil production is a water-intensive process: up to five barrels of water are consumed for every barrel of oil produced. This means that projects producing 1.55 million barrels of oil per day would require 378,000 acre-feet of water each year, compared to the Denver metro area’s consumption, which is less than 300,000 acre feet. Should oil shale production hit full stride in the next 15 to 20 years – something the White House under President George W. Bush tried to accelerate by opening up 2 million acres controlled by the Bureau of Land Management to leasing and approving royalty rates and leasing rules – there will be a major political battle over water rights [Colorado Independent].

Extracting oil from shale is still an experimental process, facing major technological, environmental and regulatory hurdles, and is considerably more expensive than conventional drilling [Wall Street Journal], and the report has reignited an ongoing public debate over what the impacts of oil shale mining will be on nearby communities and the environment. Last September, the mayors of 11 mountain communities in Colorado wrote a joint letter to publicly express concern about “significant impacts on our community infrastructure, environment, and quality of life” from the development of oil shale…. “There has also been little evaluation of the impact these technologies and processes will have on local communities or the regional air and water resources” [Environment News Service], they wrote.

Shell spokesman Tracy Boyd defended the industry’s strategy of preemptively buying up water rights, saying, “The rights that we have, for the most part, are conditional. The water has to be there legally and physically” [AP], adding that, “We’re picking up properties as they become available or look strategic” [Wall Street Journal]. He tried to minimize cause for concern by saying that Shell expects not to need all that water for another 15 years, by which time it may have developed oil extraction methods that require less water.

Colorado law allows river water to be used, at no cost, by any entity that can show the water will be put to a “beneficial” use. Extracting oil fits into that category, as does, for example, growing alfalfa, providing household drinking water and making snow at ski resorts. Oil companies can get water rights in two ways…. For a minimal filing fee, the companies have claimed scores of “junior” rights that allow them to draw water from a particular river after other users have satisfied their needs. The companies have also purchased dozens of “senior” rights from old-time farming families; those rights give them priority access to water, even in dry years [Wall Street Journal].

Source:  Discover Magazine Blogs

Water Needs Electricity Needs Water…

By Kevin Ferguson, New York Times

It has long been an axiom of infrastructure planning that it takes a lot of water to make electricity, and a lot of electricity to make water.

Each day, for example, the nation’s thermoelectric power plants (90 percent of all power plants in the United States), draw 136 billion gallons of water from lakes, rivers and oceans to cool the steam used to drive turbines, according to the Department of Energy. In recent years, the energy department says, plans for new power plants had to be scrapped because water-use permits could not be obtained.

For their part, water- and wastewater utilities consume at least 13 percent of the electricity drawn nationwide each day, according to River Network, an environmental group based in Portland, Ore. Such plants face increasing public pressure to cut energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions.

So it was of no small significance that Poseidon Resources last week managed to win approval from California state regulators to build the Western Hemisphere’s largest desalination plant, near San Diego.

Water is an increasingly scarce commodity in the West, so ocean desalination projects are attractive to city and regional planners. But desalination is also inherently energy-intensive, and it will take more electricity to desalinate water at the new facility than to import it from elsewhere, as the utility does now.

Indeed, San Diego Gas & Electric will produce 97,165 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually to supply the Carlsbad desalination plant with the 274,400 MWh of electricity it needs to produce 50 million gallons of drinking water each day for a year.

By comparison, pumping the same volume from the north requires 112,005 MWh; and pumping it from the Colorado River Aqueduct, San Diego’s secondary source of water, requires 167,900 MWh each year, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

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Source:  The New York Times

California Gets $440M In Stimulus Money for Water

By Kelly Zito, San Francisco Chronicle

$439 million in federal stimulus money will soon be flowing into California’s water systems. The money, in the form of grants, subsidies and low-interest loans, is expected to spur hundreds of new water infrastructure projects as well as jump-start those stalled by California’s budget disaster, state and federal officials said.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Thursday awarded $280 million to the State Water Resources Control Board’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund program for wastewater treatment, pollution control and estuary management projects. The state Department of Public Health’s Drinking Water State Revolving Fund program received $159 million for drinking-water infrastructure improvements.

The award is one slice of the $6 billion in water system improvement funds contained in President Obama’s American Recovery and Investment Act of 2009 – Washington’s effort to shore up the nation’s infrastructure while providing much-needed jobs.

The money comes with a catch – about 20 percent of it must go toward conservation, green infrastructure and energy-efficiency projects. In addition, the agencies will strongly favor “shovel-ready” projects because funds not used by February will disappear.

Top priority

Top priority will go to projects in disadvantaged communities – where the population makes 80 percent or less of the state median household income.

“This money is wonderful for those communities that don’t have the ability to pay back those loans,” said Barbara Evoy, deputy director of the State Water Resources Control Board. “The jobs they need in those areas are extra important, and we’re very happy to solve a water-quality problem as well as help in job creation.”

The size of projects vying to receive grants or loans runs the gamut – from $8,000 to install water meters in the Adams Springs Water District in Lake County to $22 million for a similar, though much larger, project in the city of Sacramento.

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Source:  San Francisco Gate

Contaminated Water in Black Falls Affects Navajo Residents

By Kathy Helms, Gallup Independent

WINDOW ROCK – For some elderly Black Falls, Ariz., residents, last week’s Navajo Environmental Protection Agency conference was their first opportunity to have a voice in Window Rock – a chance some didn’t want to miss.

The community located in the former Bennett Freeze area has struggled for years to find a source of safe drinking water, with residents often traveling 50 miles to Flagstaff on unpaved roads to haul water.

In February, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Indian Health Service extended a waterline and constructed a safe water-hauling point in the priority area to serve residents near four unregulated wells contaminated with uranium.

Indian Health Service distributed 14 new water-hauling tanks to members of the community and is developing plans to install cisterns for up to nine homes within the immediate vicinity of the contaminated wells. In the interim, EPA has been providing bottled water to two families living in a very remote area who previously relied on uranium-contaminated wells.

During the May 13 EPA conference presentation of “Assisting the Water Haulers: Using Grassroots Driven Development to Secure Environmental Justice,” Don Yellowman, president of The Forgotten People, talked about how this group of Bennett Freeze area residents came together to help themselves.

“In Diné way, these people have extended families here and cannot just pick up and move to some other location so they remain and when necessary subject themselves to drinking contaminated water,” Yellowman said.

“I can only imagine how Rolanda (Tohannie) must feel speaking publicly about how she knows she is drinking contaminated water but does so because she has no other choice, and how Elsie Tohannie and other Black Falls residents feel as mothers, grandmothers and relatives of these families.

“It is imperative the new Black Falls Church watering point open, be maintained, and in the interim, all chapter houses must serve everyone in need without discrimination to ensure access to safe drinking water,” he said.

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Source:  Gallup Independent

Lawsuit Filed to Block Law Encouraging Recycling of Water Bottles

By Nicholas Confessore, The New York Times

ALBANY – A coalition of bottled water companies filed suit on Tuesday to block an expanded bottle deposit law scheduled to take effect next month, arguing that the law, which imposes a deposit fee on bottled water sold in New York State, is unconstitutional.

The coalition includes Nestlé Waters North America; the International Bottled Water Association, an industry trade group; and Keeper Springs, a small bottler owned by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental advocate.

The new law requires distributors to collect a 5-cent deposit per bottle of water, which can in turn be redeemed by consumers, provisions designed to encourage New Yorkers to recycle the billions of water bottles now thrown away each year. But companies that bottle water must affix a new universal product code label to bottles sold in New York.

In a complaint filed in United States District Court in Manhattan, the water companies argued that the labeling requirement violates the Constitution’s equal protection clause because the language of the bill excludes any drink to which sugar has been added, like sports drinks. The complaint also charges that the requirement violates the Constitution’s interstate commerce protections because the wording of the law also seems to ban companies from selling the New York-labeled bottles in other states.

The lawsuit comes as Gov. David A. Paterson, who pushed to include the expanded recycling law as part of the budget passed in April, is considering proposals that would scrap or delay some of aspects of the program, like moving back the June 1 deadline for companies to begin using the UPC label.

In a court filing supporting the lawsuit, Mr. Kennedy, who is also chief prosecuting attorney of Riverkeeper, an environmental group, said the new law would undermine municipal recycling programs by depriving them of revenue from recycled plastic water bottles. Riverkeeper has staunchly supported expanding the deposit law to include bottled water. Mr. Kennedy said that he was speaking for himself and not for Riverkeeper.

In an interview, Mr. Kennedy said that that “the sugar lobby, and its indentured servants in the Legislature,” wrote the law to penalize bottlers of plain water.

“There is no rational basis for penalizing water,” Mr. Kennedy said. “It means that if I add a little sugar to my water, I don’t have to pay my redemption fee.”

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Source:  The New York Times