They all have had breast cancer — a disease that strikes fewer than 2,000 men in the United States a year, compared with about 200,000 women. Each has had part of his chest removed as part of his treatment, along with chemotherapy, radiation or both.

And they blame their time at Camp Lejeune, where government records show drinking water was contaminated with high levels of toxic chemicals for three decades, for their illnesses.

“We come from all walks of life,” said Mike Partain, the son and grandson of Marines, who was born on the base 40 years ago. “And some of us have college degrees, some of us have blue-collar jobs. We are all over the country. And what is our commonality? Our commonality is that we all at some point in our lives drank the water at Camp Lejeune. Go figure.”

Starting in 1980, tests showed drinking water at Camp Lejeune had been “highly contaminated” with solvents. Several wells that supplied water to the base were found to have been contaminated in 1984 and 1985, and were promptly taken out of service after the pollutants were found, the Marine Corps told CNN.

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Source: CNN

Yesterday’s ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Paul Magnuson, denying metro Atlanta access to water stored at Lake Lanier, leaves the metro region up the creek.

Let me be more specific: Up a bone-dry creek.

The potential impact of the decision is disastrous. Magnuson ruled that with the exception of Buford and Gainesville, the metro region has no right to withdraw water from Lake Lanier, and no right to store water there against future drought.

The state was given three years to try to get Congress to alter its authorized purposes for Buford Dam. If it is unsuccessful, Magnuson ruled, “the operation of Buford Dam will return to the ‘baseline’ operation of the mid-1970s. Thus, the required off-peak flow will be 600 cfs and only Gainesville and Buford will be allowed to withdraw water from the lake. The Court recognizes that this is a draconian result. It is, however, the only result that recognizes how far the operation of the Buford project has strayed from the original authorization.”

At first blush, it’s likely that Gwinnett County would face drastic and immediate water shortages if that occurred. Its whole sewer and water infrastructure, and the bonded indebtedness that financed it, is predicated on access to Lake Lanier. The impact on the rest of metro Atlanta would be less immediate but severe, particularly in times of drought.

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Source: AJC

The Mississippi River Delta is drowning, according to new research that predicts the surrounding coastline will be inevitably reshaped in coming decades.

“There’s just not enough sediment to sustain the delta plain,” said study author Michael Blum of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

Deltas are coastal landmasses created from a river’s sediment deposits as the water flows out to sea. The Mississippi River’s delta plain, for example, includes the lacy “toe” of southern Louisiana. (See a Louisiana map.) All deltas are degrading to some extent, as their sediment settles and sinks. But a delta can sustain itself or even grow if its parent river regularly deposits enough new material.

Today sediments collected along the Mississippi cover about 23,360 square miles (60,500 square kilometers) ranging in thickness from less than 33 feet (10 meters) upstream near Memphis, Tennessee, to about 328 feet (100 meters) in the delta at the tip of southern Louisiana.

The drainage basin of the roughly 2,350-mile-long (3,782-kilometer-long) river, however, includes about 40,000 dams and levees built over the past century.

These structures control flooding and improve navigation, but they also trap sediment or funnel it completely through to the sea.

Previous studies suggested that dams and reservoirs built since 1950 have trapped as much as 70 percent of the river’s natural amount of sediment. With less material feeding it, the delta plain has been experiencing erosion.

But even without the dams and levees, the amount of sediment flowing downriver would no longer be enough to sustain the delta because of rising seas, the study authors say.

Tough Choices

The researchers base their conclusions on estimated delta levels over the past 12,000 years, which show significant changes more than 7,000 years ago, when meltwater from the last ice age quickly filled the oceans.

The Mississippi Delta plain retreated inland at that point, and it was only after sea level rise had slowed considerably that the delta again grew seaward. Current sea level rise, however, may be three times faster than it was the last time the delta was able to grow.

The team therefore estimates that as much as 5,200 square miles (13,500 square kilometers) of delta land could disappear by 2100—an area only slightly smaller than Connecticut.

For now the study authors don’t have a solution, and they add that plans to save the delta plain—such as redirecting and possibly adding sediment—will almost certainly involve sacrifices.

“They can [divert sediment to areas] downstream from, say, New Orleans, but that means that areas [of the delta plain] farther upstream will be submerged,” Blum said.

“Tough choices have to be made, and they need to be made fast.”

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Source: National Geographic News

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

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

WestShore developer and Republican Party fundraiser Al Austin stared at the lush acreage that fronts his Tampa estate. The bluegill pond, the crape myrtles, the field of St. Augustine grass. These, Austin says, have made him a public enemy.

Although he used more water last year than nearly everyone across Tampa Bay, he says he’s not an abuser, that he’s operating within the rules and trying to keep his property in respectable shape.

“I’m doing the right thing in my community. I do things that are good for the environment,” he said. “I’m just providing water to keep a nice piece of property which I think all my neighbors appreciate.”

Last year, dozens of Tampa Bay homeowners such as Austin, RV king Don Wallace and New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner each used more than a million gallons of water. Then the fountains dried and the thermostats climbed and the sprinklers went silent. Millions of gallons were saved.

Austin says his need remains.

“I’m paying for it. I’m abiding by restrictions. If I didn’t have that six acres, there would be 25 houses there using more than I do,” Austin said, though his use of 3.5 million gallons last year could have sated about 40 average homes. “Are you going to say because we have parks that use a lot of water, that’s a waste?”

With talk of drought surcharges, mandatory reclaimed-water hookups and the most restrictive watering rules in history, many Tampa Bay residents are cutting back.

Austin’s gated six-acre estate has used about half a million gallons so far this year, adding to the nearly 8 million gallons used already by other big homes, utility bills show.

Officials say others are in synch. Tampa Bay Water reports savings of more than 56 million gallons a week since automatic irrigation was banned. Restrictions implemented earlier this month decreased usage by about 21 million gallons per day compared to last year, according to the Southwest Florida Water Management District.

Typically, about 2 percent of residential users consume up to 15 percent of the water supply, Swiftmud officials say. Austin already has plunked down $2,500 for this year’s water bills.

“If you think I’m happy paying that much money for water, guess again. That’s a very expensive thing for me. With the economy the way it is, I wish it would cut back,” he said, a six-man landscaping crew still rumbling.

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Source:  TampaBay.com

That’s what could happen without a large-scale plan to supply water to Central Floridians, DeLand Public Services Director Keith Riger said.

A couple of years ago, the St. Johns River Water Management District said Central Florida could not rely on the Floridan Aquifer as a source of drinking water beyond 2013.

Utilities would have to find alternatives to deep wells drilled to draw water from the aquifer far below.

Riger, along with Robert Thielhelm for the City of Mount Dora and Ray Sharp for the City of Leesburg, wrote a paper proposing a solution.

It calls for using Coquina Coast, a proposed ocean-water desalinization plant off Flagler County, along with water plants proposed on the St. Johns River and the Lower Ocklawaha River. These new water sources would be connected by a vast 500-mile pipeline crisscrossing Central Florida, to take water where it’s needed.

The three-city consortium will make a presentation on the project to the Water Authority of Volusia technical advisory committee at 8:30 a.m. Friday, March 27, at the WAV Conference Room at 2570 W. International Speedway Blvd. in Daytona Beach.

The authors explained the plan to the Lake County Water Alliance at a Leesburg meeting Feb. 12. Alliance members said they want more input from other elected boards before making any decision.

The water-transmission pipeline in still in the conceptual stages.

The pipeline would carry water produced at the Yankee Lake and Taylor Creek plants on the St. Johns River in Seminole County, and water drawn from the Lower Ocklawaha River, in addition to any plant built on the river at DeLand.

The overall cost? More than $1 billion, perhaps several billion. Hence the necessity to pool resources.

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Source: Beacon Online

A Gwinnett water customer who replaces two 3.5-gallons-per-flush toilets with specified new models that use 1.28 gallons can get up to $200 in rebates from the County. Board Chairman Charles Bannister said, “This program is part of our comprehensive water conservation program, and we believe it is well worth the cost despite tough economic times and tight budgets.”

A toilet rebate program could become mandatory in a number of counties in and around Atlanta – including Hall – under a draft water conservation and water supply plan for the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District (MNGWPD) . Draft plans are available for public review and comment on the MNGWPD’s website at www.northgeorgiawater.com.

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Source:  AccessNorthGa.com

Extreme drought conditions, the second-worst possible, have now spread into Kentucky, and severe conditions have returned to West Virginia and southwest Virginia, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

“The last three months have sucked every bit of moisture we’ve had,” said Ben Webster, a fire staff assistant for the West Virginia Division of Forestry.

In eastern Kentucky, retailers are sending bottled water to drought-stricken Magoffin County after its primary water source, the Licking River, fell to low levels and residents were told to conserve tap water.  The county’s school system is serving meals on disposable plates with plastic utensils. Lunch trays have been temporarily shelved to save on dishwashing.

Kentucky also suffered through a severe drought a year ago, but “this is probably the worst that I’ve had to deal with,” said Joe Hunley, Magoffin County’s schools superintendent.

Tens of thousands of gallons of bottled water have been distributed through a fire department and a water company alone.  “We’re bringing water in daily and distributing it to those people who are in need,” said county health director Berti Salyer. “Of course, that’s just about everyone in Magoffin County right now.”

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Source: CNN

Epic drought forced officials across the Southeast about a year ago to impose severe water restrictions and warn that Atlanta, ground zero for the dry conditions, could be just months from running short of water.

While the drought has eased, its tendrils still extend across the region. All it takes as reminder of the drought’s grip is a look at the level of the lake, Atlanta’s main water supply, which is more than 17 feet below normal.

“I’ll tell you, we’re paying attention,” said Billy Calhoun, a former fishing guide who works along the shores of Lanier. “We’re not forgetting about the drought.”

The drought spread across the region last year and forced state and local officials to order sweeping water restrictions to save dwindling resources. Landscaping companies went under and some towns worried about running dry.

The response from many corners of the region was swift.

Georgia banned virtually all outdoor watering throughout the northern part of the state. The legal battle over federal water rights among Georgia, Florida and Alabama intensified, and legislators in Tennessee and Georgia sparred over rights to the Tennessee River.

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Source: Lawn & Landscape