Joe Edgecombe came across this pile of unopened water he estimated to be about 6 feet tall and 25 feet across at Harder’s Park.
The pile is believed to have been left by contractors or relief workers in the area after Hurricane Michael.
[CONTRIBUTED PHOTO] The county is unsure of who exactly left the water behind, but because of concerns about its safety and how long it’s been in the sun, the water will need to be thrown away.
PANAMA CITY – While recently hiking at Harder’s Park, Joe Edgecombe came across a “huge pile” of unopened cases of bottled water that he estimated to be over 6 feet tall and 25 feet across.
“Why was perfect water wasted?” Edgecombe, who was shocked about the unused water, wrote to The News Herald.
Who exactly the water belonged to is unknown, but Bay County officials believe it was left behind by contractors working in the area after Hurricane Michael—another lingering reminder of the storm’s aftermath in Bay County.
Harder’s Park was one of the staging areas used by contractors.
The water will have to be thrown away since there are concerns about its safety due to how long it was left in the sun, according to information supplied by the county.
“It’s just sad, unopened cases,” Edgecombe said when The News Herald later told him the backstory.
“I know (contractors) were overwhelmed with the amount of volume (of supplies) they got.”

(WSAW) — New efforts in the state legislature are looking to help people facing contaminated groundwater throughout Wisconsin.
A local group is hoping to push those efforts even further, ensuring state leaders know it is a life-threatening problem in the central sands area.
More and more people with private wells are learning they have to rely on bottled water to cook, brush their teeth with, and, of course, drink because their only source of water is contaminated by nitrates.
It is becoming a crisis in several areas around the state, but people in Portage, Wood, Juneau, and Adams counties are working to ensure lawmakers know it is chronic for them.
At that time, he along with all Assembly republicans wrote a letter to Gov.
One of those places was clean water.
"That’s kind of what set me off," said Bill Leichtnam, a member of the group Protect Wood County.
The farm group is currently being sued after research about contaminated private wells in Juneau and Wood counties pointed blame to its other large farms.
"I think it will help us have a serious conversation in the legislature about protecting access to clean water for everyone in the future and preventing well contamination, but we also need to give immediate relief to people in rural Wisconsin and homeowners with private contaminated wells," she said.
Expanded testing is already scheduled to happen in what’s being called the "Ag Corridor" in Wood and Juneau counties, an expanded area where additional contamination could have occurred that has not already been tested.

Even as concerns are being raised over the safe consumption of bottled water in the city, a group of students from Mohandas College of Engineering have come up with an innovative solution which helps in getting rid of the E-coli in the water and acting as a disinfectant.
The project titled ‘Design of a water disinfection system using silver and copper nanoparticle impregnated coconut shell waste carbon’ was proposed by a team of students- Shilpa K Nayana, Akhila Krishnan C and Shilpa Raj S from Mohandas College of Engineering and Technology (MCET), Nedumangad.
They were guided by their professors, K M Usha, the principal investigator and S S Shijina, the co-investigator of the project.
“ The inspiration behind this project is the sense of responsibility towards society as citizens in general and biotechnologists in particular.
This is why we thought of developing a project using raw materials which could not only help in purifying water but also act as a disinfectant which can kill 99 per cent of E Coli,” said Shilpa K Nayana, one of the innovators.
Decontamination of drinking water by making use of the raw materials, which are available in abundance, is the prime objective of the project.
The project envisages to set up a synergetic system capable of adsorption as well as destructing microbial organisms.
The students say the procedures are cheap and safer.
The team has also bagged the second position in idea presentation at ‘TheTech Conclave’, which is the flagship event of Drishti, the annual technical festival of College of Engineering, Trivandrum.
‘Engineers for society’ was this year’s theme.

A three-member bench, headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nasir, was hearing a case pertaining to conservation, purification and taxation on extraction of underground water by bottled water companies.
Authored by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, the judgement also required the provincial governments as well as the Islamabad Capital Territory administration to set up separate and distinct accounts to receive the amounts collected under the water charges.
Hearing a suo motu case regarding ground water exploitation by mineral water companies at the apex court, Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar said mineral water companies were using ground water, but the government didn’t move to fix them.
Chief Justice Nisar reprimanded the representative, saying that the Supreme Court-mandated Water Commission did a lot of work, “the government(s) are provided with everything but they don’t want to do anything.” “The Punjab government lacks both the will and the capability,” the chief justice remarked.
People’s lives are associated with water.
The apex court declared that the reply submitted by the Punjab government was an attempt to eyewash the judiciary and ordered the federal and provincial governments to submit a fresh response within 15 days.
“We cannot furnish the report until 256 testimonies are not complete.” Upon hearing this, the chief justice ordered to submit the aforementioned report in the court when it iss complete and disposed off the case.
It was informed to a three judge bench headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in a suo motu case pertaining to foreign properties owned by Pakistani nationals.
Director General FIA, Basheer Memon, submitting report in the apex court, said that 1,211 Pakistani citizens own 2,154 properties in the UAE and about 345 people have been served notices.
The DG said that 79 people declared their properties in tax returns, while 97 individuals disowned their properties in the UAE.

Video Shelburn – In the past six months the city of Shelburn has issued four different boil orders.
The number of boil orders has jumped in recent years but that isn’t necessarily because they are having more issues, but rather because the current officials are being particularly cautious.
"Lately we have had very little trouble actually," That’s how Shelburn Town Council president, James Ward, is describing Shelburn’s current water situation.
Before that the town experienced a water main leak, a car hitting a fire hydrant, and a bad sample which all resulted in a minimum of a three day boil order to allow proper testing.
"If you don’t do it you are going to get sick, so you have to do it," says Shelburn resident Debbie Madewell,"there is nothing that we can really do about it.
I mean, you can complain but who are you going to complain to?"
Before the current staff took over residents had issues with officials ignoring the need for boil orders when they were actually necessary.
"I have been on the board here for almost 30 years and I have seen a lot of things come and go," says Ward.
Shelburn samples the wells seven days a week on their own with a second party company testing cleaning the wells twice a year.
If at any point a sample comes back bad a boil order has to be placed and depending on the circumstance, water could be shut off to up to 11 hundred customers until officials can get 3 clean tests over at minimum of a three day period.

Miles, Tx – Update 1/3/19 10:35 am – Due to water system failure, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has required the City of Miles Public Water System to notify customers of the need to boil their water prior to consumption.
To ensure destruction of all harmful bacteria and other microbes, water for drinking, cooking, and making ice should be boiled and cooled prior to use.
The water should be brought to a vigorous, rolling boil and then boiled for two minutes.
The city of Miles has issued a mandatory boil water notice for all their residents… due to a water system failure.
To ensure its citizens aren’t exposed to possible harmful bacteria… the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has asked the city to issue the notice.
Officials also suggest purchasing bottled water or seeking water from another source.
Water system officials will alert citizens as soon as the water boil notice has been lifted.
Full press release below: City of Miles – Boil Water Notice Due to water system failure, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has required the City of Miles Public Water System to notify customers of the need to boil their water prior to consumption.
To ensure destruction of all harmful bacteria and other microbes, water for drinking, cooking, and making ice should be boiled and cooled prior to use.
The water should be brought to a vigorous, rolling boil and then boiled for two minutes.

After a months-long investigation, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation said in report released on Thursday that it has found four areas on the East Hampton Airport property with very high levels of the chemical compounds that have been found in drinking water wells throughout the southern portion of Wainscott.
In two of the locations, the levels of PFOS, one of the two chemicals found, were four times the Environmental Protection Agency’s health advisory level of 70 parts per trillion—a bar that has itself been criticized as being many times higher than the dose that may actually pose health concerns.
The two sites of highest concentration were found on the airport facility itself, where plane crash training-and-response drills have been held.
The second highest concentrations were found under a cleared area at the northern end of one of the airport’s secondary runways, where the DEC report says training drills were staged.
"DEC’s Site Characterization for the East Hampton Airport site revealed four distinct Areas of Concern where additional study is needed to fully delineate the nature and extent of the identified contamination," said Michael Ryan, director of DEC’s Division of Environmental Remediation.
The DEC has also designated the neighboring Wainscott Sand & Gravel property as a site with potential additional contamination, because another mass casualty drill was held there in June 2000, and is working with the owners to establish a similar testing protocol and investigation as was done on the airport property over the last year.
Soon after the discovery of the chemical PFOS and PFOA in well water in Wainscott in October 2017, the town began offering to supply bottled water to all residents of Wainscott.
By last spring the town was pushing forward with providing grants to homeowners to install charcoal water filtration systems that can scrub out the two chemicals from well water and in the spring the town and Suffolk County Water Authority announced plans to extend water mains throughout the hamlet.
Last week, the town filed a lawsuit against the Bridgehampton Fire Department and East Hampton Village, which owns the East Hampton Fire Department, and the manufacturers and suppliers of the fire-suppressant foams that were used by the departments over the years.
The town has also been named as a defendant in a class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of Wainscott homeowners—one of dozens of such suits that have been filed across the country over contamination of drinking water supplies by chemicals from firefighting foams.

Barry Eaton District Health Department confirmed the finding in a Dec. 27 press release.
Spectrum Health Pennock Hospital filed its first report of a patient diagnosed with Legionnaires’ disease to the health department in September 2018.
A second report of a patient with Legionnaires’ was reported by the hospital in November 2018.
But patients and out-patients were told about the discovery, Ditmar said, and all the safety measures in place and remediation efforts in progress, “so our patients could make informed decisions on whether they were confident in continuing to receive services here – or if they preferred to go somewhere else.” City of Hastings officials said recent test results indicate there is no presence of legionella or any contaminants in the city’s drinking water; and there is no reason to believe the bacteria originated from, or is present in, the city’s public drinking water supply.
City officials said Hastings’ drinking water system is isolated from the hospital system by devices that allow the water to travel one-way only – into the facility.
Monochloramine, a disinfectant commonly used for drinking water, is being introduced into the hospital’s water supply through the filter.
According to Spectrum Health officials, water samples are being taken daily from several areas of the hospital to maintain an adequate concentration of the disinfectant to eradicate legionella.
We talk about what legionella is, and I let them know all of the steps the hospital has taken for patient safety.
According to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, the state is experiencing increases in cases of Legionnaires’ disease.
There were no reported cases of Legionnaires’ disease from Barry County until this past fall.

HD Media GARY, W.Va. – Each morning Tina Coleman turns her faucet, she waits to see what color the water will be when, or if, it flows out.
Even on good days, when the water flows mostly clear, it can leave anything it touches gray.
That’s on top of the $150 she spends on her water and sewage bill each month – "that much money for water we can’t drink."
As U.S. Steel shrank its operations and paid less in taxes, the city got less money to pay its bills.
(Coal operators) were not interested in, for the most part, planning," said Amy Swann, director of the West Virginia arm of the National Rural Water Association.
"We’ve put money in there, a lot of it, and still people cannot rely on their service."
But for residents in some surrounding areas, places where Tina Coleman might considering moving, 50 days in five years is next to nothing.
In O’Toole, a small community about 15 miles from Gary, residents served by the town’s water system have been under a continued boil-water notice since May of 2002 – more than 16 years.
At least nine community water systems in West Virginia have been under boil-water advisories for longer than five years, according to the state, and all operate in Southern West Virginia: four in Wyoming County, two in Mercer County, two in McDowell County and one in Fayette County.
"That’s what you do – the water doesn’t stop running, so you can’t either … You work long hours, and you have to be on top of it at all times – really, you’re responsible for people’s health, their safety, too," Morgan said.

ALBION — The village of Albion and Orleans County reported a Main Street water line was running again after a water line leak was repaired earlier today.
However, there is a Boil Water Advisory, county dispatchers said.
The advisory was issued due to a loss of water pressure in the village.
The notice stated that at around 12:30 a.m. today, a 10-inch water main sustained “a substantial break” leading to the loss of pressure or of water in the affected area.
“When water mains lose pressure, it increases the chance that untreated water and harmful microbes can enter your water.” People in the affected area will likely need to boil water for the next three or four days, according to the notice.
To boil water before using it, bring tap water to a rolling boil, boil for one minute and cool the water before using it, the notice said.
The other choice is to use bottled water certified for sale by the state Department of Health.
“Boiled or bottled water should be used for drinking, making ice, washing dishes, brushing teeth and preparing food until further notice,” the notice reads.
“Harmful microbes in drinking water can cause diarrhea, cramps, nausea, headaches or other symptoms, and may pose a special health risk for infants, some elderly, and people with severely compromised immune systems,” the notice read.
If you experience any of these symptoms and they persist, you should seek medical advice.” Crews had been out working on a broken water main under Main Street earlier in the day.