Algae causing taste, odor problems in region’s drinking water.
Ken Ruinard/Independent Mail In parts of Anderson and Pickens counties, the tap water tastes and smells so bad right now that some dogs won’t drink it.
"I feel bad because I didn’t realize at first that she wasn’t drinking what was coming from our sink," Shead said.
So I started giving her bottled water just like we are using.
Shead is one of nearly 200,000 customers in the Upstate whose drinking water is provided by the Anderson Regional Joint Water System.
In the span of 10 days, regional water system officials saw taste- and odor-producing compounds jump to roughly five times the amount they can effectively handle with treatments at the Anderson plant headquarters.
(Photo: Ken Ruinard/Independent Mail) When water system officials do a lake treatment, they have crews sometimes apply a copper-based algaecide on a portion of the lake, then follow that with a hydrogen-peroxide based algaecide around coves and docks.
"We can’t treat algae before we can see it," Willett said.
"We don’t want to do any more to the lake than we have to."
The project will allow regional water system officials to use more advanced oxidation processes when treating the water before it is ready for the tap.

10 Best Bottled Water for Babies to Drink.
Similar to tap water, bottled water is not sterile so it needs to be boiled first, preferably at a temperature of 70 degrees celsius.
From there, we ranked the brands based on their sodium content.
Based on our research, the 10 Best Bottled Water for Babies to Drink are Aquafina Pure Water from PepsiCo, Inc. (NYSE:PEP), Brecon Carreg, Evian Natural Mineral Water from Danone SA (ADR) (OTCMKTS:DANOY), Highland Spring, Icelandic Glacial, Nestle Pure Life Purified Water from Nestle SA (ADR) (OTCMKTS:NSRGY), Pinar Madran, Poland Spring Sparkling Water from Nestle SA (ADR) (OTCMKTS:NSRGY), Vittel Mineral Water from Nestle SA (ADR) (OTCMKTS:NSRGY), and Volvic from Danone SA (ADR) (OTCMKTS:DANOY).
At 13mg/L, its sodium level is a little more than the average on this list but it remains a go-to brand among moms.
It is also a common name in many parenting forums when it comes to bottled water for babies.
Vittel Mineral Water – Nestle SA (ADR) (OTCMKTS:NSRGY) Another brand under the Nestle label, Vittel Mineral Water suits a low-sodium diet.
Experts recommend boiling the water first when using it in formula milk preparation.
According to the Mineral-Calculator, the product contains 5 milligrams of sodium per liter, which is well within experts’ recommendations.
It has less than 1 milligram of sodium per liter and is recommended for use in infant formula milk.

There have been many different versions but they all show the same thing – a water bottle pH test.
The idea is simple, take the water bottles most commonly seen every day and use a pH test to see if they are acidic or alkaline (basic).
Above that is alkaline and below that is acidic.
Are water bottles mostly acidic or alkaline?
KVUE’s Jason Puckett did his own independent test and was able to verify that five different water bottles did have acidic pH, one had an alkaline pH and two others were almost neutral.
In many of the online videos, the creators would claim the test shows that some bottles of water are better than others or even potentially safer than others.
The FDA approves every bottle so they’re perfectly fine to drink."
Dr. Biberdorf said she’d seen these videos often and while she likes the idea of folks exploring scientific topics at home, she said the research behind these videos is lacking.
"It’s just personal preference," she said while pointing out that she actually preferred the taste of slightly acidic water and her husband preferred slightly alkaline water.
With Dr. Biberdorf’s expert opinion, we can verify that the claims that certain pH balances in approved water bottles are beneficial, is False.

Is Bottled Water Bad For Your Teeth?.
Consumption of bottled water in Australia is on the rise: fact.
But there’s another question we should be asking about bottled water, and that’s what it’s doing to our teeth.
"When it comes to bottled water, what I can say is there has been an increase in the amount of decay we are seeing in children — so kids who still have their baby teeth.
But it’s not just bottled water.
Lots of kids are having more sweet drinks, more fruit juices, and that contributes as well.
It’s also worth pointing out drinking tap water is not our only source of fluoride, with some foods being sources of fluoride as well as man-made products such as fluoride toothpastes.
This creates what Ho refers to as the ‘halo effect’, meaning even without the primary source of fluoridated drinking water, children and adults alike are still being exposed to fluoride depending on their diet and dental hygiene practices.
So [a decline in fluoride] wouldn’t necessarily translate into an increase in decay in adult teeth.
As the tooth is developing, you can expect adults to have more incidence of decay as well.

Burglary suspect caught with bottled water.
It’s easy.
36-year-old, Stephen Weeks was spotted walking in and out of the front yards of at least two people’s homes.
In his hands, a bottle of Smart Water, they say he stole from a home he hit on Eason Street.
Well you feel violated when it happens and you install those hoping that you can help catch the bad guy if it does happen again.
When he caught someone on camera breaking into his home, police got a closer look.
They believe the person in the video is the same one they already arrested.
Residents know not to keep quiet when they see something suspicious.
Frith, once a victim, helped police protect even more people from someone who’s done this before.
"It felt good knowing that hopefully i played a part in keeping him in jail a little bit longer," Frith said.

India’s institutions are failing its people.
Institutions are the "rules of the game" — the formal rules and informal norms that can — when strong — enhance cooperation, defeat corruption, and contribute to prosperity and development.
One ready measure of "development" (or functional institutions) is the ready availability of safe drinking water and functioning sanitation.
In India, the institutions are weakened by corruption, caste-discrimination and bureaucratic indifference.
To get an amazing insight into how dysfunction leads to failure, read this epic (17,000 word) investigation into the failing attempt to end "open defecation" But not all Indians — and very few politicians — understand how failure occurs or who should get the blame.
Read this piece on the scapegoating of Coke and Pepsi due to failures to manage groundwater, deliver drinking water or regulate pollution.
Ask yourself how it might be possible for these companies to "destroy water security" in India, but not in many developed countries?
The reason is that they are not the problem, but merely participants in India’s failure.
Bottom Line: The Indian people need to go after their politicians and bureaucrats — their fellow citizens — if they are going to get safe water and the dignity of sanitation.

A Catholic Charities employee and her volunteers held their third annual “Hydrate the Homeless Water Drive” over the weekend in the parking lot of Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church.
Over 400 cases of bottled water and more than $400 was donated to the group, which will benefit the charity’s Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness program that aims to provide services to homeless persons.
“It’s amazing to see how the community really comes together,” said Susan Harris, PATH homeless outreach specialist, employed by Catholic Charities in Bullhead City.
According to Harris, the group hosts water drives twice a year – in June and December – for the purpose of distributing them to homeless camps around Mohave County at various times throughout the year.
Money donated to the group during the drive will be used toward bottled water supplies when they run out, added the Lake Havasu City resident.
Distributing water, not only, helps homeless persons living in the desert stay hydrated, but allows Harris and her volunteers a chance to introduce themselves to newcomers and extend to them other services provided by the program.
Housing, rehabilitation or mental illness services, among others, are services that PATH provides to homeless persons, according to Harris.
“I think if you find yourself in a situation where you are ever homeless and you need something, it’s nice to know that something like Catholic Charities can help you out,” said Peggy Douthit, who has been a volunteer since last year.
Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church has been sponsoring Harris and her volunteers since 2015 and will continue to do so until 2019, she said, allowing them to collect donations from their parking lot as long as they announce it to the Parish a week in advance.
A majority of their donors on Sunday were churchgoers arriving for scheduled services throughout the morning, said Harris.

It’s common knowledge that you shouldn’t drink out of the water bottle that you left in a hot car. But how recently have you checked its expiration date? That’s right! Bottled water DOES expire. And while the reason why meat or dairy products have a sell-by date is pretty self-explanatory, you might be surprised that bottled water comes with a time stamp, too. As it turns out, it isn’t the water quality you should be worried about; it’s the plastic that the water comes packaged in (usually polyethylene terephthalate (PET) for retail bottles and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) for water cooler jugs). After a certain point…

Six years later, the state has still not built the new system, and inmates, their advocates, and environmental scientists worry that the drinking water is unsafe.
A Globe review of state records found that 43 percent of all water samples collected at MCI-Norfolk since 2011 showed elevated levels of manganese, a prime component of the sediment from the wells.
In December, the Norfolk Inmate Council, which represents prisoners, reported that nearly two-thirds of inmates responding to a survey said they had suffered rashes and other skin problems.
Asked about the elevated levels of manganese, Peter Lorenz, a spokesman for the state Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs said, “More than half the water samples are within compliance.” In an e-mail, Department of Environmental Protection officials said the prison was in “compliance with MassDEP requirements for addressing this type of issue.” The prison aims to follow the US Environmental Protection Agency’s health advisory for manganese, which recommends that people drink water with levels below 0.3 milligrams per liter over their lifetime.
“I think it is a concern,” he said of the samples, which the prison collects and provides to him in special bottles.
“It is more than likely that the allowable levels of manganese in water will decrease as we learn more about its effects on the brain.” Birgit Claus Henn, a Boston University epidemiologist who has spent years studying the impact of manganese on people, said the water system should have been repaired if even 10 percent of samples showed elevated levels of the mineral.
“If the state isn’t meeting that 40 percent of the time, that’s a problem.” State public health officials, after learning from the Globe that many of the prison’s water samples had elevated levels of manganese, said they would consider reviewing the inmates’ concerns.
The new plant “will have the ability to filter out iron and manganese and should minimize any discolored water in the future,” Christopher Fallon, a spokesman for the Department of Correction, wrote in an e-mail.
He denied the allegation that the prison gives bottled water to the dogs in the training program.
Prolonged exposure of elevated levels can be harmful.

Water bottling plant comes to Autaugaville.
Marty Roney/ Advertiser AUTAUGAVILLE — A water bottling plant in Autaugaville hopes to provide a rising tide of revitalization for this close knit town just to the west of Prattville.
A deep well on the plant site, which is on County Road 165.
It’s pure as it comes right out of the well.
“We are going to start shipping to Alabama; convenience stores, grocery stores,” Forge said.
“Then we are going to expand to the Southeast, then up the East Coast and then nationwide.” The plan is to have three buildings on the site, supplying bottled and bulk container water.
He went on to play football at the University of Alabama, and 21 years ago he opened an automotive industry supply company in Northport where he lives.
“When I made my valedictory speech, I made two promises,” Forge said.
“That I would never forget where I came from and I would give back to my hometown of Autaugaville.
“This is more than a water bottling plant.