People drinking tap water across the Miami area this week may notice the smell and taste of chlorine as Miami-Dade launches the annual cleaning of its underground pipes.
Like most water systems across the country, Miami-Dade regularly uses chlorine to disinfect the drinking water it sends to roughly 2.3 million people each day.
But for cleansing every year, it switches to a different type of chlorine known as “base chlorine,” which tends to have a more detectable taste and odor.
“People call every year after the first couple of days” of testing, said Adriana Lamar, spokeswoman for Miami-Dade’s Water and Sewer Department.
“It depends on how far you are from the plant,” she said.
The Centers for Disease Control says the shift from chloramine to base chlorine is common, and allows water systems to clean out a “scum” layer that can form in pipes that makes “killing germs more difficult.” Erik Olson, director of health programs at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the shift to regular chlorine is a fairly common tactic in water systems across the country and should not raise concerns.
As a result, water systems typically make a brief shift to base chlorine and then flush out the system, often using fire hydrants.
“The bottom line is it’s not a problem, as long as it’s short-term,” he said.
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The District gave each school three modern water fountains called “hydration stations,” which provide cold filtered water.
Aunnalea Grove, program manager of Get Hype Philly for the Food Trust, said one question raised at the summit by Food Trust staff was how much water students were drinking in their schools, with the premise that encouraging more water consumption would improve students’ health.
“During that discussion, they said, ‘That’s great, but you should see the water fountains at our schools.’ That’s why students aren’t drinking the water,” Grove said.
So it was really the young people who brought that issue to our attention.” The Food Trust took the issue to its Youth Leadership Council.
That group is made up of about a dozen high school students from around the city who applied to be council members and were selected by the Food Trust.
Gym, once a teacher in the District, said water safety was already a high priority for her coming into office, but she met with students to get more information.
We don’t create enough spaces where young people can share their school experiences and, more importantly, weigh in on solutions.” Gym led the charge in city council, first to lobby the District to install three hydration stations in every school, and later to formulate two pieces of legislation passed by the council.
“Because we have a mandate for a water fountain on every floor and for every 100 students,” Gym began, “it ensures that we don’t just take fountains out of service and leave schools with less water access.” But the process to ensure compliance with this mandate is still being designed by the Department of Licenses and Inspections.
Gym was pleased that the District planned to test the drinking water for lead, but she went further and pushed legislation through council called the School Water Safety Bill.
He said YUC students have used the forum to press for a change that would allow students to bring water bottles into all schools to refill at the new hydration stations.

Oxfam is supplying water pumps, latrines kits, and other sanitation equipment to prevent the spread of water-borne diseases in overcrowded makeshift refugee camps.
Since August 25, more than 600,000 Rohingya refugees have arrived in Bangladesh, leading to a humanitarian crisis.
Oxfam is responding to the crisis and has reached 185,000 refugees across six sites in Bangladesh with clean, safe drinking water, portable toilets, and hygiene promotion, and is also providing food rations of rice, sugar, and fortified biscuits.
“I didn’t take anything, and I don’t know where any of my friends are.” At first, they drank from a nearby waterfall and stream, but then the water began to make them feel sick.
“Only the water is fixed, and for that we are thankful – now we get clean water every day.” Habiba “When we reached the river, we had to leave everything–all our rice and food,” says Habiba, 22, a mother of three who also lives in Kutupalong Camp.
“Before it was here, the children were sick.
The other water was so smelly.” Ayesha Ayesha lives in Balukhali Camp with her four children, two boys and two teenage girls.
Two days ago, Oxfam installed a latrine near their home, so they are no longer going to the bathroom in the open.
“It has become so much easier to go to the bathroom, as it is close to our home, and so much more dignified for my daughters.” Sumania Sumania and her seven children live in Moinnarghona Camp, where Oxfam recently installed latrines and water pumps.
“The children are feeling better.

Access to safe, affordable running water is a basic necessity and fundamental human right.
Philadelphia has become a bright light in combating the issue of unaffordability, creating a first-in-the-nation assistance program that bases the water bills of financially strapped residents on their ability to pay.
A growing nationwide affordability crisis With an average monthly household water, sewer, and stormwater bill of around $70.87, the number of Philadelphians unable to pay is staggering at nearly 40 percent.
Local communities’ efforts to deliver clean, affordable water to their struggling residents are further hindered by President Donald Trump’s regressive actions that place the health and safety of the nation’s already vulnerable water infrastructure at greater risk.
Philadelphia is leading the way Even amid challenging conditions, Philadelphia has stepped up to the plate to address the issue of water affordability.
Early this year, the city began accepting applications for its pioneering water bill assistance initiative, the Tiered Assistance Program (TAP).
Under TAP, a resident’s monthly water bill is not based on their consumption but rather set as a percentage of their household income and size.
Under TAP’s income-based pricing structure, residents making up to 50 percent FPL would see a water bill that is roughly 2 percent of their monthly income.
For example, under TAP, a family of four making around $12,300 per year would have a monthly water bill of about $20.50.
Water is life, and no American should ever be disconnected from it or risk losing their home simply because they cannot pay their utility bill.

BUCHAREST (Romania), November 7 (SeeNews) – The European Commission said on Friday it is providing 17 million euro ($19.6 million) to Romania to improve access to drinking water.
The financial support will be directed to four major projects in Constanta, Ialomita, Gorj, Ilfov and Suceava counties, the European Commission said in a press release.
"Ensuring access to quality drinking water is a concrete example of European solidarity, which will bring benefits to a large number of Romanians.
With the new investments in cohesion policy, citizens from Romania and across Europe will have access to clean water, the result being protecting both their health and the environment," Corina Cretu, European Commissioner for regional policy, said.
The Commission will invest 2.5 million euro in Constanta and Ialomita counties, for the completion of the rehabilitation and extension of the water management and distribution infrastructure in 19 communes.
Some 24,000 inhabitants will benefit from the improvement works.
A further 7 million euro will finance the completion of works from the water distribution and collection network in the urban agglomerations of Gorj county.
Some 2.8 million euro will be used to complete the renovation and extension of the water distribution and sewerage network in eight urban areas located in Ilfov county, near the capital Bucharest.
In September, the Commission provided some 284 million euro to Romania to finance projects for modernisation of water infrastructure in twelve counties.
($=0.8646 euro)

Costa Rica’s Legislature last Thursday (Nov. 2) approved, in first debate, a new law on the management of water resources, after a 2014 law was declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court or Sala IV, following its approval that same year.
This new bill – Ley de Gestión Integrada del Recurso Hídrico (Law on Integrated Management of Water Resources), that was agreed upon jointly with the agricultural and agroindustrial chambers, permits the Dirección Nacional de Aguas (National Water Board) to fine between five and seven base salaries (between ¢2.1 million and ¢2.9 million) to those who drill wells without the proper permits.
The President of the Instituto Costarricense de Acueductos y Alcantarillados (AyA) – national water and sewer service, Yamileth Astorga stressed that it is necessary to demystify the new law because it is not true that water is being privatized.
On the contrary, the Astorga emphasize that it is established, with the status of law, that access to water for consumption is maintained as a human right.
Nacion.com reports that “…The aim of the new legislation is, mainly, to guarantee access to quality drinking water as a human right, to update penalties for illegal exploitation of the resource, specifically for activities such as the illegal digging of wells and water pollution.” “… Unlike the plan approved in March 2014, the new version of the initiative eliminates the articles that referred to participatory construction in the formulation of the policy, plans and technical regulations of the new water law.
In addition, the articles referring to the hydrological unit councils, originally described as intersectoral participation bodies for monitoring application of the law, have been eliminated.” How Can Costa Rica Have A Water Shortage?
It’s been said that an Israeli tourist complained of daily interruptions in the water supply in a luxurious beach house he rented in the province of Guanacaste, where lack of water is already a serious issue, and when he was explained that this was a problem in many areas in Costa Rica, he opened his eyes in amazement and said, “They are short of water in this country?” The editorial in Nacion.com is clear: “The problem is a shortage of water.
If meteorologists are not wrong in predicting the lack of rain, four major areas in the Greater Metropolitan area (GAM) could suffer shortages of between four and eight hours a day in the coming months.
Each of these dozens of water studies carried out in Costa Rica stresses the need to coordinate the conglomerate of responsible bodies, but it seems, from the results, that this is impossible.
It is irrefutable that as long as responsibility for the water supply is not unified into a single national body, the problem will remain.”

There’s a city council election in Des Moines soon, and voters have questions about the rivers where the city draws its water supply.
The Des Moines Water Works spent more than $2 million over two years scrubbing high levels of nitrates from the water that goes to more than 500,000 customers.
“The cities are not in the driver’s seat here, they’re being driven,” he says.
Des Moines’ water utility tried to strengthen the federal Clean Water Act by forcing more regulations on farmers, suing drainage districts in three upstream farm counties in a lawsuit that could have changed the face of farming in the upper Midwest.
Ryan says because farm runoff is not regulated, cities have to spend a lot of money cleaning up water.
For that to change, Ryan says, cities are going to have to get creative.
Plus, there’s a lot of misinformation after the lawsuit, which angered a lot of farmers, says Tim Bardole, who farms about 2,000 acres in north-central Iowa’s Greene County and serves on the board of the Iowa Soybean Association.
And they’ve changed how they do things to help address various issues such as planting 1,500 acres of cover crops this year to keep more nitrates in the soil and out of waterways.
“When it comes down it down to it too, we drink water too.” The voluntary measures aren’t good enough for the Des Moines Water Works, which General Manager Bill Stowe says won’t back down.
“But national and state governments themselves.” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue recently signaled the Trump administration wants to eliminate more regulations for farmers, but didn’t specify what those might be.

As Puerto Rico navigates a massive drinking water crisis prompted by Hurricane Maria, the U.S. government is telling the island that it is safe to drink water from a hazardous waste site.
“Water drawn from wells at a hazardous waste site in hurricane-hit Puerto Rico meets federal drinking water standards and is fit for consumption,” CNN reported, citing a U.S. EPA news release.
“The water being pulled from wells at the Dorado Groundwater Contamination Site, which is part of the Superfund program for hazardous waste cleanup, meets federal drinking water standards for certain industrial chemicals, as well as for bacteria,” the news source said, citing Elias Rodriguez, an EPA spokesman.
The water is okay to consume based on an EPA analysis, Rodriquez said, per the report.
The EPA advised against ‘tampering with sealed and locked wells or drinking from these wells, as it may be dangerous to people’s health,’” Reuters reported.
“Access to safe drinking water is a major issue, with the island under instructions to boil water, even if it comes from a tap, and with many residents unable to do so because they have no electricity,” the report said, citing local volunteers.
“Massive damage to Puerto Rico’s water system from Hurricane Maria poses a looming health crisis for island residents exposed to contaminated water, health workers and environmentalists warn,” USA Today reported.
“Doctors and nurses who traveled to Puerto Rico since the hurricane hit Sept. 20 said they treated widespread symptoms related to unclean water, ranging from vomiting and diarrhea to conjunctivitis (pink eye), scabies and asthma.
At least 74 suspected cases of leptospirosis, a dangerous bacteria, have been reported, including two deaths,” the report said.
Image credit: "Puerto Rican Day Prep 2013," mike licht © 2013, used under an Attribution 2.0 Generic license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

KCB Bank Rwanda staff in partnership with World Relief Rwanda, an NGO involved in provision of clean water, have donated five water tanks to Bugesera residents as part of the bank’s efforts to support communities through corporate social responsibility.
The water reservoirs worth Rwf6 million were handed over to community leaders and residents by George Odhiambo, the KCB Bank Rwanda acting managing director, on Friday.
The facilities are expected to benefit a total of 2,500 residents from different sectors of Bugesera District, including Ntarama, Gashora, Ririma and Julu.
Each reservoir has the capacity to serve 500 residents, according to officials from the two organisations.
Bugesera district is one of the areas with scarcity of water.
Residents sometimes resort to fetching water from unsafe water sources.
The community will also organise themselves to collectively buy clean water and fill the tanks during the dry seasons allowing them to access clean water, community leaders said at the event.
“The bank strives to improve the welfare of the community… The type of life led by an individual and what affects their domestic needs influences their efforts to achieve economic transformation and financial independence,” said Odhiambo.
Beneficiaries speak out Claudine Mukankundiye, a resident of Nyamabuye village in Ntarama sector, said they used to walk long distances to the nearest water point, adding that the tanks would enable residents to access clean water.
Esperance Minani thanked the bank, saying that access to water is essential in the fight against some diseases, especially those caused by drinking unsafe water.

When water gets contaminated, it can make people severely ill and malnourished.
Without renewable fresh water, these countries rely on imported bottled water.
Women and girls often bear the brunt of the water crisis.
In rural Indian and African communities that divide labor along more traditional gender roles, the responsibility often falls on women to provide for their family.
In Africa alone, women spend 40 billion hours a year walking for water.
We can change that.
But this isn’t just a problem experienced by people abroad — many communities in the U.S. also live without clean water.
“…data CNBC obtained from the Environmental Protection Agency reveals that only nine U.S. states are reporting safe levels of lead in their water supply.
Every bit goes a long way toward helping a family have access to water.
When they don’t have to spent hours searching for it, they can focus their energy on other critical things like education.