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Local and state officials ceremoniously break ground on a $3.8 million project that will provide potable water to residents and businesses in the towns of Phelps, Geneva, Waterloo and Junius.
PHELPS — By the time a $3.8 million water project is completed in an area near Thruway Exit 42, 600 to 800 people in the towns of Phelps and Geneva in Ontario County and Waterloo and Junius in Seneca County will have access to clean drinking water.
“This will open our corridor for commercial business, but my main objective is healthy, clean water for our residents,” said Teed, shortly after a ceremonial groundbreaking Thursday at the site on Route 14.
“This is a big win for taxpayers,” said Geneva Town Supervisor Mark Venuti.

But for many people living in Indigenous communities in Canada, it’s quite a different story — one of insufficient water quantity and poor water quality.
Community-led research can help.
Understandably, many Indigenous people have reported mistrust of their community drinking water supply.
One clear example of illness due to unsafe water was the outbreak in Walkerton, Ont., in 2000, when the town’s water supply was contaminated with dangerous fecal bacteria.
But research itself with Indigenous communities also needs to be better.

Heidi Rickels is co-founder, president and creative marketing director of Freshwater Project International, a Golden-based nonprofit devoted to not only installing clean water pumps, latrines and sanitation stations in Malawi, but teaching people how to fix the pumps and latrines, source parts locally and support Malawi’s rural economy through self-reliability.
That’s the day and the life of a Malawian student.
The lack of accessible water and clean latrines at schools also prompts adolescents and teens, especially girls, to drop out, Rickels said.
Freshwater works with local organizations, including Real World Solutions, Calvary Church Golden and the Interact Club at Golden High School, to raise money for its work in the small, landlocked East African nation.
Rickels recently met with members of the Interact Club, a school service group, in hopes of recruiting student volunteers for Freshwater’s upcoming fundraiser, Walk for Freshwater.
Participants can experience what a Malawian might go through to get water for drinking, cooking and cleaning by carrying a gallon jug for seven laps of the track — more than 1.5 miles — the average distance a Malawian walks to get water each day.
Rickels and others also will hand out “challenge cards” to walkers to give them an idea of obstacles Malawians face in accessing water.
Each school received a hand pump for drinking water, locking latrines for boys and girls, several hygienic hand-washing stations, known as tippy taps, and powdered water purifiers that students can use at home.

Millions of people around the world still don’t have secure access to drinking water.
According to the most recent statistics compiled by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), four out of every 10 Salomon Islanders don’t have secure access to clean drinking water. This makes the Salomon Islands a member of the small group of countries in which the drinking water situation has not improved, but rather worsened, in the past few years.
Around the world, 89 percent of the population has access to clean water.
Despite the recent setbacks seen in some island nations, the overall situation is improving year after year.
Whereas at least two-thirds of urban populations have access to clean water, that number can plunge to less than a third in rural areas, where most of the population lives.
Worldwide, 95 percent of city dwellers have access to clean water while that number is only 80 percent for those living in rural areas.

Millions of people in the U.S. are without temporarily access to safe water and sanitation in the aftermath of the natural, public health and economic disasters from Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.
Why is their research important? According to the United Nations, almost 1.8 billion people rely on a source of drinking water that is contaminated with feces, and each day, nearly 1,000 children die due to preventable water and sanitation-related diseases that cause diarrhea. Chang and Thorpe’s project could be used to help save many lives around the world. To put it succinctly: water quality is health.
What a luxury. It is the result of over a century of water science and technology research and innovations. (And of course, problems with our aging national drinking water infrastructure are only made worse by natural disasters.)

Kutupalong, Bangladesh – A massive scale-up of humanitarian aid in Bangladesh is needed to avoid a huge public health disaster following the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees.
The most recent influx of Rohingya refugees has added to the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who fled across the border during episodes of violence in previous years.
Most of the newly arrived refugees have moved into makeshift settlements without adequate access to shelter, food, clean water, or latrines.
“There are no roads in or out of the settlement, making aid delivery very difficult.
At MSF’s medical facility in Kutupalong, 487 patients were treated for diarrhoeal diseases between 6 and 17 September.
Comprehensive vaccination campaigns for measles and cholera need to be launched immediately to reduce the outbreak risk and protect the Rohingya and Bangladeshi populations.
“Hundreds of thousands of refugees are living in an extremely precarious situation, and all the preconditions for a public health disaster are there,” adds Onus.
Close to the Kutupalong makeshift settlement in Cox’s Bazar district, MSF runs a medical facility and a clinic offering comprehensive basic and emergency healthcare, as well as inpatient and laboratory services to Rohingya refugees and the local community.

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E. coli contamination in Artesia is costing its public school system about $1,000 per day.
Classes across the district were cancelled on Monday and Tuesday, after the city was alerted to the contamination on Saturday.
Food was served in disposable containers, to avoid exposure when cleaning dishes.
Contaminated samples were returned one week ago, on Sept. 13, and again on the following Friday.
After a clean report on Monday, Tuesday night’s results showed the outbreak was not contained, as one of eight samples showed the presence of a bacteria associated with animal and human waste.
Daily sampling will continue, read a Tuesday news release from the City of Artesia, until the bacteria is eradicated.

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*Surveillance and reporting of all cases of cholera.
Shanchol provides longer-term protection against both Vibrio cholerae O1 and O139 in children aged less than five years.
A relatively new vaccine — internationally licensed by the WHO in 2011 — is in short supply, with roughly two million doses kept in a WHO stockpile.
“The risk is probably relatively high,” Legros said.The WHO estimates there are 2.9 million cases and 95,000 deaths globally each year, far more than officially reported.
A new review of the research literature led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, US, shows that cholera vaccines provide substantial protection for adults but provide significantly less protection for children under age five, a population particularly at risk for dying from this diarrheal disease.
The review, which considered seven clinical trials and six observational studies, found that the standard two-dose vaccine regimen reduced the risk of getting cholera on average by 58 percent for adults but only by 30 percent for children under age five.The findings appear online in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases.
There is growing evidence that climate change is altering the distribution of some diseases, in some cases causing epidemics or making diseases spread within their natural range, for example, Zika virus in South America, or bluetongue and Schmallenberg disease in livestock in Europe.Diseases spread by insects and ticks (vector-borne diseases) were found to be the most climate sensitive, followed by those transmitted in soil, water and food.

At the end of last week, the city of Alameda was able to report some good news after days of concern for the 268 homes and more than 60 businesses that were affected by the temporary contamination of drinkable water at Alameda Point.
By this past Friday evening, the water distribution system at Alameda Point was deemed safe by the state Water Resources Board, Division of Drinking Water.
While this news is a relief, it came after days of discomfort and anxiety for Alameda Point residents and businesses.
EBMUD responded and tested the water, and it tested as safe to drink.
The Alameda Police Department contacted the American Red Cross, who along with the Alameda Fire Department and city staff, provided free bottled water at two locations within Alameda Point by 7 p.m. Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) volunteers were mobilized and helped distribute bottled water that evening and throughout the water quality incident.
The city began issuing regular Community Alerts with the information we had available to the news media, and posted alerts on Facebook, Nextdoor, Twitter, Nixle, and the city’s website.
By the end of Wednesday, tests continued to show improvement in the water quality and bacteria samples came back clean.
The state Water Resources Control Board, Division of Drinking Water lifted the remaining do-not-drink advisory and will continue to work with EBMUD and city staff to investigate the incident and work to ensure a continued high-quality drinkable water system at Alameda Point.
And I want to thank our city staff who responded immediately and decisively to calls and concerns from residents and businesses, and worked as a team to serve the community.
Please follow the city of Alameda on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/cityofalameda), Twitter (https://twitter.com/CityofAlameda), Nextdoor (https://eastendzone.nextdoor.com/agency-detail/ca/alameda/city-of-alameda/), and Nixle (https://local.nixle.com/register/) for continued updates about the water quality at Alameda Point and access to the most up-to-date information on city issues.

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SHARPSBURG — County water and sewer bills in the town of Sharpsburg were the hot-button topics of discussion Tuesday night when the Washington County Board of Commissioners held a meeting at Town Hall.
The commissioners periodically visit towns in the county to hear from residents and town elected officials.
Shoemaker said he knows of other town residents whose water and sewer bills have been $400 and $500.
"I think it’s very important that we’re very careful with the taxpayers’ money," he said.
Residents questioned the commissioners and Pippel as to why water and sewer bills sometimes are significantly lower in other counties in the state.
Wells are much cheaper to operate, she said.