State says it’s a sign its programs are working On Sunday, July 29th, the State of Michigan declared two townships in Kalamazoo County a state of emergency due to PFAS contamination.
We are testing all municipal water systems.” She says when results came in last week, the state immediately told the more than 3000 residents of Parchment and Cooper townships to stop drinking their water, and the state opened up emergency centers so citizens could pick up supplies of bottled drinking water.
Both townships will then use the city of Kalamazoo’s water supply, and the city of Kalamazoo will continue flushing out Parchment and Cooper township’s water supply system until test results come back that show the PFAS levels are safe.
The MDEQ’s Scott Dean says in this recent case of PFAS contamination, the state of emergency response came from state-sponsored research as well as quick action once the chemical was discovered in the water supplies in Parchment and Cooper Townships.
The testing in Kalamazoo County was conducted as part of Governor Rick Snyder’s unprecedented and proactive effort to test all water systems for these chemicals, which are starting to emerge in many states across the nation and raising public health concerns.” Baker adds, “Due to the ongoing health and safety concerns as a result of the PFAS contamination in the drinking water for the City of Parchment and Cooper Township, Lt. Gov.
He tells Great Lakes Now, “No other state in the union has done more to root out PFAS contamination and protect the public than Michigan.
We set our own to go after polluters while encouraging the EPA to establish a national standard.” Dean says the Parchment and Cooper Township PFAS drinking water contamination sites are the only known municipal PFAS drinking water contamination sites in the state right now, and the state’s own investigation uncovered it.
75% of Michigan’s population is on a public drinking water supply.
High amounts of the chemical PFAS have been found in the water supply of City of Parchment.
The City of Kalamazoo will continue flushing out the City of Parchment’s water supply system until test results come back that shows the PFAS levels are below the health advisory level.

PARCHMENT, MI — The more than 3,000 residents who learned last week their water contains high levels of PFAS contamination will have their first chance Tuesday evening, July 31, to ask questions of public officials.
Residents in Parchment and Cooper Township who get their water from Parchment’s system were told Thursday to immediately stop using their tap water for drinking, cooking or washing food.
PFAS compounds are known to increase risk of cancer, kidney disease, thyroid conditions and auto-immune disorders.
The governor’s office announced a state of emergency in Kalamazoo County on Sunday, July 29.
Round-trip service will run from Saint Ambrose Catholic Church, 1628 East G Ave., next door to Parchment High School) to Haven Reformed Church beginning at 4:30 p.m.
The shuttle service will continue for the duration of the event.
For security reasons, organizers say, no large bags, backpacks or signs will be allowed inside the meeting.
Bags and purses may be subject to search.
Distribution of free bottled water will continue at Parchment High School, 1916 East G Avenue, daily from noon to 8 p.m.
For more information, residents are directed by local officials to call a drinking water hotline set up at (269) 373-5346.

A year ago, the active ingredient in Roundup, the nation’s most widely used weed-killing herbicide, was added to California’s official list of chemicals known to cause cancer.
But Roundup’s critics say it’s hypocritical for one state agency to say the herbicide is a likely cancer hazard while another sprays it into a place where drinking water is pulled.
According the state, the IARC “found that glyphosate is an animal carcinogen and probable human carcinogen” based primarily on studies in which “rodents exposed to glyphosate developed tumors at higher rates than rodents not exposed glyphosate.” However, several other government agencies, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, have concluded there is no evidence that glyphosate causes cancer.
Following the international agency’s listing, hundreds of lawsuits alleging glyphosate causes cancer were filed in state and federal courts across the country.
In addition, the custom blend of Roundup the state uses for aquatic weeds “is absorbed by the plants,” Madsen said.
It’s only active when it’s on the foliage of the plants.” Madsen and other scientists say the herbicide treatments will never completely remove the weeds, but they’re critical for keeping water flowing through the Delta’s 60,000-acre spiderweb of sloughs and river channels stretching from south of Sacramento and west of Stockton to the San Francisco Bay.
Chopping up the plants can harm native species while spreading seeds and other debris that can re-establish the plant elsewhere.
Fish habitats Clear channels for boats and water deliveries aren’t the only reasons for the herbicide treatments.
“Instead of providing good rearing habitat (for young fish), we’ve just got predator habitat,” said Sommer, the Department of Water Resources scientist.
“The rates that they’re using are not going to cause any fish kills.

Local people from northern belt of Damak-3, Jhapa district are facing the crisis of pure drinking water.
In order to ensure smooth supply of drinking water to the villagers here, the government in collaboration with different donor agencies had operated a drinking water project from nearby Mawa stream.
Unfortunately, the locals have been deprived of access to drinking water after the stream brushed away the water supply pipes with excessive erosion of river.
The Dumse Drinking Water Project was brought into operation on a condition that its 40 percent water will be supplied to Bhutanese refugees, shared Chairperson of Dumse Drinking Water Users Sanitation Committee Himdal Bhandari.
Under the project, over 500 taps have been so far installed.
The problem is recurring every year with the flood-fed stream washing away the pipes installed to the source of water.
As a result, the locals of northern belt of Damak and Bhutanese refugees have been compelled to face water woes in a recurrent manner, Bhandari said.

By the DB Pirates Temperatures have definitely been on the rise recently with summer nearing its peak.
Food (or water) for thought!
Hong Kong water is safe to drink!
Opting for distilled water can strip your intake of minerals, which may cause electrolyte imbalances, tooth decay and mineral deficiencies.
Purified water can also be acidic and may contain microbes.
With all of this information to hand, the case for ditching plastic bottles is pretty clear to understand.
Refill it for free with filtered water when dining out (you may want to consider giving your server a tip as a kind gesture), and remember to bring it with you again the next day.
DB Pirates is a premier sporting club on Lantau offering professional coaching in rugby, hockey, netball and dragon boating.
Men, women and kids aged four and above are welcome to register for the new season starting in August.
Image: www.bloomberg.com Tags: hydrate, plastic bottles, reusable bottles, environmentally conscious, single use plastic

Michigan is once again grappling with water issues following a warning issued to two communities over dangerously high levels of industrial chemicals found in their drinking source.
Residents of two Kalamazoo counties will receive bottled water on Friday morning after “high amounts” of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, were detected during testing conducted by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ).
A PFAS test yielded 1,410 parts per trillion in their drinking water, 20 times higher than the lifetime health advisory given by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
A recently released study, however, from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) and the EPA found that the health advisory should likely be far lower.
City officials said they were unsure how the man-made chemicals entered the water source.
Parchment’s water source will be drained over the course of the next two days, after which point residents will be connected to Kalamazoo’s water supply.
Rick Snyder (R) said in a statement that the health of residents would be prioritized in addition to ensuring their access to drinking water.
Reacting to the news, Rep. Fred Upton (R) posted a Facebook statement on Thursday and said he would be meeting with state and local officials to mount a response.
While the dangers posed by the chemicals have been known for some time, documents obtained by the Union of Concerned Scientists through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) this spring found that under the Trump administration a number of agencies, including the EPA, sought to suppress a Health Department PFAS chemical study in January.
Pennsylvania is also grappling with severe PFAS contamination.

Parsa, Chhattisgarh: Banmati, a middle-aged woman from Parsa village in Udaipur block, Chhattisgarh, looks distraught.
Situated close to the Parsa East & Kenta Basen (PEKB) block, the village of Parsa is facing the environmental consequences of coal mining.
In 2013, the Adani Group’s subsidiary, Adani Mining, started extracting coal from PEKB.
However, the Supreme Court ordered suspension of the mining operations for the PEKB block (Civil Appeal No.
The people of Parsa are completely dependent on the company for their daily drinking water needs.
The villagers claimed that when someone from one part of the village submits a complaint, the water supply from another part of the village is diverted temporarily.
The panchayat leadership, once persuaded by the rhetoric of mining-led development, has now reached a breaking point since they receive constant calls from company officials asking them to ‘take over’ the provision of water supply.
We will not take responsibility for the water unless they build a water tank for this village like they initially promised.” The denial of constant supply of drinking water only brought to the surface the latent discontent and anger of the villagers.
Geeta Bai, who had to part with her land, found herself tasked with cleaning toilets at the company.
For the moment, what they say they want urgently is clean water from Adani Mining.

PARCHMENT, Mich. (AP) – Authorities handed out thousands of free bottles of water Friday for two southwestern Michigan communities where the discovery of contamination from toxic industrial chemicals prompted a warning against using the public water system for drinking or cooking.
About 3,000 people are on the affected water system.
Rick Snyder said in a statement.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is hosting public meetings in communities where the chemicals have contaminated water systems.
The Parchment area has a history of paper manufacturing.
Officials announced a plan Friday to drain Parchment’s water system, hook it up to the water supply in nearby Kalamazoo, then flush out Parchment’s system until tests show the PFAS at acceptable levels.
After that, officials will determine when affected residents can use the main water supply again.
"We have water.
We will take care of people."
The tests for PFAS were part of an effort announced in May to check for contamination in Michigan’s 1,380 public water systems.

PARCHMENT, MI — Residents and business owners using the city of Parchment water system are adjusting to the switch to bottled water for drinking and cooking following elevated levels of PFAS contaminates found in the city system.
Those using Parchment’s municipal water supply were told late Thursday, July 26 to immediately stop drinking the water after high levels of PFAS were discovered in the municipal water source.
Water bottles handed out to Parchment residents after high level of PFAS found in drinking water Public health experts link exposure to PFAS chemicals with increased risk for cancer, liver damage and other serious ailments.
"I’m getting old and so it probably doesn’t make a lot of difference anyway to me," Wood said.
Wood said with many factories in and out of operation in the past half a century, he was not surprised to hear contamination in the drinking water was found.
"It looks like they have a lot of work yet to figure out what’s going on," he said.
At the time, Earl had no idea he would end up waiting in a line for bottled water years later.
Earl said, "I wonder how bad this is all over?"
Scooter D’s owner Dave Fooy said once they learned about the contamination, they immediately bought cases of bottled water to ensure the restaurant could maintain operation.
Cornerview co-owner Cafe Judy Eckert said she is worried about the cost of staying on bottled water for a long period of time.

A new federal report on PFAS health effects suggests that drinking water guidelines developed by EPA are not protective enough and should be lower.
Scientists, environmental organizations, and community groups are urging the agency to take strong steps to address the problem.
Safety in numbers What got the attention of EPA officials earlier this year was that ATSDR’s new MRLs for PFOA and PFOS (the two most prevalent PFASs) are 6.7 and 10 times lower, respectively, than comparable values developed by EPA, which are known as reference doses (RfDs).
However, in calculating its MRL, ATSDR lowered its value by a factor of 10 to account for additional studies showing effects on the immune system at low levels of exposure.
The EPA develops its drinking water health advisories based on its RfDs, and includes assumptions about how much water people drink and how much of people’s exposure comes from other sources.
Using the same methods and assumptions as EPA, when we translate ATSDR’s MRLs into drinking water guidelines, we get equivalent levels in drinking water of 7 ppt for PFOS and 11 ppt for PFOA—7 to 10 times lower than EPA’s.
In addition, studies in laboratory animals have found that low levels of PFOA exposure can impair mammary gland development.
Efforts to limit PFASs as a class rather than one at a time, such as Washington State’s recent ban on PFASs in food packaging and firefighting foam, are an important step in the right direction.
Her current research focuses on PFASs in drinking water and consumer products, including fast food packaging, and on septic systems as sources of unregulated drinking water contaminants.
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