Sac State releases drinking water lead contamination results.
After the results of a comprehensive test of the drinking water sources on the Sacramento State campus showed that 43 total sources tested above the EPA action level for lead contamination, those sources will be remediated or shut down.
The results were separated into two documents: one for properties owned and operated by Sac State (which were tested by Certified Industrial Hygienist Services, or CIH), and one for those owned by University Enterprises Inc. (which were tested by California Laboratory Services), a nonprofit corporation that acts as an auxiliary of the school.
Thirty-six of the 675 tested by CIH in buildings operated by Sac State tested above the EPA action level of 15 parts per billion, around five percent.
Seven of the 107 sources tested by California Laboratory Services were above the EPA level, six and half percent.
All sources from both lists are marked with a remediation strategy, ranging from being marked as “non-potable” water to total removal of the source, with other strategies in-between like filter installations, replacements of fixtures or entire fountains.
Steve Leland, the director of environmental health and safety, said last week that parts for the remediation strategies are already ordered and will be installed soon, with more tests scheduled afterward to ensure a positive change before any fountains are turned back on.
Leland also said last week that the majority of sources above the EPA action level were sinks, not drinking fountains, a claim corroborated by the findings.
Some specific cases on each stand out, like a bubbler drinking fountain in Sutter Hall, a residence building, which was found to have lead contamination of 100 ppb, more than six times the EPA action level.
Also noteworthy, some sinks were more than 10 times the EPA action level, including a kitchen faucet in Mendocino Hall (160 pbb), and several classroom faucets in Eureka Hall (150, 170 and 390 ppb).

@MaryAnnBraggCCT ORLEANS — Voters easily approved a 6 percent increase for next year’s operating budget, to $33.5 million, at the annual town meeting Monday.
“It’s time to identify other sources of revenue” and other ways to complete capital projects without increasing property taxes, Bruneau said.
“This project has been brought in under budget,” DPW facilities building committee member Peter Coneen said of the spending proposed.
One voter asked for more building maintenance in the future.
This, too, will need voter approval at the town election.
The actual cost for Orleans is $158,000, a Nauset Regional School Committee member said.
A $300,000 ambulance replacement passed, but the Finance Committee opposed it.
As the town moves toward becoming a green community under state guidelines, there are requirements that some town vehicles be energy-efficient, a voter said.
The resident sticker is not “free” right now because beach operations are supported from the town’s general fund, a member of the town Revenue Committee said.
The selectmen agree that fees should be reviewed more often, and that costs should be considered, Dunford said.

Greater total pollution exposure tied to higher cancer risk.
Living in areas with higher total exposures to harmful pollutants in the air, water and land is associated with greater odds of developing cancer, a US study suggests.
Researchers examined the annual incidence rate for cancer diagnoses for each county in the US and found an average of 451 cases for every 100,000 people.
Compared to counties with the highest environmental quality, counties that ranked the lowest had an average of 39 more cancer cases each year for every 100,000 residents.
"We found that counties with poor overall environmental quality experienced higher cancer incidence than those counties with good overall environmental quality."
To assess the connection between environmental quality and cancer risk, the researchers examined county-by-county data on exposure to different pollutants from 2000 to 2005 and on new cancer diagnoses from 2006 to 2010.
Living in the counties with the worst environmental quality was tied to about 10 more cases of these tumours for every 100,000 people.
One limitation of the study is that researchers may not have had enough years of data to fully assess the connection between pollutants and cancer because some slow-growing tumours might appear many years after exposure to pollutants, the authors note.
Researchers also lacked data on individuals’ lifestyle factors that can influence cancer risk, such as alcohol use, exercise habits and nutrition.
"We do have to be careful about drawing conclusions from studies of neighborhood factors that lack detailed information on characteristics of individuals living in those neighborhoods because the observed associations could very well be due to attributes of the individuals rather than the environment itself," said Scarlett Lin Gomez, author of an accompanying editorial and a researcher at the Cancer Prevention Institute of California and the Stanford Cancer Institute.

What does the EPA science panel getting overhauled under Trump actually do?.
Multiple reports have now rolled in that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has decided to overhaul the 18-member Board of Scientific Counselors, an independent panel that works with the agency’s scientific research arm to develop priorities and ensure accuracy.
EPA administration downplayed the move as a routine part of changing presidential administrations and said the scientist could reapply for their positions.
“We are concerned about news that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has dismissed scientists serving on its Board of Scientific Counselors,” Rush Holt, chief executive officer of AAAS, said in a statement.
What does this board do exactly?
Formed in 1996, the panel of scientific advisors works specifically with EPA’s Office of Research and Development.
Critics of the administration fear that Pruitt’s team will replace the ousted board members with scientists from the private sector who will be hostile to government regulation on industry.
He has also publicly challenged the accept science on climate change.
This news comes after Republicans in Congress have tried to limit who can serve on another scientific advisory board at EPA, the 47-member Science Advisory Board.
Trump has called for slashing funding for the panel by 84 percent.

The GSPCB has decided to make the mining companies pay for pollution by taking bank guarantee from the companies before granting them consent to operate.
“If a company fails to control the air and water pollution in the lease areas, the bank guarantee will be seized by the Board,” said Levinson Martins, member secretary, GSPCB.
The guarantee amount is likely to be based on area of the lease.
Till date, the GSPCB has not renewed the consent to operate to 12 of the 13 mining leases operating in Sonshi village.
The GSPCB is monitoring the air and water quality in the village using mining companies’ monitoring stations.
Later, it was felt that monitoring should be at the company mining stations to get an accurate picture.
Meanwhile, mining companies in Sonshi village have attributed the problem of pollution in the area to “lack of coordination between different leaseholders operating in the area.” A senior source in a company said, “The problem is of lack of coordination and also of managing villagers of Sonshi.” He claimed that effort of one leaseholder in reducing dust pollution is being counteracted by another who is not following the guidelines.
These include geonet fencing along the road near residential areas of the village, tarring of road shoulders to prevent dust generation, installation of cat-eye and road delineators, construction of rumblers at strategic places to replace speed breakers and installation of wheel-washing systems.
Companies have said that they have taken short-term measures or are in the process of following the directions.
But the GSPCB has decided to not give companies the consent to operate until it is satisfied that the issue of dust pollution is resolved.

No compatible source was found for this media.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), under the Trump administration, has "eviscerated" a key scientific review board in order to replace them with industry professionals, the board’s chair has said.
The Board of Scientific Counselors advises the EPA on the quality and accuracy of the science it produces, but it was confirmed on Monday (8 May) that nine of its 18 members’ terms would not be renewed.
"These people aren’t Obama appointees, they are scientific appointees.
Discarding them opens the door for President Donald Tump and EPA administrator Scott Pruitt to replace the independent experts with professionals from industry that the EPA is supposed to monitor, leading to "regulatory certainty".
"If you have industry hand-picked people," she said, "the concern would be that they would have a frequent conflict because we discuss areas that touch upon big industry."
She added that if the committee is turned into a political pawn, its credibility within the scientific community would be tainted.
Robert Richardson, one of the scientific counselors not reappointed to a second term, told AP that decision showed a fundamental misunderstanding of how the review board works.
"The science will show the impact of a particular chemical or toxic substance, but we would never say it should be banned or regulated in a particular way," said Richardson, an ecological economist at Michigan State University.
Related topics : Donald Trump

Shannon Barnes, chairman of the Merrimack School Board, suggested last week that since there have been steady rains, it might be beneficial to revisit the water issue and retest the water at the schools.
“We want this just to see where the rainwater impacted,” Barnes told the school board.
Michael Thompson, school board member, agreed that the schools should be tested once again.
“I don’t think that we have to limit it,” Thompson said of testing for PFOA contamination, adding other contaminants also should be tested.
In May 2016, 21 ppt of PFOA was detected at Thorntons Ferry School, 23 ppt was discovered at Merrimack Middle School and 24 ppt was found at Merrimack High School.
Reeds Ferry School is the Merrimack school located closest to Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics, a company that the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services believes is the likely source of water contamination discovered in southern New Hampshire.
Since a filtration system is expected to be installed, possibly this summer, on two public wells operated by Merrimack Village District – the company that provides water to Merrimack’s schools – Barnes said it would also be beneficial to test the water at the schools once the new filtration system is in place.
Matt Shevenell, assistant superintendent, said he will discuss the request with the testing agency to determine the costs of testing for PFOA and other contaminants.
According to the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services website, the most recent data from Merrimack Village District reveals PFOA levels at five of its public wells ranging from 12 to 30 ppt., with two wells still offline.
khoughton@newstote.com

The Stratford Town Council is expected to vote on Monday night for a proposed budget for the 2017-18 fiscal year.
How much it may change from the current $220.3-million proposal presented by Mayor John Harkins, however, is still unclear.
The council’s Ordinance Committee, comprised of all 10 Town Council members, will host a special meeting at 6:30 p.m. Monday at Town Hall to review the proposed $220.3-million spending plan as well as the proposed tax rate of 39.93 mills.
The Council will then meet at 8 p.m. A vote on the proposed budget is on the agenda.
Several people, including MOVEStratford leader Henry Bruce, say the school district should not receive any increase from the $106.8-million outlay it received for the current fiscal year.
The Board of Ed has hired an attorney to select an auditor who will find an auditing firm to review the past three Board of Ed budgets.
School district supporters, including teachers, students and building principals, have backed Council Chairman Beth Daponte’s recommendation of a 2.75% schools budget increase.
That proposal would give the Board of Ed a $2.93 million hike.
In a letter to fellow Council members sent two weeks ago, Daponte says a 2.65% increase is needed to “keep the status quo” with the Board of Ed, while a .1% increase would allow the district to maintain compliance with mandates regarding the English Language Learners program.
Unlike in previous years, the Town Council did not host budget workshops before last week’s Ordinance Committee budget hearings.

Squid sniffs out a Marina mystery, a la Ghostbuster..
Ghostly Stink…Squid isn’t sure whether to believe in ghosts or not, but Squid knows there are some so-called “experts” with all sorts “knowledge” and electronic equipment that detect the faintest hint of paranormal activity.
But Squid bets that even those pros couldn’t communicate or confirm the origin story of an unseeable stench haunting Marina, which Squid first reported in April.
That job is better left to stink detective and mayor, Bruce Delgado, who is slowly trying to solve the mystery of what dealt the big stink.
Those agencies analyzed the data alongside wind direction, confirming that one of the likely suspects, MRWMD’s landfill, wasn’t the culprit.
The landfill is located in the northeast.
Combined with data on time and day and wind direction, MRWMD exonerated the landfill.
MRWMD, did, however, decide to double down on its own stench, spending $50,000 on projects including draining and treating the water from two stormwater ponds.
And the next step in the Marina mystery: hiring an odor consultant, possibly from the Monterey Bay Air Resources District.
“They’re like the Ghostbustersfor odor,” Delgado says.

To find out what would be lost if it’s defunded, let’s start in a yard next to the Severn River in Maryland.
A lot of septic tanks break down, often invisibly, and what’s inside pollutes waterways.
She’s looking for a particular kind of pollution — nitrogen.
Harris explains that nitrogen in a river or bay is fine in the right amount.
In fact, excess nitrogen is the single largest pollution problem in coastal waters, from the Chesapeake Bay to the Gulf of Mexico.
So her team is developing a chemical fingerprint that could pinpoint nitrogen pollution from septic tanks.
Harris spends a lot of time in waders, hopscotching all over the Chesapeake Bay area to sample water, mostly near housing developments.
Her research colleague Andrew Heyes explains that the septic fingerprint they’re working on targets more than just nitrogen compounds.
"Some of the compounds you use in your soap, pharmaceuticals — all the things that you flush down the toilet or pass through your body end up going through the septic system."
Gonsior has identified some 15,000 compounds in septic water.