by Chris Buckley and Vanessa Piao, originally posted on April 11, 2016

BEIJING — More than 80 percent of the water from underground wells used by farms, factories and households across the heavily populated plains of China is unfit for drinking or bathing because of contamination from industry and farming, according to new statistics that were reported by Chinese media on Monday, raising new alarm about pollution in the world’s most populous country.

After years of focus on China’s hazy skies as a measure of environmental blight, the new data from 2,103 underground wells struck a nerve among Chinese citizens who have become increasingly sensitive about health threats from pollution. Most Chinese cities draw on deep reservoirs that were not part of this study, but many villages and small towns in the countryside depend on the shallower wells of the kind that were tested for the report.

“From my point of view, this shows how water is the biggest environmental issue in China,” said Dabo Guan, a professor at the University of East Anglia in Britain who has been studying water pollution and scarcity in China.

“People in the cities, they see air pollution every day, so it creates huge pressure from the public. But in the cities, people don’t see how bad the water pollution is,” Professor Guan said. “They don’t have the same sense.”

The latest statistics are far from the first about the damage done to China’s underground water reservoirs and basins by runoff from farming and industry. Still, the numbers, which were issued recently but given extensive coverage by the Chinese news media only on Monday, revived concern.

“Does China have any clean underground water?” asked an online commentary by National Business Daily, which had earlier brought widespread notice to the data. “The recently published truth is alarming.”

Exactly how much of the alarm was justified was unclear.

Ma Jun, an environmentalist who is a director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs in Beijing, noted that the survey measured water sources relatively close to the surface, and that many cities get their water from reservoirs that are hundreds or even thousands of feet deeper.

“Fewer and fewer cities are using the heavily polluted shallow-depth underground water,” Mr. Ma said in an interview. “Most are digging deep wells for drinking. This is a very important distinction that must be made.”

For years, the Chinese government has acknowledged that wells and underground water reserves were endangered by overuse as well as widespread contamination from industry and farming. In 2011, the Ministry of Environmental Protection issued a plan to cut the polluting of underground water resources by the end of this decade.

That plan said that China’s use of underground water grew from 57 billion cubic meters a year in the 1970s to 110 billion cubic meters in 2009, providing nearly one-fifth of the country’s total supplies. In the arid north, underground supplies provided about two-thirds of water for domestic needs, it said.

But estimates of pollution of underground sources have varied depending on the depth and location of the wells tested. An annual report from the Ministry of Water Resources said that in 2014, nearly half of 2,071 monitored wells had “quite poor” water quality, and an additional 36 percent had “extremely poor” quality.

“Environmental pollution has become a hot topic in recent years,” Zheng Yuhong, an agricultural resources expert who is a member of China’s national legislature, said last month during the annual meeting of the legislature, according to a report at the time. “But pollution of underground water has virtually been forgotten.”

The latest study found that 32.9 percent of wells tested across areas mostly in Northern and Central China had Grade 4 quality water, meaning that it was fit only for industrial uses, National Business Daily said. An additional 47.3 percent of wells were even worse, Grade 5. The contaminants included manganese, fluoride and triazoles, a set of compounds used in fungicides. In some areas, there was pollution caused by heavy metals.

The heavy contamination of supplies near the surface was forcing more cities to dig thousands of feet underground for clean water, and that was taxing the capacity of those deep aquifers, Professor Guan said.

Documents appear to show TasWater had a strategy of avoiding unwelcome independent scientific findings about lead contamination in the water supply in north-east Tasmania.

-by Michael Atkin, originally posted on April 10, 2016

Internal communications obtained by the ABC under Right to Information laws have revealed that TasWater planned to hit back against the scientists by challenging their research.

TasWater strongly denies any wrongdoing.

Unsafe lead contamination was first discovered in the drinking water in the small regional town of Pioneer in 2012.

Last year environmental scientists from Macquarie University, Professor Mark Taylor and PhD student Paul Harvey, released a peer-reviewed study into Pioneer’s water problems and claimed to have found answers.

They reported lead levels inside houses in Pioneer were 22 times above the safe drinking standard, which they described as the worst in Australia.

Professor Taylor and Mr Harvey explained their findings at a community meeting in Pioneer last April and invited the Department of Health and TasWater to attend, but TasWater declined.

A TasWater briefing note written before the meeting and sent to senior scientific and communications staff appears to show why.

It frankly discusses anger in the local community and criticism of TasWater’s slow response at delivering a solution.

Under the heading “ongoing issues” it notes: “Some residents … continue to complain about the ‘dirty’ water in Pioneer and want to know what TasWater will be doing to fix the problem.”

It concludes that TasWater “will not request a copy of the study” and “will not be attending the meeting”.

Taswater did not attend.

Professor Taylor criticised conditions in Pioneer including elderly people collecting water from a tank, comparing the situation to an impoverished country.

TasWater challenged the credibility of the Macquarie University scientists in emails.

Lance Stapleton, manager of product quality wrote:

“I’ve read this report … It is very wonky science and at this stage I think has truck-sized holes in it.

“I … want to engage external reviewers from another university to debunk their assertions.

“I don’t think we can take this lying down … we need to defend ourselves or at the very least cast a cloud over their research and their ethics.”

TasWater commissioned Water Research Australia to conduct a review of the Macquarie University study and while it found their conclusions were plausible, it also claimed not enough samples had been taken.

In an email, TasWater chief executive Mike Brewster congratulated Lance Stapleton.

Mr Brewster wrote:

“Great job Lance … I am just amending your PD [position description] now to incorporate media responsibilities.”

In a subsequent interview with the ABC, Mr Brewster described this comment as light-hearted banter.

Mr Brewster distanced himself from Mr Stapleton’s colourful language, but defended the independent review.

“[Mr Stapleton] put down his thoughts at the time, and from my perspective I just wanted an independent review. I was not interested in duelling scientists,” he said.

“There was no deliberate strategy from myself to discredit his work, it was to determine the veracity of his findings.”

Professor Taylor is not amused or convinced.

“They deliberately and purposefully constructed a scheme to attack the science rather than dealing with the issue,” he said.

“When people attack you like that I take it as a badge of honour because I know when they’re doing that their feathers are ruffled.”

TasWater has refused to supply Pioneer with reticulated water claiming it is too expensive.

Most residents have accepted rainwater tanks but 12 households have refused and continue to receive water that is unsafe to drink.

Documents also show TasWater unsuccessfully tried to persuade Professor Taylor to back their tank strategy.

In May Mr Stapleton wrote:

“Finding that middle ground that we are all prepared to ‘sing off the same sheet’ is going to do wonders for our credibility and will shut down the media’s main weapon.

“It also gives Mark Taylor a dignified way out of what could be a blow to his credibility.”

Mr Brewster responded:

“Excellent suggestion. Please proceed.”

Professor Taylor denies there has been any blow to his credibility.

He is currently undertaking a review of the management of contaminated sites in New South Wales.

For the first time, documents released under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act reveal extensive pollution on an active American base in Japan.

-Jon Mitchell, originally posted on April 9, 2016

Located in the center of Okinawa island, Kadena Air Base is the largest U.S. Air Force installation in Asia.

Equipped with two 3.7-kilometer runways and thousands of hangars, homes and workshops, the base and its adjoining arsenal sprawl across 46 square kilometers. More than 20,000 American service members, contractors and their families live or work on the base alongside 3,000 Japanese employees.

Kadena Air Base hosts the biggest combat wing in the U.S. Air Force — the 18th Wing — and, during the past seven decades, the installation has served as an important launchpad for wars in Korea, Vietnam and Iraq.

Given the long history of Kadena Air Base and its city-sized scale, it is easy to understand why the U.S. Air Force calls it the “keystone of the Pacific.”

But until now, nobody has realized the damage the base is inflicting on the environment and those who live in its vicinity. Documents obtained under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act reveal how years of accidents and neglect have been polluting local land and water with hazardous chemicals, including arsenic, lead, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), asbestos and dioxin. Military authorities have often hidden this contamination, putting at risk the health of their own service members and the 184,000 civilians living in neighboring communities.

This week, we examine the pollution of local water resources and the exposure of on- and off-base residents to lead and asbestos. The accompanying article explains the flaws in current guidelines that allow the U.S. military in Japan to conceal such contamination.

Next week, we will investigate the installation’s ongoing struggles to manage contamination from PCBs, its coverup of the discovery of hazardous waste near two on-base schools and the human impact of this pollution.

In January, the U.S. Air Force released 8,725 pages of accident reports, environmental investigations and emails related to contamination at Kadena Air Base. Dated from the mid-1990s to August 2015, the documents are believed to be the first time such recent information detailing pollution on an active U.S. base in Japan has been made public.

The documents catalog approximately 415 environmental incidents between 1998 and 2015; 245 of these occurred since 2010. Incidents range from small leaks that stayed within the confines of the base to large spills discharging tens of thousands of liters of fuel and raw sewage into local rivers.

During the 1998-2015 period, total leaks included almost 40,000 liters of jet fuel, 13,000 liters of diesel and 480,000 liters of sewage. Of the 206 incidents noted between 2010 and 2014, 51 were blamed on accidents or human error; only 23 were reported to the Japanese authorities.

The year 2014 saw the highest number of accidents — 59, only two of which were reported to Tokyo.

Large parts of the documents have been redacted and reports for the years from 2004 to 2007 are missing. These omissions almost certainly mean that the actual statistics are much higher.

Due to its location, Kadena Air Base plays an integral role in the supply of the island’s drinking water. There are 23 wells within the installation, some of which contribute to on-base potable water. More than 300,000 meters of drains carry the installation’s storm water into local rivers, including the Hija River, which supplies drinking water for six municipalities and Okinawa’s capital, Naha.

Documents suggest that mistakes and negligence on the base have contaminated this water supply.

In August 2011, for example, 760 liters of diesel spilled into the Hija River when an operator abandoned a generator tank prior to the arrival of a typhoon. In December 2011, 1,400 liters of diesel leaked from U.S. Air Force housing on Camp McTureous after officials ignored a warning light; the fuel contaminated the Tengan River.

Other reports suggest that miscommunication exacerbated spill incidents. In June 2012, an engineer took an hour and 20 minutes to respond to a 190-liter fuel spill because he was at a food court on the base and could not hear his telephone ringing. More recently, in February 2015, environmental teams failed to respond to two incidents — the first involving 170 liters of fuel and the second 23 liters of hydraulic fluid — despite being alerted by emergency crews.

As well as fuel leaks, the base mistakenly released at least 23,000 liters of fire suppressant foam between 2001 and 2015. In August 2012, a Japanese firefighter set off a fire system in an accident that leaked 1,140 liters. Then in May 2015, a drunk U.S. marine, released 1,510 liters in an act of vandalism. Such foams can contain carcinogens, chemicals known to cause reproductive and neurological disorders, and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS).

PFOS, categorized by the Environmental Protection Agency as an emerging contaminant, has recently become the focus of concerns both on Okinawa and in the United States.

In January, Okinawa Prefecture announced that waterways around Kadena Air Base were currently contaminated with PFOS; in 2008, levels in an on-base well had measured as high as 1,870 nanograms per liter. The EPA’s provisional health advisory limit for drinking water is 200 nanograms per liter. Last month, the U.S. Air Force promised to conduct tests for PFOS contamination on 664 bases in the United States.

At the time of publication, a spokesperson for U.S. Forces Japan was unable to confirm whether similar tests would be conducted on Okinawa or elsewhere in the country.

Komichi Ikeda, an adviser at Environmental Research Institute Inc., Tokyo, says “current research suggests (PFOS) may cause cancer, reproductive disorders and damage the next generation.”

“Pregnant women and young children ought to be especially careful to avoid consuming water contaminated with PFOS,” Ikeda says.

Since 2008, Kadena Air Base has also spilled at least 1,670 liters of hydraulic fluid, a known source of PFOS; meanwhile, drains from the base’s fire-training area, where foams are routinely sprayed, feed into local waterways.

Another threat to Okinawa’s water supply comes from leaks of raw sewage, which the base apparently only started recording in 2010. In November 2010, a 57,000-liter spill contaminated the Shirahi River and the sea with sewage measuring 36,000 fecal coliform colonies/100 milliliters — 90 times the Environmental Protection Agency’s maximum limit for swimming waters.

More recently, in June 2013, an overflowing manhole leaked 208,000 liters of sewage into the Hija River. The base took 27 hours to notify local authorities but its subsequent press release stated, “The health and safety of our service members and our friends in local community is our top priority.” Follow-up emails exchanged among U.S. Air Force officials include the comments: “We received little media coverage. So that’s good news.”

Furthermore, the documents highlight the dangers of operating a busy airport in the midst of civilian communities. Numerous in-flight emergencies cause pilots to abort their missions — two occurring in a one-week period in January 2015. Also, in August 2011, an in-flight emergency caused an F-15 to dump 150 liters of fuel from low altitude. The summary concluded, “There was no impact to the local community.”

Back on the ground, the documents released under the Freedom of Information Act point to the exposure of U.S. and Japanese nationals to dangerous levels of lead and asbestos.

For many decades, a furnace within the installation burned ammunition and “other exotic pyrotechnics” without any emission controls.

In 1993, investigators discovered this incineration had contaminated nearby land with lead at 13,813 milligrams/kilogram and more distant jungle with 6,000 milligrams/kilogram. There were “small farms and vegetable plots” in the area and the site was near a waterway.

Another burn pit, cited in an April 1994 report, was blamed for lead concentrations in soil exceeding 500 milligrams/kilogram with fields again apparently in the close vicinity.

The Japanese government’s cleanup standard for lead contamination in soil is 150 milligrams/kilogram. Japan has no standard for agricultural land but in Germany the maximum level permitted is 100 milligrams/kilogram.

“People working in the area need to worry about intellectual disabilities and damage to their nervous systems,” Ikeda says. “Also if they inhaled this lead and other substances over a long period, it may have caused reproductive damage and harmed blood and organs such as kidneys. Because the levels are so high, there is the very strong chance that the land remains contaminated today.”

Ikeda also criticizes the reports for their lack of data on other heavy metals likely discharged during the incineration of ammunition, including depleted uranium, which the U.S. Air Force used widely in the 1990s.

Moreover, surveys from 2000 to 2001 revealed serious contamination from asbestos in many buildings such as dormitories, mess halls and boiler rooms. Inspectors found large chunks of deteriorating asbestos materials scattered onto nearby lawns. One of the locations was an abandoned hospital that had been used for “readiness training” prior to 2000. Investigators noted how military personnel had used axes and chainsaws to breech asbestos-packed doors, resulting in the spread of “friable” (easy to crumble) material across an area of 460 square meters.

The World Health Organization estimates that asbestos is responsible for one-third of occupational cancer fatalities worldwide. In recent years, Japanese base employees have struggled to win compensation from Tokyo for illnesses attributed to their work in asbestos-contaminated environments. Many were instructed to work without proper safety equipment. In 2014, the Japanese government agreed to pay compensation to 28 victims but experts estimate the number of sick is likely in the hundreds.

Former base worker Susumu Tamura witnessed firsthand the dangers of asbestos. Employed on U.S. bases for 43 years until the 1990s, his testimony helped to win compensation for the family of a colleague killed by asbestos-related lung disease.

In a recent interview with The Japan Times, Tamura recalls the dilemma faced by many Okinawans employed by the U.S. military. “Even if we thought what we were ordered to do was wrong, we didn’t refuse,” Tamura says. “We were worried that we’d be fired.”

During his time on the bases, Tamura regularly witnessed lax environmental standards, including the illicit dumping of waste and shoddy cleanup work.

“Nowadays, safety conditions may have improved,” Tamura says. “In the past, however, the only way to describe them was yaritai hodai — the U.S. military did whatever it wanted.”

The first installment of a two-part series on contamination at Okinawa’s Kadena Air Base. The second installment will be published on April 17.

Freedom of Information Act lifts lid on secret history of contamination at Kadena Air Base

One hundred and thirty U.S. bases are in operation in Japan — 32 of which are located in Okinawa Prefecture — but the Americans who serve upon them and local residents know nothing of the dangers these installations pose to human health or the environment.

At the root of the problem lies the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), which makes no allowances for Japanese officials to conduct pollution checks within U.S. bases — nor does it hold the military responsible for cleaning up land that is returned for civilian use.

In 2015, Washington and Tokyo pegged a supplementary agreement onto SOFA giving local authorities the right to request a base inspection following a spill. To date, however, the Pentagon has failed to green-light any such checks.

With both SOFA and the new agreement failing to protect the country’s environment, it comes down to Japan Environmental Governing Standards. The guidelines specify when U.S. forces need to report spills to the Japanese government, for example, after they surpass a certain volume or contain a substance listed as hazardous. However, they do not assign punishment to bases breaching environmental policies or hold the military responsible for contamination outside its bases.

Documents recently released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal instances of U.S. Air Force officials conspiring to hide environmental incidents from the public. In July 2014, for example, the discovery of a buried barrel of chemicals within Kadena Air Base sparked emails urging responders to keep a “low profile please. Don’t want this release (sic) to press.”

This combination of flawed regulations and lack of transparency creates obstacles for researchers trying to ascertain pollution within U.S. bases in Japan. Scientists can only check land that has already been returned for civilian use — by which time it is too late to prevent contamination — or conduct tests on wildlife captured near active bases in the hope their tissues will reveal traces of any toxins.

Given these constraints, one of the most effective ways to lift the lid on locked-tight bases is the FOIA.

“This release of documents about Kadena Air Base is a great example of the power of the FOIA. Because the U.S. government has a hand in many global activities, the international community has many questions for it,” says Beryl Lipton, a member of MuckRock, the organization that helped to secure the release of the documents.

“The FOIA gives great power to the people,” Lipton says. “Official press releases and statements are no longer the final say on a matter — you can check what public officials say. The FOIA can hold the U.S. government to their own words by their own law.”

by Joe Dana and Nancy Harrison, originally posted on April 10, 2016

SANDERS, Ariz. – A northern Arizona town’s water supply is contaminated with potentially dangerous levels of uranium, exposing hundreds of people in homes and a local school district, according to water test records.

exceeds federal standards, but that the water was still safe to drink, according to the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality.

Long-term exposure to uranium can lead to kidney disease and radiation-induced cancer.

Town leaders want to know why the state agency issued the first public notice about the danger in August of 2015, despite having reports of chemical samples showing federally unsafe contamination levels more than a decade earlier.

“Folks have been using the water for so many years without being told,” said Raymond Smith Jr., a community leader in Sanders. “Everybody is wondering, why are we just now getting this information?”

Sounding the alarm

The announcement by ADEQ in August appears to have been prompted by a Northern Arizona University P.H.D. student whose independent water tests in July triggered concerns.

Forty-year-old Tommy Rock is a student of earth science and environmental studies.  Rock decided to examine uranium levels in the Sanders drinking water supply in July, 2015. The town sits within the jurisdiction of the state of Arizona and is located near New Mexico and the Navajo Reservation.

As the grandson of a Navajo uranium miner, Rock was probing a question linked to his own family’s legacy.

Rock grew up in Monument Valley, Utah, on the Navajo Reservation.  His family tree is dotted with cancer cases about which he wonders whether they’re related to decades of uranium exposure.

The reservation has more than 500 abandoned uranium mines linked to the Cold War era.  Uranium contamination in homes, soil and drinking water across Navajo country is well-documented by the EPA.

“I’ve especially been interested in the relationship between the federal government and the communities affected by these mines,” Rock said.  “The tribes are worse off today. There’s a lack of response, a lack of immediate action by the government and we’re still living the consequences of it.”

Uranium is a radioactive element and a building block for weapons and nuclear fuel. It’s one of 130 contaminants in public drinking water monitored by the EPA and ADEQ.

The legal threshold set by the EPA for uranium in drinking water, known as “maximum contaminant levels” (MCL), is 30 micrograms per liter, also known as 30 parts per billion.

In 1979, catastrophe struck a mine in Church Rock, New Mexico that many people believe still impacts Sanders today.  A mining wastewater pond, known as a tailing, spilled into the Puerco River.  The breach caused the single largest release of radioactive material in U.S. history.

The Puerco River flows downstream about 50 miles before it reaches Sanders, trickling into streams and seeping into rocky terrain.

Drinking water tests conducted in the 1980s in Sanders showed the underground wells did not appear affected.  Uranium concentration was 6 to 8 parts per billion – not a cause for concern.

But by 2003, uranium levels in the town’s well water began showing up in high concentrations, ADEQ records show.  A sample in 2003 showed uranium levels at 69 parts per billion. Over the span of the next 12 years, water samples totaled an average of nearly 50 parts per billion.

“You’re talking about a six- to sevenfold increase in uranium concentration over that period of time,” said Chris Shuey, a uranium impact specialist at the Southwest Research and Information Center, a nonprofit research group that analyzes public health issues in the Southwest.

Shuey’s organization assisted Rock in analyzing water samples in July.

The two men conducted water tests and researched the history of water quality in Sanders, using documents provided by the Environmental Protection Agency and the ADEQ.  Records show the town’s primary water supplier, Arizona Windsong Water Company, had a long history of state and federal code violations dating back to 1990.

The company operates a 175-foot well that sits near the edge of the Puerco River.

Water companies are required to monitor contaminant levels, submit data to the state, and notify the public of water test results in annual “consumer confidence reports.”   Since 1990, the company has been reprimanded for failing to submit those reports, repair structural deficiencies and gain certification.

12 News contacted the owner of Arizona Windsong Water Company, Lillie Paulsell.  She declined to comment for this story and referred questions to ADEQ.

The ADEQ provided 12 News with documents detailing the agency’s efforts over the past 12 years to bring Windsong Water Company into compliance with federal testing and reporting laws, including uranium standards. The agency issued annual notices, warnings for fines and written reprimands.

Documents show Paulsell often responded to the agency by saying the company did not have funds to make system improvements.  During this time, the EPA also issued at least two administrative orders against the company.

“Arizona Windsong has experienced a variety of challenges for years, including funding,” wrote ADEQ spokeswoman Caroline Oppleman in a statement to 12 News. “During this time ADEQ and EPA have been and are continuing to work with Arizona Windsong to bring this system into compliance.”

Troubled by the long history of noncompliance and their own water tests, Rock and Shuey held a Sanders town meeting in August 2015.

“It’s a sad injustice that this is once again happening to Navajo people that has been disproportionately effected in my view by this entire uranium legacy that has been going on for seventy years,” Shuey said.

Shuey’s firm, SRIC, presented to residents a slideshow regarding the history of uranium toxicity in the region and the test results of water samples in Sanders.

Their message to residents was straightforward:  Local drinking water is not safe to drink, period.  Showering is discouraged because of possible radon inhalation.  Water temperatures should be kept cool to reduce exposure to radon.

“You know I was really irate at that time, to learn about all these violations over so many years,” said Genevieve Lee, a grandmother and lifelong Sanders resident who attended the meeting.

Over the years, Lee said she knew there were concerns about uranium toxicity in the region but she assumed the public would be notified if it was ever a problem for Sanders.

In August, ADEQ issued a public notice about the uranium levels in the water.  However the agency declared the water was still safe to drink for healthy adults and children.

Then in November, ADEQ issued a revised statement that cited an opinion from the Arizona Department of Health.  It advised residents not to allow children under 1 to drink the water.

“While the water being delivered to consumers by the Arizona Windsong Water Company exceeds the standard, drinking this water does not pose an immediate risk to your health.  If it did, you would have been notified immediately,” the notice stated.  It added that some people who drink water containing uranium in excess of the MCL “over many years may have an increased risk of getting cancer and kidney toxicity.”

The statement stresses that the risk level is low and even lower in relation to bathing and washing with the water.

“Because in Arizona’s small communities, there may only be one public water system available to provide drinking water to residents, ADEQ makes every effort to work collaboratively with these systems to achieve compliance versus shutting down a community’s sole water system, which can present a greater risk to public health,” ADEQ’s Oppleman said.

Shuey and Rock insist ADEQ’s public notification is more than a decade overdue and not strong enough to protect the public.

“There’s no evidence in the record that the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality intervened when it became clear this company was not informing its customers of the quality of the water beginning in 2003,” Shuey said.  “The biggest issue remains ADEQ’s failure to take responsibility for not enforcing the uranium MCL’s until last fall’s administrative order and for not informing customers about the uranium contamination.”

According to federal Safe Drinking Water Act, water suppliers are responsible to notify the public of contaminated water that exceeds EPA standards.

If a water suppler does not fulfill its obligation, the state should have at minimum an ethical responsibility to notify customers directly, Shuey said.

In an emailed statement to 12 News, Director of ADEQ Misael Cabrera said public water systems bear the responsibility to notify their customers through public notices and consumer confidence reports.

“As evidenced by the 172 documents ADEQ provided to KPNX, ADEQ has engaged with Arizona Windsong and EPA for years to resolve the system’s issue,” Cabrera wrote.

Cabrera added that beginning in June, ADEQ will put into place a new process that for the first time will directly notify customers of drinking water violations if the companies do not do it themselves.

“ADEQ is developing a process to notify consumers with timely notice about drinking water violations when public water systems fail to do so,” Cabrera said.

Cabrera added that information regarding inspections and public notices of water systems is available to anyone online through the ADEQ Water Quality Division homepage.

The research by Rock and Shuey also exposed an alleged record-keeping snafu by ADEQ regarding the Sanders Unified School District’s water supply.

The district does not use Arizona Windsong Water Company for its water source.  Rather, it manages its own water well for its estimated 800 students.  Another 150 staff members reside in on-campus housing.

Prior to 2008, the school system’s water was properly classified as a “community based well.”  But the state changed the school district’s water supply classification to a “non-transit well,” which did not require the same water quality testing.

“In 2008, an ADEQ inspector, no longer employed at ADEQ, reclassified the Sanders School District public water system, to a class that does not require uranium monitoring,” said Oppleman in a statement to 12 News.  “In the fall of 2015, ADEQ reclassified Sanders School District water system to require uranium monitoring.”

The reclassification means that for several years, school children drank water that exceeded state and federal uranium standards without oversight by the state. There is no indication an employee for ADEQ purposely violated policies regarding classification of water systems, and records show ADEQ sent a letter to the district in 2010 notifying it of federal uranium violations.

However, to prevent any water systems from being misclassified in the future, Cabrera said ADEQ will institute a new policy to provide checks and balances for re-classification of water systems.  No single ADEQ inspector will have the authority to re-classify a water system, Cabrera said.

Sanders Unified School District Superintendent Dan Hute said when he learned last year about the state misclassification, he was unsettled.

“Somewhere in the back of my mind I would probably have speculation about why it happened, but I don’t want to go there,” Hute said.  Instead of focusing on why, Hute said he is determined to keep his students protected moving forward.

After Rock and Shuey notified the superintendent about the unlawful uranium levels – a 2008 ADEQ test showed uranium at 31 parts per billion and two tests conducted by Rock and Shuey in July, 2015 showed uranium levels between 34 and 37 parts per billion – Hute immediately shut off drinking fountains on campus.

He advised staff members to use the tap water sparingly and not to drink it.

“For me, it means we’re putting our future generations at risk,” Hute said.

Hute began a GoFundMe account, asking the public for funds to purchase bottled water for staff and students.

Hute said when he talked to ADEQ about the problem in August, he felt the agency was not being proactive enough.

“The notice they gave us was the water would be safe to use as long as there was not long-term exposure,” Hute said.  “But what constitutes long-term exposure?  We have kids who have been already attending this school for years.”

According to ADEQ, the MCL is designated to protect more susceptible individuals who drink two liters of water every day for their entire life.

But Hute does not want to take chances. He’s working with the Arizona School Facilities Board, which funds improvement projects, to come up with a solution.

What’s next?

For now, many homeowners use bottled water.

Since the August public meeting, Lee has changed her lifestyle drastically.

“We’ve decided to start trucking in water from Gallup. We also get some donations of bottled water that have been given to the town,” Lee said.

Outside water is costly.  Lee says she still uses well water for washing dishes and showering.  There is always uncertainty about whether her health is in jeopardy, she said.

“Everything we have comes from the environment, the soil. So we don’t really know,” she said.  “I just pray.  I pray a lot.”

Shutting down the Windsong Water Company for noncompliance is not an option, said Director Cabrera in his email statement.

“ADEQ’s mission is to protect and enhance public health and the environment and we have not taken a heavy-handed approach to Arizona Windsong because when a community has NO water, it faces immediate and acute public health risks. Shutting down a water system anywhere in rural Arizona when alternate water sources are not readily available is akin to asking residents of Maricopa County to stop breathing on a high pollution advisory day.”

But Shuey and Rock say something drastic is needed.

“There needs to be a new public water system for the town of Sanders and the elementary and middle school,” said Rock.  “And instead of talking about it we need some action.”

The community of Sanders and the school district are looking at several possible solutions to bring drinking water into compliance with acceptable uranium levels.  They include filtration systems, deeper wells, and connecting to separate water sources.  But all options are costly and will likely require investments by tribal, state or federal authorities.

Some community leaders are skeptical, based on history.

“Arizona ADEQ, they’ve known this for a long time and I think we’re just too far up north out of Phoenix. If this happened in Phoenix or any other place there would be people in action,” said Wayne Lynch, a rancher who grew up in Sanders.

Cabrera said unfortunately, smaller water systems that operate in rural areas experience similar challenges with funding and system maintenance.

“It should be noted that this is something we’re seeing nationally,” Cabrera said.

According to news reports, the water crisis in Flint, Michigan has also caused many communities nationally to be more sensitive to problems in their own water systems.  Issues that may have seemed minor in the past are getting more attention now.

The most likely solution appears to be connecting Sanders’ water system to pipes from the nearby Navajo Tribal Utility Authority (NTUA).

A hearing is scheduled in two weeks in Phoenix at the Arizona Corporation Commission to consider a takeover of the water system by the NTUA.

Raymond Smith Jr. is a Navajo Nation Council delegate.

“We’ve been talking, we’ve been meeting and it seems the state and the county won’t say ‘we will help you in this matter’,” Smith said.  “We need progress.”

ADEQ Director Cabrera said the agency is prepared to work toward a solution.

“ADEQ and other concerned state and tribal agencies recently identified an alternative drinking water source for Arizona Windsong Water system customers,” Cabrera said.  The solution he referred to is the NTUA water connection.

“This alternative source could be in place within the next few months,” Cabrera said.

Superintendent Hute said he believes ultimately the responsibility for providing safe water to Sanders lies with the Environmental Protection Agency.

“If I’m going to lay blame with anything it would be the federal government,” Hute said. “But somewhere down the line the state (ADEQ) should be working hand in hand with the federal government to clean this up. It’s time they stop talking about it, took responsibility, and do something.”

originally posted on April 9, 2016

by Barrett Newkirk, originally posted on April 8, 2016

Amid a national conversation around lead in drinking water, California officials say they’re taking steps to better ensure people in the state don’t need to worry if their water is safe.

An investigation by The Desert Sun and USA Today in March found nearly 100 public water systems in California with high readings of lead in tap water from 2012 to 2015. These included public schools where students could not use the drinking fountains because of concerns about lead.

The report showed that, that is not a problem isolated to the water in Flint, Michigan, which has been trying to solve a public health crisis caused by corrosive pipes containing lead. USA Today found almost 2,000 water systems in all states had reported lead levels above what federal government considered acceptable.

The toxic metal can cause brain damage and other physical ailments if ingested, and experts say no amount of lead is considered safe.

In some cases, water systems in California were already taking steps to address a lead problem. For example, Orange Center School outside of Fresno is working with the city of Fresno on plans to join the city’s water system and upgrade its pipes, the likely source of the lead. For two years, the school’s 300 or more students have been restricted to drinking bottled water because of high lead levels. The single-school district is also an independent water system.

California has thousands of similarly small water agencies. Of the more than 7,600 water systems across the state, 63 percent have less than 200 service connections, meaning they serve less than around 600 customers.

Even smaller systems are coming online as developments expand into new territory, and many don’t have the resources to meet drinking water safety standards, said state Sen. Bob Wieckowski, who chairs the Senate Environmental Quality Committee.

Wieckowski, a Fremont Democrat, has introduced a bill that would increase permitting requirements for new public water systems. The bill also would require these proposed systems to consider joining existing water agencies. The bill passed a committee vote on Wednesday.

Wieckowski told The Desert Sun, lawmakers should also consider legislation that would push consolidation of small water systems.

“We need performance standards to say if you do not perform this way, you get consolidated, you get gobbled up by somebody else,” he said. “I know that’s going to give heartburn to some people”

For existing water systems grappling with lead or other quality issues, the state is making $260 million available from the 2014 state water bond intiaitive for grants and loans to pay for repairs and upgrades. As of March, nearly $12.4 million from that fund had been allocated, including $2.9 million for the city of Fresno and Orange Center School.

State Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia of Coachella is behind a bill he sees as complimentary to the water bond funds. The bill would direct $10 million from the state’s general fund to pay for drinking water stations in schools facing water access or quality issues, including lead.

“Whatever water quality standards are not being met act as the trigger point for these funds,” Garcia said.

The idea is modeled after the Agua 4 All program that has brought water stations to the eastern Coachella Valley.

Errors in the data USA Today used to conduct its investigation have prompted the state Water Resources Control Board to look into moving away from testing procedures where testing results reported on paper are manually entered into a database, said Kurt Souza, the agency’s deputy director.

“When we put our data out to the public, it shows that water systems have high numbers when they really don’t because there are data entry errors, which is our fault,” Souza said.

But for systems where the high levels of lead do infact exist, Souza said the state will continue to follow protocols outlined by the federal Lead and Copper rule while awaiting guidance from the Environmental Protection Agency. Officials with the EPA have said they are looking at how to strengthen regulations around lead in drinking water.

“I think it really depends on how fast the EPA is going to move,” Souza said about any changes to enforcement in California. “If they take five years, we will probably do something sooner.”

by Gustavo Solis, originally posted on April 8, 2016

A local program that installs water bottle fill up stations in rural schools and community centers could be a model to increase access to safe drinking water throughout California.

Over the last two years advocacy groups installed 75 fill-up stations in more than 20 locations in the eastern part of Coachella Valley. Stations installed in areas without access to safe drinking water, like the San Jose Community Learning Center in Oasis, have a filtration system that rids water of arsenic and other chemicals.

“We are here today because fundamentally one of the most basic things we need every day is water,” said Judi Larsen, senior program manager for The California Endowment, a Los Angeles-based organization that advocates for health.

The nonprofits Pueblo Unido and Rural Community Assistance Corporation helped install the fill-up stations.

Larsen joined representatives from both groups at Toro Canyon Middle School in Thermal Friday to celebrate the completion of the fill-up station project. Apart from giving children more access to safe drinking water, the stations will also promote greener and healthier lifestyles, Larsen added.

While students at Toro Canyon already had access to safe drinking water, the fill-up stations and free water bottles let student take the water home, where they may not have the same access.

Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia is asking the state for $10 million to expand the pilot program to other rural areas in California. Hundreds of communities throughout the state lack access to safe drinking water, Garcia said.

“With what happened in Flint, Michigan, this has become a huge, eye-opening situation for a lot of people across the country,” he said. “We’ve been out here for a long time saying the same thing. We’ve been the smaller Flint, Michigan, talking about arsenic in the water.”

The fill-up stations are a good way to bring access to areas that lack the infrastructure to support safe drinking water, the assemblyman added.

Castulo Estrada, a Coachella Valley Water District board member, said the agency is working to connect more communities in the east part of the valley to safe-drinking water. Specifically, the board plans to identify communities that are close to existing sewer lines and create some sort of priority system.

“This is work that’s obviously been needed for a long time and we’re happy that the district is now moving in that direction,” Estrada said.

State officials urge bottled water until long-term effects of PFOA are known

-Stephanie Woods, originally posted on April 8, 2016

LITCHFIELD, N.H. — On Thursday night, state authorities promised to provide bottled water to about 400 homes in Litchfield in Merrimack that could have well water contaminated with the synthetic chemical perfluorooctanoic acid.

At the meeting at Campbell High School, everyone had the same question: If I need to drink bottled water, is PFOA dangerous?

State officials said until the long-term effects of the chemical are known, and until they figure out how to deal with the contamination, they’re going to be very careful.

“All these tests are just a snapshot,” said Litchfield resident Dennis Boisvert. “We don’t know if the numbers will go up over time, or has the peak already passed us?”

Boisvert’s well tested positive for 42 parts per trillion of PFOA.

At first, the state Department of Environmental Services was only giving bottled water to homes that showed levels about 100 parts per trillion, but now, Boisvert is on the list.

“Some are low, but there are individuals that are high,” he said. “And we’re not far from the horse farm, and they’re very high. They’re just a few hundred feet away.”

“We’re concerned,” said Clark Friese of DES. “We have a number of houses that are surrounded by elevated levels, and while their wells are testing low levels today, we’re concerned that it maintains that way. So out of an abundance of caution, we have decided to expand the area that’s covered by bottled water.

At the meeting, DES revealed that more than 25 homes are now drinking bottled water, but they want to expand that number to 400.

This news comes after five wells showed high levels of PFOA, including one in Merrimack at 830 parts per trillion – more than double the Environmental Protection Agency’s provisional health advisory.

Corlyn Yusuf has now been offered bottled water, but is concerned about the well water she’s drank for 30 years.

“Oh yeah, better be safe than sorry,” Yusuf said. “We’ll hopefully have it done shortly, and hopefully it won’t turn out as bad as some of them have.”

Thomas Levesque has a private well and was about to put his house on the market, but now isn’t sure.

“We’re concerned about the potential property devaluation with this going on,” Levesque said. “Like all of us, were just ready to get answers from the state and the federal government.”

DES still has 72 water wells in Merrimack and Litchfield that they have yet to test.

by Matt Rocheleau, originally posted on April 7, 2016

The City of Boston will give property owners up to $2,000 and four years of no-interest financing to help them replace water lines at their homes or businesses that may be leaching harmful lead into drinking water.

More than 5,000 properties in the city are connected to water mains in the street by lead service lines, city officials said.

Replacing such lines typically costs between $2,500 and $3,000 in Boston, officials said. The amount depends on the length of the line.

“It is our hope that residents will take advantage of this program to replace lead water service [lines] at their property to help us move the City of Boston towards a safer housing stock and a healthier city,” Mayor Martin J. Walsh said Thursday in a statement

originally posted on April 7, 2016

An industrial plant that mines cast-off electronics for their valuable metals appears to be pumping polluted waste water into the neighborhood surrounding  Vientiane’s Special Economic Zone causing contamination levels to jump dramatically, local residents told RFA’s Lao Service.

The Hokeng Metal Processing Co. plant located in Nonthong village in Vientiane’s Saythany district reclaims copper, lead and other valuable minerals from computers, televisions, batteries and other castoff electronics, and then resells the metals to customers worldwide.

“I see the plant drain the waste water into the surrounding fields, and during the rainy season it will spread to other areas,” said one resident who spoke on condition of anonymity. “The plant has done it for a few years.”

In addition to the fear of water contamination, residents near the plant say the smell is horrible.

“Villagers have trouble with the bad smells day and night,” another villager told RFA. “When we are home, we must stay inside the house with the windows closed. People driving past that area also smell the burning, and it seriously upsets their noses.”

Hokeng Metal Processing is a subsidiary of Sunrise Metal International, according to Sunrise Metal’s website. While Sunrise is headquartered in New Zealand, it is a part owner of Hokeng, which has operated for five years since winning approval by the government.

While company executives could not be reached, an official working closely with the company who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said the villagers have need for concern. He told RFA that a recent inspection turned up contamination at more than 16 times the normal level.

“The result of the inspection, found that the severe contamination is 3.4,” he said. “In general normal contamination in water is only 0.2.”

While Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment officials told RFA they are working on pollution management at the plant, the ministry has yet to take any action against the company for dumping the waste water.

However, the company was found guilty of importing raw materials from Hong Kong, and now those materials are being kept in the Vientiane Thanalaeng warehouse until authorities can dispose of the case.

According to the Ministry of Finance, the officials quarantined 58 containers of raw materials imported by the company in the government warehouse because they suspect Hokeng failed to comply with the international  treaty known as the Basel Convention that attempts to  regulate the transfer of hazardous waste from developed to less developed countries.

Lao authorities accused the company of failing to identify the kinds of raw materials contained in the containers; avoiding customs inspections; failing to inform officials of the types of waste; and it may have imported a type of waste that is unacceptable in Laos.

While it’s unclear what action, if any, Vientiane will take, the government is aware of the problem, according to a government official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“Deputy Prime Minister, Somsavat Lengsavad who is in charge of economic affairs called relevant sectors to have a meeting for resolution, but it is unclear the date of the meeting and the summary of this issues,” the official said.  “Representatives of the ministries of natural resources and environment, industry and commerce, government office’ economic department, the national committee for special economic zone management, and representatives of the company are expected to meet at the end of this month.”