by Laura Benshoff, originally posted on April 1, 2016

 

When it comes to your drinking water, how much of a hazardous material is too much?

Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency recommended that residents of Hoosick Falls, New York, stop drinking or cooking with water tested at about 100 parts per trillion of the chemical PFOA.

The Navy took nearly 100 (mostly private) wells offline in Bucks and Montgomery counties for testing at levels of more than 400 parts per trillion, four times higher than the actionable standard in New York.

Seeing this discrepancy, concerned residents and elected officials in the Warminster, Warrington and Horsham areas of Bucks and Montgomery counties say the actionable level of an instance of PFOA in their water supply should be lowered.

PFOA, or perfluorooctanoic acid, can be found in a variety of consumer goods, including those with Teflon coating. In Hoosick, a plastics factory takes the blame for contaminating the drinking water.

PFOA is also a component in high-powered firefighting materials, such as those used in firefighting simulations at former military bases in Warminster and Horsham for decades. The federal Department of Defense launched an investigation into these and some 664 other sites across the country last year.

PFOA, along with other members of a family of compounds called perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs), are characterized as an “emerging contaminant” by the Environmental Protection Agency, or a “chemical or material that is characterized by a perceived, potential, or real threat to human health or the environment or by a lack of published health standards.”

In practical terms, that means direction on what is a safe level depending on who is setting the standard and what studies are referenced. The EPA’s standing provisional advisory level is 400 parts per trillion, but some states, including New Jersey, have done their own research and set much lower levels for what is considered safe.

When not enough is known about the health effects of an environmental contaminant, the local response can differ, according to a statement from EPA spokesman Mike D’Andrea.

“EPA’s advice was a result of specific circumstances that existed in that community, including the fact that: 1) free bottled water was being made available to everyone in the community; and 2) the state health department had already offered to test, for PFOA, the private well of everyone in the town who requested such testing,” D’Andrea noted. “EPA’s recommendation was also based on site specific information as well as information in the most recent EPA report on PFOA toxicity which underwent external peer review in August 2014.”

Concerned residents see that as a sign the Navy — which is responsible for providing safe drinking water to those affected — and officials in Bucks and Montgomery counties should be doing more.

“It’s a political hot potato,” said Warminster Environmental Advisory Council member Larry Menkes. “The initial reaction was, we don’t have to give people the impression it’s our responsibility. And my reply to that was, the health and safety of our residents is your responsibility.”

This week, the Warminster Environmental Advisory Council passed a resolution urging the Navy to lower the level at which it would intervene to the same level as Hoosick Falls, 100 parts per trillion.

In a letter, U.S. Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick pledged he would also urge the Navy to adopt “a lower, standardized action level while additional research and steps are undertaken.” He also said the Navy should provide for people with private wells with any detectable PFOA to be connected to public water.

A cohort of military agencies have committed to spending $19 million remediating the contamination, but lowering the standard would drive that cost up by providing for more people, said Menkes.

“The lower you recognize the standard as being, the more expensive it gets to take care of the people,” he said.

The EPA is expected to release new guidelines on safe levels of PFOA in water withing weeks.

originally posted on April 1, 2016

 

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Elevated lead levels have been found in more samples from New Jersey’s largest school district, where officials shut off sinks and drinking fountains at 30 facilities last month.

Newark schools released data Thursday night showing that lead above the federally recommended threshold had been found in eight facilities used by city and charter schools.

The results come from buildings where lead testing did not occur last school year. The results show that 16 samples from drinking water sources showed levels about the 15 parts per billion threshold, including water fountains at one charter school where results on one fountain were nearly 20 times the federal limit.

Most of the samples came from utility sinks, bathroom faucets and from a transportation hub and athletic fields.

Twenty-seven buildings were tested for lead last week and results are expected to be returned to the school district on a rolling basis, with another round of results being released as early as next week, according to spokeswoman Dreena Whitfield.

State lawmakers called for requiring testing drinking water in all of New Jersey’s public schools after Newark schools shut off water 30 facilities last month because of lead. Testing showed elevated lead levels in some buildings for years.

The lawmakers outlined a measure that would provide more than $20 million for both testing and water filters. Once New Jersey understands the scope of the problem, the lawmakers said they would address the larger and far more expensive challenge of helping schools to replace old pipes and fixtures that often cause of contamination.

The proposal underscores the growing focus on lead poisoning in statehouses across the country and in the nation’s capital. Just a decade ago, few schools tested for lead — and few states required them to, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office.

But more lawmakers are considering new mandates in the wake of the water crisis in Flint, Michigan.

The highest lead levels found in the water in Newark’s schools are far lower than those found in homes in Flint. Water also poses a relatively small risk of lead poisoning compared to more common sources, such as lead paint.

by Sara E. Smith, originally posted on March 22, 2016

 

In many parts of Texas, we expect that when we turn on our taps, we’ll have access to abundant, safe and clean drinking water. In fact, many people think of contaminated drinking water as a problem that happens to other people in other parts of the world.

The recent crisis in Flint, Michigan, forced us as a nation to realize that these problems can also crop up close to home. As we celebrate World Water Day today, let’s consider a few of the threats to our drinking water right here at home — and what we can do about them.

Our aging infrastructure has been getting the most attention recently, but there are many other threats to our drinking water, from stormwater and urban runoff pollution and to corporate agribusinesses.

Since the time of Roman aqueducts, water infrastructure has been a hallmark of advanced civilization. Yet we have let our public drinking water systems crumble in neglect. The EPA now estimates that communities face a $384 billion backlog to repair drinking water infrastructure across the country.

Here in Texas, the City of Keller in Tarrant County, just submitted an initial application to the Texas Water Development Board for $12 million in low-interest loan through the State Water Implementation Fund for Texas (SWIFT) to replace aging asbestos-cement piping that is more than four decades old. Not only do these pipes pose a public health threat, with the potential to contaminate the drinking water with asbestos to the 42,000 people that rely on the system, but also results 514 acre-feet of water, enough to supply more than 500 families of five for an entire year.

Even worse, a new report released last week by the Environmental Integrity Project, a non-profit, non-partisan environmental group, found that drinking water systems that serve more than 51,000 people across 34 Texas communities had exceeded Safe Drinking Water standards for arsenic.

As if dangerous chemicals like asbestos and arsenic weren’t enough, corporate agricultural pollution is also threatening drinking water here in Texas and across the country. In northeast Texas, a chicken processing plant operated by Pilgrim’s Pride (now owned by the Brazilian firm JBS) is the largest source of nitrogen pollution that has contributed to water quality problems in in Lake o’ the Pines. The lake — a prime recreational resource for the region — has suffered in recent years from fish kills, algae blooms and beach closures.

And recently, the threat of urban runoff and stormwater pollution has gotten more attention, especially in regions of Texas that are prone to flooding. In urban areas, including the greater Dallas region, impervious surfaces such as parking lots and roadways serve as swift conduits for runoff containing litter, toxins and heavy metals and other dangerous substances. While these pollutants come from a variety of sources all across the region, it ultimately ends up in our drinking water sources.

Litter, toxins and pathogens not only damage our waterways and blight scenic areas but also are dangerous to the health of humans and animals that rely on the waterways. That’s why we will be pushing for tougher pollution controls in new permits for regions across the state, including Houston and Dallas, and working to support a strong new EPA rule that would require increase stormwater pollution controls for cities with 100,000 residents or fewer.

We believe all Texans deserve safe drinking water. We know what it will take to achieve this vision. First, we need to restore or repair the public infrastructure that brings water to our taps. Second, we must protect the rivers, streams and aquifers from which we draw our water, both from pollution and from unnecessary and wasteful withdraws. Third, we need to require cities to reduce stormwater pollution by implementing green infrastructure and common sense low impact development. And finally, the public must have the right to know about water pollution — with robust monitoring of our waterways, regular testing from our taps and standards that truly protect public health.

It will it take political will to build on this progress. So on this World Water Day, let us vow to keep drinking water on the forefront of our minds even long after stories of Flint have left the front pages of our papers.

Mike Henry Sr. holds his grandson Kaiden Olivares while a blood sample is drawn to test for lead at the Masonic Temple in downtown Flint, Mich., on Jan. 23, 2016. “I’m upset I had to do that to him,” said Henry Sr., who moved with his family outside of the city to Grand Blanc. “My grandson has had rashes. He’s been in the hospital. We have a concern now about the hospital’s water. My daughter has hair loss in the past that we’ve had no clue. We’re just trying to find out if maybe that’s it. Our whole family resides in Flint. We’ve ate in Flint. We’ve drank water in Flint. We’ve been in Flint restaurants so we have high concern.

Sandra Porter, the cook and water operator at Ozark Action Head Start in Ava, Mo. pours a gallon of bottled water into a bowl while she cooks for the school’s children. The Head Start has a well on its property, but the school doesn’t use it because samples from faucets have shown high lead levels.

Jaryn Wilson, 16, practices basketball in front of an old home in Auburn, Maine. The city was flagged in 2015 for elevated lead levels in the drinking water.

Volunteers load cases of free water into waiting vehicles at a water distribution center in Flint, Mich., on March 5, 2016. Flint changed its water source in April 2014 from treated water sourced from Lake Huron as well as the Detroit River to the Flint River, but city officials allegedly failed to treat with corrosion control. The failure had a series of problems that culminated with lead contamination from aging pipes.

Director of Safety Rick Donnelly with B.J. Baldwin Electric Inc. in Narvon, Pa., shows the latest test results warning of high levels of lead and radium in the water.

A pedestrian crosses the street in downtown Lancaster, Pa. Across Lancaster County,17 water systemshave found high lead levels indrinking water27 timesbetween 2012 and 2015, according toEPAdata.

Covenant Heights Camp and Retreat Center is near Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. This camp has renovated pipes in this staff cabin after the discovery of higher than normal lead content in the drinking water supply.

Paul Bryant stands in the doorway of his old town Firestone home. Bryant, who has been slowly renovating the home since he bought it five years ago, says he’s used only plastic pipes in the 96-year-old house, but isn’t sure what kind of line connects the house to the town’s water supply. He says he drinks mostly bottled water anyway, and doesn’t worry about possible lead in the water. “My grandmother used to bathe in radon and she lived to be 100,” he said with a laugh.

Willie Williams, plant operator for the water authority, blames homeowners for not replacing old plumbing.

Water samples taken in August and again in January at Caroline Elementary School in the Ithaca City School District came back with high lead results.

Sardis Lake, is the source of water for the Sardis Lake Water Authority in Oklahoma. “The water that we have coming out of the lake does not have lead in it,” said Willie Williams, plant operator for the Sardis Lake Water Authority. They have some houses in their system that have bad plumbing.

Lee Anne Walters of Flint, Mich., pours gallons of bottled water into a bucket and pan to warm up for her twin sons to take a weekly bath. Her son, Gavin, 4, looking on, has been diagnosed with lead poisoning. “I was hysterical,” said Walters said. “I cried when they gave me my first lead report because the thought was ‘Oh my God, my kids.’ I’m one of those mom’s that I watch what my kids eat. I make sure they get enough fruits and vegetables. All of my kids are avid water drinkers.”

Nicole Rich helps her children Jamison Rich, 7, left and Jersey, 9, do their homework in Ithaca, N.Y. The two siblings attend Caroline Elementary School in the Ithaca City School District where water samples came back with high lead results when tested last August and January. On Feb. 24, 2016, the Ithaca City School District released data from 2005 showing that drinking water throughout the school district could have exceeded EPA limits for lead during the past 11 years. Jamison Rich tested positive for lead.

Nancy Beliveau, a resident of a more than 100-year old home in Auburn, Maine, shows the plumbing in her basement. Beliveau said she received an elevated lead notice in the mail but ignored it because she was under the impression it didn’t affect her street.

Melissa Hoffman expresses concerns at a public meeting in Ithaca, N.Y., about high lead levels found at her children’s school, Caroline Elementary School.

Melissa Hoffman and her daughters, Sareanda Baker, 6, right and Asyra Baker, 10, at the Foundation of Light center in Dryden, N.Y. The two girls attend Caroline Elementary School in the Ithaca City School District where water samples show high lead levels.

“I wonder how it’s affected my kids,” said Lindsey Cox of Greentown, Ind., who has 3- and 10-year-old daughters. The family stopped using tap water for everything except showers and toilets after the town-operated utility discovered high-lead levels last year. Cox, the night manager at Heartland Market, has switched to using bottled water.

Lake Auburn is the water source in Aururn Maine and is so clean it doesn’t require a filtration system, a claim few Maine water sources can make. “The lead problem comes from the delivery system. We can’t control the plumbing in people’s homes,” says Sid Hazelton, the superintendent for the water district.

Kysten Gabri keeps her bottled water near as she shapes peanut butter protein balls in Auburn, Maine, where water samples from faucets have shown elevated levels of lead.

Christi Woodruff moved her trailer in June to Maple Ridge outside of Corinna, Maine. The property manager left a notice on her door about the lead contamination. Woodruff says when she made plans to get her water tested, her landlord said it was unnecessary. “The manager said not to worry because it was only certain trailers. He didn’t think my trailer was one of them,” she said.

Rows of water jugs are stacked at B.J. Baldwin Electric in Narvon, Pa. Jugs of water are placed throughout the business for employees who can’t drink the tap water because of various contaminants.

B.J. Baldwin Electric employees are told on their first day of work to not drink the water.

Pedestrians cross the street in Lancaster, Pa., which has taken a proactive approach to removing most of their lead pipes in their system.

 

 

 

 

 

-by Laura Ungay and Mark Nichols

 

RANGER, Texas — The leaders of this former oil boomtown never gave 2-year-old Adam Walton a chance to avoid the poison.

It came in city water, delivered to his family’s tap through pipes nearly a century old. For almost a year, the little boy bathed in lead-tainted water and ate food cooked in it. As he grew into a toddler — when he should have been learning to talk — he drank tap water containing a toxin known to ravage a child’s developing brain.

Adam’s parents didn’t know about the danger until this fall.

Officials at City Hall knew long before then, according to local and state records. So did state and federal government regulators who are paid to make sure drinking water in Texas and across the nation is clean. Ranger and Texas officials were aware of a citywide lead problem for two years — one the city still hasn’t fixed and one the Waltons first learned about in a September letter to residents. The city and state even knew, from recent tests, that water in the Walton family’s cramped, one-bedroom rental house near the railroad tracks was carrying sky-high levels of lead.

Destiny and John Walton got their first inkling of a problem when blood tests in June detected high levels of lead in their son’s growing body. They first learned that their tap water contained lead — about 28 times the federal limit — when a USA TODAY Network reporter told them in early November.

Millions of Americans face similar risks because the nation’s drinking-water enforcement system doesn’t make small utilities play by the same safety rules as everyone else, a USA TODAY Network investigation has found.

Tiny utilities – those serving only a few thousand people or less – don’t have to treat water to prevent lead contamination until after lead is found. Even when they skip safety tests or fail to treat water after they find lead, federal and state regulators often do not force them to comply with the law.

USA TODAY Network journalists spent 2016 reviewing millions of records from the Environmental Protection Agency and all 50 states, visiting small communities across the country and interviewing more than 120 people stuck using untested or lead-tainted tap water.

The investigation found:

• About 100,000 people get their drinking water from utilities that discovered high lead but failed to treat the water to remove it. Dozens of utilities took more than a year to formulate a treatment plan and even longer to begin treatment.
• Some 4 million Americans get water from small operators who skipped required tests or did not conduct the tests properly, violating a cornerstone of federal safe drinking water laws. The testing is required because, without it, utilities, regulators and people drinking the water can’t know if it’s safe. In more than 2,000 communities, lead tests were skipped more than once. Hundreds repeatedly failed to properly test for five or more years.
• About 850 small water utilities with a documented history of lead contamination — places where state and federal regulators are supposed to pay extra attention — have failed to properly test for lead at least once since 2010.

This two-tiered system exists in both law and practice. State and federal water-safety officials told USA TODAY Network reporters that regulators are more lenient with small water systems because they lack resources, deeming some lost causes when they don’t have the money, expertise or motivation to fix problems. The nation’s Safe Drinking Water Act allows less-trained, often amateur, people to operate tiny water systems even though the risks for people drinking the water are the same.

Officials in West Virginia, for example, labeled more than a dozen systems “orphans” because they didn’t have owners or operators. Enforcement efforts for those utilities amounted to little more than a continuous stream of warning letters as utilities failed to test year after year. All the while, residents continued drinking untested — and potentially contaminated — water.

“At the end of the day, it creates two universes of people,” said water expert Yanna Lambrinidou, an affiliate faculty member at Virginia Tech. “One is the universe of people who are somewhat protected from lead. … Then we have those people served by small water systems, who are treated by the regulations as second-class citizens.”

All of this endangers millions of people across the country, mostly in remote and rural communities. Utilities like East Mooringsport Water, serving part of a bayou town of about 800 people, where drinking water went untested for more than five years. Or Coal Mountain, W.Va., a remote 118-person outpost where a retired coal miner pours bleach into untested water at the system’s wellhead in hope of keeping it clean. Or Orange Center School outside Fresno, Calif., where for more than a decade regulators let about 320 grade-school kids drink water that had tested high for lead.

Individually, the communities served by small utilities seem tiny. But together, the number of people getting lead-contaminated drinking water, or water not properly tested for lead, since 2010 is about 5 million.

Virginia Tech’s Marc Edwards, one of the nation’s top experts on lead in drinking water who helped identify the crisis in Flint, Mich., laments that people in America’s forgotten places — rural outposts, post-industrial communities and poor towns — are most at risk from the dangers of lead exposure, such as irreversible brain damage, lowered IQ, behavioral problems and language delays.

Edwards said the effects of lead poisoning could make it even more difficult for families in these communities to climb out of poverty. “I’m worried about their kids,” he said. “The risk of permanent harm here is horrifying. These are America’s children.”

The Waltons fear lead has already harmed their son. At an age when other kids use dozens of words, Adam says just three: “mama,” “dada” and “no.” Destiny and John wish they would have known about the lead earlier so they could have protected him.

“What’s going to happen if my son’s lead levels keep rising? What if the kid next door gets way sicker than my son? What’s Ranger going to do then?” Destiny asked. “They’ve known about it for years now. … Are they going to fix it?”

 

 

 

Elwood tenants win compensation from landlord after floods cause ‘black water’ contamination.
A couple who lived in a house in Elwood with their children was awarded just over $6000 after they took their fight to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
Rebecca and Graham Matthews claimed their home and belongings were contaminated by “black water” after a major storm on December 28 last year.
Flooding damaged the walls, ceilings and carpets as well as the tenants’ clothing and posed a threat to health.
VCAT deputy president Ian Lulham found that warning put the landlord on notice about the house’s potential for storm damage, and that the landlord breached her duty under the Residential Tenancies Act to ensure premises were maintained in good repair.
A week after the storm, water was still coming from light fittings in the living room and bedroom.
The tenants moved out after suffering headaches, skin rashes and nausea, but continued to pay rent as a sign of good faith.
The City of Port Phillip issued a building order, saying the “stormwater discharge system to the existing dwelling is dilapidated, allowing water ingress to the inner parts of the dwelling, posing a danger to the occupants”.
Mr Lulham found the landlord had breached an obligation to identify and rectify defects, ordering rent from December 29 to January 27 be paid to the tenants.
Also covered in the $6,023.52 payout: the cost of reports, insurance excess, unplanned moving, and an out of home fee of $100 per day.

by Jonathan Rodriguez, originally posted on May 18, 2016

 

“This was a man-made disaster. This was avoidable,” the Obama said.

But unfortunately lead is not just a Flint problem.

There are cases of elevated levels of lead in water systems all over the state of North Carolina.

CBS North Carolina Investigates spoke to Dr. Jonathan Fischer from Duke Hospital about why it matters.

“Certainly when you talk about lead exposure there should be a concern or at least an awareness,” Fischer said.

Lead is a neurotoxin that can carry serious symptoms.

“Things like high blood pressure, to headaches, to seizures, ultimately to kidney damage and even death at the highest rates,” Fischer explained. “Being exposed to that toxin can have more devastating effects on children than adults,” he added.

Fischer said blood tests for lead are a common part of a child’s regular check-up, but anyone can request to have a blood test done.

The EPA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention agree there is no known safe level of lead in a child’s blood.

The EPA estimates drinking water can make up 20 percent or more of a person’s total exposure to lead. Infants who consume mostly mixed formula can receive 40 to 60 percent of their exposure to lead from drinking water.

The bottom line – you don’t want it in your water.

Most lead contamination comes from inside old pipes.

Homes built before 1986 have better chance of having lead pipes or fixtures.

CBS North Carolina Investigates talked to Kenny Keel, Utilities director and engineer for the Town of Hillsborough.

“If it’s an older house, and of course we have a lot of older houses, this is historic Hillsborough, there may be in old plumbing some lead lines or the lead solder that was used,” Keel explained.

Lead solder was used to join pipes together but was virtually banned by North Carolina in 1985 and by the EPA in 1986.

Hillsborough is one example of a town that’s replaced all of the old pipes in its water system, but some homeowners haven’t changed what’s under their homes.

“If you have corrosive water, it can strip lead out of those places and get into the water,” Keel said.

Most cities treat their water to prevent corrosion, but it’s why the EPA requires testing.

Federal/state regulation

The federal government set limits for the amount of lead allowed in drinking water through the EPA’s lead and copper rule.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality follows that rule for water systems in our state.

“The main objective of the lead and copper rule is to protect the public from contaminants resulting from corrosion in the piping system,” explained DEQ spokeswoman Sarah Young.

The rule sets an “action level” or allowable limit for lead in water systems at .015 mg/L.

Water systems are required to test water themselves from taps inside homes.

The EPA requires all community water systems to prepare and deliver an annual water quality report called a Consumer Confidence Report for their customers by July 1 of each year.

But lead testing can very.

Where and how often they are required to test for lead depends on population and the type of water system you’re connected to.

Sometimes, the company can go three years between testing.

If they have consistently positive test results, they are required to test fewer homes, less often.

“If 10 percent of the samples taken during a monitoring period exceed (the action level) for lead which is .015 mg/L, then there are various steps they have to take to mitigate that problem,” Young explained.

Home testing

The Loock family lives in the Village of Walnut Creek in Goldsboro.

“He came and knocked on the door and said he received notification they need to draw water and my name was chosen by random,” Loock said. “We received that letter in the mail, and that was the results of the test.”

Their water had lead levels more than four times over the limit.

“There is a little higher content than normal but I’m not alarmed by that,” Loock said.

When asked if he had been offered any steps to mitigate the issue, Loock said, “no.”

Any exceedance like the Loock’s is reported to the EPA and the state health department.

Three other homes in the neighborhood also had elevated levels of lead.

“The homes that had test results that showed some levels of lead are homes that were built prior to 1983,” said Danny Jackson, Mayor of the Village. “We are currently in the process of testing our water at the source where our water lines connect to Wayne Sanitary District lines as well,” Jackson said.

A state-wide Issue, including schools/day cares

CBS North Carolina Investigates wanted to know just how many homes had elevated levels of lead in our state.

Investigates filed a public records request with the EPA, who then sent us to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.

DHHS sent CBS North Carolina Investigates to DEQ, who finally provided the records.

It turns out there have been more than 6,000 individual exceedances of lead and copper limits since 2005, and those are just the ones that the state knows about.

Some of those exceedances include schools and day cares where children could be exposed.

The worst individual case had lead at levels 500 percent higher than the limit.

 

“We mandate that systems notify customers that had action level exceedances for lead within 48 hours whereas the federal requirement is 30 days,” said Young.

The state has also recently petitioned the federal government to change the law to follow North Carolina’s stricter rule.

The water that is pumped into your home is carefully monitored. But once it hits your pipes? It’s your responsibility.

Since lead cannot be seen, tasted or smelled in water, testing is the only sure way of telling whether there are harmful quantities of lead in drinking water.

Testing costs between $20 and $100. An at-home test kit can be purchased at a local hardware store, or check with your city to see if they offer free testing.

Other tips from the EPA

If you suspect you may have lead in your water here are some tips from the EPA:

Flush your pipes before drinking:

• The more time water has been sitting in your home’s pipes, the more lead it may contain. Anytime the water in a particular faucet has not been used for six hours or longer, “flush” your cold-water pipes by running the water until it becomes as cold as it will get. This could take as little as five to thirty seconds if there has been recent heavy water use such as showering or toilet flushing. Otherwise, it could take two minutes or longer.

Only use cold water for eating and drinking:

• Use only water from the cold-water tap for drinking, cooking, and especially for making baby formula. Hot water is likely to contain higher levels of lead. Run cold water until it becomes as cold as it can get.
• Note that boiling water will NOT get rid of lead contamination.
• Use water filters or treatment devices:
• Many water filters and water treatment devices are certified by independent organizations for effective lead reduction. Devices that are not designed to remove lead will not work.

Can I shower in lead-contaminated water?

• Yes. Bathing and showering should be safe for you and your children, even if the water contains lead over EPA’s action level. Human skin does not absorb lead in water.

GALESBURG, Ill. – Galesburg will now get some major help from the federal government to tackle concerns of lead contamination.
It comes in the form of a $4 million loan.

Preliminary approval from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency came Wednesday.

Some of the privately-owned service lines that bring water from the city’s main line are contaminated.

The money would help the city finance the removal and replacement of about 2,000 pipes but that only takes care of 40 percent.

While the lead lines are privately owned, the city is responsible for ensuring that the water that comes out of the tap is lead free.

Wednesday morning, Illinois Representative Cheri Bustos told the floor of the house that a city in her district was getting some major help.

Galesburg could be getting a $4 million, forgivable federal loan to replace 2,000 lead service lines.
Bustos says while the loan a big step to solving the issue, there’s still a long way to go.

“We still have work to do to protect children from lead exposure but Galesburg is a great city and I’m proud that we’re taking this important step together,” said Rep. Cheri Bustos.

Galesburg City Manager Todd Thompson says that money will fix 40 percent of the problem.
Right now, there are more than 4,000 lead service lines in Galesburg. To fix it all would cost about $10 million.
Thompson says so far, they’ve been battling the problem in the short term.

“We’re provided free testing and free filters for the homes that exceed lead levels,” said Todd Thompson, Galesburg city manager.

Thompson wants the public to know that lead exposure could have come from sources other than water.
He says 80 percent of homes in Galesburg were built during the period where lead paint could have been used.

“We want to make sure that people are mindful of all the potential sources of lead and their environment of which water is only a small part of their potential exposure,” said Thompson.

Thompson says the city will conduct a corrosion study this summer to see how they can protect the lines from being contaminated again.

He says they will continue to apply for state grants to fix all of the lines in the city.

 

A multi-million dollar loan may help Galesburg reduce the possibility of lead in its water systems.

The city announced Wednesday that the State of Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) has given preliminary approval for a $4 million federally funded forgivable loan to the City to finance the removal and replacement of approximately 2,000 privately owned lead service lines that connect properties to the Galesburg water system. These service lines, not the City’s water system itself, are the source of water‐borne lead contamination in Galesburg, as well as many cities and towns nationwide. The City expects final approval from the IEPA following its review of Galesburg’s full application in the coming weeks.
The financing will enable Galesburg to expand its range of programs that address the health risk associated with lead service lines to include widespread replacement of these privately‐owned facilities in addition to the use of anti‐corrosive additives in City water, providing residents with informational and educational programs, free water testing, and free water filters. Galesburg has also recently funded and initiated a comprehensive corrosion control study to determine the most effective means to control corrosion of lead water service lines and fixtures. The City has been replacing lead service lines on a limited basis for years, but will now be able to do so on a much larger scale and in a much shorter three-year timeframe. Replacing all 4,700 lead service lines in Galesburg is estimated to cost over $10 million. The City will continue to examine additional financial options for replacement of lead service lines for those not able to be covered by this funding.
Galesburg officials are developing plans to prioritize the replacement of lead service lines based on several factors, including properties that have shown higher than normal lead levels in water tests, properties where citizens with higher than normal blood lead levels reside, properties where citizens with significant financial needs reside, and possibly others. Future announcements will provide citizens with notice of the IEPA’s final funding and further details about how the service line replacement program will be implemented. In the meantime, citizens are encouraged to participate in Galesburg’s existing free programs that can verify the type of supply line a property has, test water for the presence of lead, and provide a water filter for buildings that water tests indicate have lead levels that do not meet EPA standards.
“This funding from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency will assist our ongoing efforts to eradicate lead from entering any property in our city through its water service line,” said John Pritchard, Mayor of Galesburg, Illinois. “Water contamination coming from lead service lines is a widespread problem in our state that contributes to the public health risk of lead poisoning, along with other sources such as decomposing lead paint. We need to continue to be vigilant in our efforts to shield citizens from lead in all of its forms. I would like to personally recognize Representative Cheri Bustos for her assistance to Galesburg in this matter and commend her broad advocacy for confronting the challenge of lead contamination at the local, state, and national level.”

by Emily C. Dooley, originally posted on May 19, 2016

 

Water suppliers, community groups and local politicians accused Northrop Grumman of neglect in a letter this week criticizing the defense contractor for allowing groundwater contamination to spread in Bethpage and beyond.

The letter, addressed to Northrop Grumman’s board and shareholders gathering in Falls Church, Virginia, for an annual meeting, said the firm was not standing up to its own espoused values of responsibility.

“Your irresponsible actions, evidenced over decades of neglect, and the duplicitous skirting of your stated corporate responsibilities, have been driven by ‘liabilities on your balance sheet,’ not the lives and health of the people in the community that you have chosen to abandon,” said the letter sent Wednesday by the Bethpage Water District.

It was signed by water districts in South Farmingdale, Massapequa and Oyster Bay, as well as the Nassau Suffolk Water Commissioners’ Association. The Bethpage Chamber of Commerce and Bethpage Kiwanis club also signed on with Nassau County Legis. Rose Marie Walker (R-Hicksville) and Laura Schaefer (R-Westbury).

“This is a corporation that called Bethpage its home for many, many years,” Walker said. “It was a vital part of Bethpage.”

Northrop Grumman’s actions were akin to it saying, “We’re out of there. What happened in the past is your problem,” Walker said.

Northrop Grumman spokesman Vic Beck confirmed receiving the letter.

“As always, we appreciate their input and perspective, although it differs substantially from ours,” he said in a statement. “We are reviewing their letter and preparing a substantive response.”

Beck said Northrop Grumman for more than 20 years has worked closely with federal, state and local entities to address “various legacy environmental conditions in the Bethpage area.”

From the late 1930s until 1996, Bethpage was home to a 600-acre sprawling manufacturing and testing facility operated by the Navy and what is now Northrop Grumman.

Operations there produced the Apollo Lunar Module and warplanes like the Hellcat, Tigercat and Bearcat. It also left behind a legacy of contamination dating to the 1940s, was added to the state Superfund program in 1983, and is subject to a number of cleanup plans to remediate soil and groundwater contamination.Several plumes are emanating from the original site. In April, Oyster Bay officials closed Bethpage Community Park, a former legal Northrop Grumman dumping ground, after the state opened a probe into a whistleblower’s report that drums were uncovered in the 1990s and reburied. A plume coming from there is among the most toxic contamination associated with the site.

Late last year a monitoring well for that plume detected 14,700 parts per billion of a mixture of volatile organic chemicals. Chief among the chemicals was a solvent called trichloroethylene, or TCE, which is classified as a likely carcinogen. The drinking water standard for TCE is 5 parts per billion.

The DEC ordered Northrop Grumman in March to speed up construction of a remediation well nearby, saying drinking water was threatened.

The agency that month also ordered Northrop Grumman to open up wells for testing after the Bethpage Water District reported elevated levels of the radioactive element radium in a drinking well that had been closed off from the system since 2013 but the water is still tested.

“After decades of delays Northrop Grumman and the Navy must clean up this environmental disaster they left behind,” Massapequa Water District Superintendent Stan Carey said.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Letter says the contractor neglected groundwater contamination
• Company says it is “preparing a substantial response”

by Robert S. Eshelman, originally posted on My 18, 2016

 

No matter what Rashaniea Bradley did on the evening of July 12, 2015, she couldn’t get her eight-month-old son, Rushaine, to stop crying.

Bradley’s mother, Deborah, gave a bottle of sugar water — a family remedy used to treat persistent bouts of late-night crying. The distraught child soon drifted to sleep, but around 7:00am, while lying next to his mother in bed, he seized up like a granite statue. “His skin changed color, and his lips turned blue,” the 27-year-old mother recalled. “His arms went stiff and wouldn’t bend. And he stared straight ahead. He wasn’t blinking.”

Bradley, who lives in Trenton, New Jersey, rushed her son to a nearby hospital, and she phoned her husband, also named Rushaine, who works at an Amazon distribution center from 6:00pm to 5:30am each day. Doctors told the confused and worried mother and father that Rushaine had suffered a seizure, but they were unsure of its cause. Later that day, they transferred the boy to a hospital in nearby Hopewell, where he underwent a week of tests.

Then a New Jersey Department of Health worker called, asking if the couple would come to its offices. The couple was told that the amount of lead in Rushaine’s blood was 27 micrograms per deciliter — more than five times what the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) considers excessive.

As small children are wont to do, Rushaine had a habit of putting things in his mouth. His father caught him pulling flakes of peeling paint from a radiator in their home. “I’d turn around, and he’d be eatin’ the stuff,” the 27-year-old from Jamaica said. He added that it would often take several minutes for brown water to clear out from the apartment’s taps.

A health department inspection revealed their apartment was contaminated with lead — the walls of the kitchen, bathroom, and living room were painted floor to ceiling with lead paint. And lead levels in Trenton’s drinking water are among the highest in the state. So the family, at the urging of a health worker, moved from Trenton to Burlington, New Jersey, where the elder Rushaine’s father owns a house.

Sitting in the relative comfort of that home, as the younger Rushaine grasped his mother’s cellphone in his tiny hands, transfixed by videos of Superman and Spider-Man, Bradley recalled what the health worker had told her at that first meeting. “She said, ‘You’re very lucky that you brought your boy to the doctor. He’s lucky to be here because he could have gone into a coma.'” She paused, looked down at her son, who she said has been different since the incident, and added, “Ever since that night, my baby’s been stuck.”

Lead was banned from paint in 1978, plumbing in 1986, and gasoline in 1996. But as Rushaine’s story highlights — as well as the widely publicized water crisis in Flint, Michigan — lead contamination continues to be a problem nearly two decades into the 21st century. Millions of Americans are exposed to lead every year, despite prohibitions on its use.

About 24 million homes in the US have lead paint or high levels of lead-contaminated house dust, according to the CDC. More than 4 million of those homes shelter one or more children. Windows, doorways, and other wooden surfaces made prior to 1978 frequently remain coated in lead paint, albeit often beneath layers of newer pigment or wallpaper. Drive a nail into a decades-old New Jersey wall, for example, and you’re likely to produce a dusting of lead-infused paint chips, which, if you’re a curious child, may appear seductively colorful — and probably taste sweet.

America’s pipes are in even worse condition. Much of the nation’s water infrastructure dates back to the Victorian era, when travel by streetcar overtook travel by horse. The pipes in Washington, DC, for instance, were laid during the American Civil War, when lead was used to solder sections together — the pipes themselves often coated, or wholly made, with lead, which is stronger and more malleable than steel. The US Environmental Protection Agency, which enforces the Clean Water Act, is unable to provide an estimate of the number of Americans at risk of consuming lead-contaminated water. In its most recent report card on the nation’s infrastructure, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the US drinking-water system a D grade. And the American Water Works Association said last June it would cost $1 trillion over 25 years to upgrade the nation’s decrepit arteries, not including the removal of lead pipes from private property. Nearly 106,000 children aged three years or younger, according to the CDC, had blood lead levels above 5 micrograms per deciliter — 5,566 of them in New Jersey.

New Jersey, the most densely populated state in the nation, has the official nickname the “Garden State,” but it’s also a highly toxic state. Eleven cities and two of the state’s counties have higher proportions of children with elevated levels of lead than Flint, according to statistics compiled by several New Jersey nonprofits.

In 2002, tests in Camden, New Jersey, revealed that the drinking water in several of the city’s schools was contaminated with lead. Nearly 15 years later, Camden students continue to get their water from coolers rather than taps or drinking fountains. As Flint’s water troubles made national headlines, and became the subject of presidential debates, a Camden football team — no doubt mindful of its own city’s history—organized a shipment of 100,000 water bottles to students in the troubled Michigan city.

School officials in Newark, New Jersey, announced in early March that 30 of the district’s 66 schools had elevated levels of lead in their drinking-water supplies. The state tested 17,000 students for lead poisoning, and it’s unclear how long district officials knew that lead levels were high. And, in April, officials in Hamilton, New Jersey, announced that they found lead in water supplies at a pair of elementary schools, which isn’t all that shocking considering the city sources its water from Trenton. In Atlantic City, 23 percent of children tested for lead had excessive levels in their blood.

In the face of peaking public concern over the potential that lead was poisoning the bodies of the state’s children, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie pocket vetoed $10 million in lead-control funding, calling the issue “overblown.” He later approved the additional funding.

Lead is the material through which America’s yawning economic inequities do their damage. And the means of contamination — the lingering presence of long-banned lead paint in homes, or aging pipelines that leach lead into drinking-water supplies — reveal systematic underdevelopment in New Jersey cities, as well as across the nation. After all, children living below the poverty line, according to the CDC, are most at risk of lead poisoning.

Twenty-eight percent of Trenton’s households live below the poverty line. In Newark, it’s 30 percent; in Atlantic City, 36 percent; and in Camden, 40 percent. Nationally, the poverty rate is 15 percent. In Flint, 42 percent of households are below the poverty line.

Town managers and city councils, stripped of their economic base, can devote little in the way of tax dollars to upgrade 100-year-old pipes or reimburse those few landlords who remediate lead paint from their units. And the fashionable politics of austerity means state legislatures and the US Congress stay largely indifferent — and sometimes downright hostile — to upgrading America’s poorest communities.

Dr. Irwin Redlener, a professor of pediatrics at Columbia University and president of the Children’s Health Fund, said America’s infrastructure is in a “sorry state.”

“Flint’s problems with lead-contaminated water, potentially affecting thousands of children, were attributed to ill-informed policy decisions followed by what could be a criminal cover-up by the administration of Governor Rick Snyder,” he said. “But it also opened up a veritable Pandora’s box of communities across the US where high levels of lead in the water have undermined the health and brain development of many infants and children.”

In a sense, Rushaine isn’t “stuck” anymore. His limbs are no longer hardened, as they were that evening last July, frozen by traumatic seizure. But the 2-year-old, as he ambles around the Burlington living room, Superman video blaring, exhibits signs of what could be a lead-poisoning-induced disability, which very well could constrain him physically and mentally for his entire life.

State health workers conducted a Battelle Developmental Evaluation of Rushaine earlier this year. The test aims to measure a range of cognitive, motor, and behavior skills. A bell curve displays the scores — highly functional, social, and emotional results fall within the thin right-hand side of the curve; those exhibiting average characteristics somewhere in the bulbous middle; and those with mild or significant delays in responding to tests fall within the thin portion on the left-hand side.

All but one of Rushaine’s scores lies in the narrow area on the left of the curve. His adaptive, communication, and cognitive abilities were each about two standard deviations from the mean. Compared with his peers, Rushaine is among 2.5 percent that were least able to perform physical, mental, and emotional tests.

Bradley said her son continues to have seizures, which she said she allows to run their course. “He shakes a lot for a few minutes,” she said. “But it’s not like the first time when he froze up.”

Rushaine said when he calls his son’s name, he often doesn’t respond; when he attempts to speak with him, the 2-year-old doesn’t make eye contact.

“I love him for who he is,” Rushaine said. “I’ll still be here for him, and I’ll still help him as much as I can.”

In the days after she spoke about Rushaine’s lead poisoning, Bradley took her son to a neurologist and an ear, nose, and throat doctor, and she hosted a weekly visit from a state-appointed behavioral therapist.

“My son was born healthy,” she said. “Then we moved to that house, and everything fell apart.”