The EPA walked away from the investigation three years ago

-by Lindsey J. Smith, originally posted on March 30, 2016

 

For the first time ever, a study demonstrated that fracking has contaminated underground water reservoirs, BuzzFeed reported. The polluted aquifer is near the small town of Pavillion, Wyoming.

The study’s lead author Dominic DiGiulio, a former EPA scientist, used public records and new water samples to build on an investigation the Environmental Protection Agency stalled in 2013. After receiving complaints from Pavillion residents about the drinking water’s bad taste and smell, the EPA opened an investigation in September 2008, the study reports. The agency sampled domestic wells in March 2009 and January 2010, and issued a preliminary report in 2011. That report showed that chemicals used in fracking had leaked from unlined dumping pits into Pavillion’s groundwater. The drilling industry pushed back against the report, and the EPA never finalized its findings. Instead, in 2013, the agency turned the investigation over to the state of Wyoming, which has issued more inconclusive reports since then.

Fracking, shorthand for hydraulic fracturing, uses a high-pressure mixture of water, sand, and chemicals to crack sediment layers that contain oil and natural gas. The technique has alarmed scientists and activists alike for its potential to pollute groundwater and cause earthquakes. But those concerns have not yet been able to trump the fact that fracking has revitalized the US oil and gas industry, according to BuzzFeed.

DiGiulio’s study, released yesterday in the Environmental Science & Technology journal, takes the EPA’s work one step further by showing for the first time that chemicals from fracking wells are polluting a federally protected drinking water reservoir. A report from BuzzFeed, which broke the story, clarifies that DiGiulio’s study doesn’t actually look at whether contamination has migrated into domestic tap water in Pavillion.

However, a press release from Stanford University, whose scientist Robert Jackson also worked on the study, notes that the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry warned people in the area to not use tap water for bathing, cooking, or drinking. The study, “suggests there may be widespread impact to underground sources of drinking water as a result of unconventional oil and gas extraction,” Di Giulio says.

The press release also notes that the EPA has “consistently walked away” from investigations into human and environmental harm from fracking. The study’s authors urge further investigation and regulations to “avoid what happened in Pavillion.”

 

State officials hold meeting for two neighborhoods affected by PFOA

-by Adam Sexton, originally posted on March 30, 2016

 

BEDFORD, N.H. — State officials on Wednesday told people in the southeast corner of Bedford their water is safe to drink.

With so many unknowns about the chemical perfluoro-octanoic acid or PFOA, however, many residents of the neighborhood served by Merrimack water said they were fearful of contamination and not sure what to do.

Environmental officials addressed questions at a public meeting Wednesday night.

Two Bedford neighborhoods are dealing with the same water contamination affecting nearby Merrimack and Litchfield. Greenfield Farms and Cabot Preserve get their water from the Merrimack Valley District.

The state recently found PFOA in their drinking water at 36 parts per trillion.

“There’s hundreds of people affected by this. We don’t know what this chemical does. If they can do something, they should just do it,” said Donna Figler of Bedford.

Officials from the Merrimack Village District said they are already working on a possible solution.

“They have done some initial planning to find out what it might take to install treatment at their sources, how long it might take, and what it might cost,” said Keith Pratt of Underwood Engineers.

Because it is a separate water system serving a small part of Bedford, most of the town isn’t involved.

Many people said they wondered why the state isn’t testing wells beyond the 1-mile radius around St. Gobain Performance Plastics, the likely source of the PFOA.

“What we’re really looking for is that pattern of where are the high concentrations, and then we’re going to test outside of there until we get to lower concentrations so we know what the pattern of contamination looks like,” said Clark Freise, assistant commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services.

Within the testing radius, the DES still has more than 100 private wells left to sample.

In the meantime, St. Gobain is testing soil and groundwater under its facility and is said to be cooperating with the state’s ongoing investigation.

“This is our very highest priority at this time, to make sure we are fully understanding what we’re dealing with and have a strong plan for moving forward to ensure that everyone here when they turn on the tap, they’re going to have safe, clean drinking water,” DES Commissioner Tom Burack said.

State officials said they first detected PFOA in Merrimack’s drinking water in 2014 at low levels. Those results were passed along to the Environmental Protection Agency, as required.

Merrimack Village District officials said the tests were close enough to the baseline levels, so they did not raise alarms.

Some customers said they were unhappy they were not informed.

 

by Kimberly Houghton, originally published on March 29, 2016

 

MERRIMACK — Bottled water is now being provided to 19 homes with private wells showing elevated levels of the contaminant perfluorooctanoic acid, state officials announced Tuesday. 

But that is small consolation for Gary Zyla of 704 Daniel Webster Highway, whose well tested the highest for PFOA — 830 parts per trillion, more than double the 400 ppt health advisory suggested by the Environmental Protection Agency.

“Nobody has any answers for us, so that is really scary,” Zyla said Tuesday.

Ten cases of bottled water were delivered Sunday to the home he and his wife, Connie “Sunshine” Zyla, have shared for nearly 30 years. It is across from Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics.

Gary Zyla said his wife has been sick for quite some time; she once weighed 160 pounds and has lost about 70 pounds.

“She has been going to the doctors constantly for a long time now, and we don’t know if it ties into the water problem or not,” said Zyla, the former owner of Zyla’s discount warehouse store in Merrimack.

The results of additional water sample tests were released by the state Department of Environmental Services on Tuesday. They showed PFOA ranging from 110 parts per trillion to 830 ppt for 17 private wells; 42 private wells detected PFOA below 100 ppt.

“At the moment, the data is brand new, so we haven’t had enough time to be able to truly evaluate what the data may mean in its entirety yet,” said Jim Martin, public information officer for DES. “We are working as diligently as we can to get samples.”

DES, which was already providing bottled water to two families that had three wells with PFOA above 100 ppt, is now providing bottled water to 17 additional properties — all within a one-mile radius of Saint-Gobain.

Martin said three of those wells are in Merrimack, and 17 sit in Litchfield.

DES began investigating Merrimack’s water after the Saint-Gobain plastics plant noticed low levels of PFOA at four faucets within its Merrimack plant about three weeks ago.

Chronic exposure to PFOA, a man-made chemical once used to make Teflon, has been linked to a myriad of medical problems, including kidney cancer, testicular cancer and other illnesses.

So far, 67 water samples have been taken from private wells in the area, along with samples from the municipal water supply, the Merrimack Village District, which has detected PFOA at 17 to 90 ppt.

Long process ahead

The man who uncovered a similar PFOA problem in Hoosick Falls, N.Y., said there is still a long process ahead for local communities.

“This is a hard process, and it is going to be difficult for the people of New Hampshire,” Michael Hickey said.

After Hickey’s father, a worker at the Saint-Gobain plant in Hoosick Falls, died of kidney cancer in 2013, Hickey was determined to find the cause of his dad’s illness.

It took more than a year before he was certain that PFOA was contaminating the local water source, and was likely the cause of his father’s cancer.

“We will never know 100 percent, but yes, I absolutely think it played a role,” Hickey said.

Now, as water samples in Merrimack, Litchfield and Bedford have revealed various levels of PFOA — all near Merrimack’s Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics — New Hampshire residents will be facing a similar, uphill battle to understand the contaminant and fix the problem, said Hickey.

“I think Saint-Gobain tried to do the right thing here, and they are probably trying to do the same thing in (New Hampshire) as well,” he said.

Some levels of PFOA in Hoosick Falls were significantly higher than what is being detected in local communities.

According to Hickey, the public water supply in Hoosick Falls had hit levels of 660 parts per trillion of PFOA, and tests of private wells near the Saint-Gobain plant there had discovered levels as high as 18,000 ppt.

Saint-Gobain was quick to acknowledge the problem, and did step forward to install a carbon filtration system at the local water plant in Hoosick Falls, he said. There is now no detection of PFOA in his community, added Hickey.

Plea to EPA

Sen. Kelly Ayotte is pleading with the EPA to fast-track the release of a new health advisory standard for PFOA.

“Due to the increasing number of impacted communities, the unknown potential health effects related to using water contaminated by PFOA, and the conflicting standards as to what level of PFOA should prompt water treatment or use of an alternative water source, I urge EPA to expedite the determination and release of the new health advisory standard for PFOA as soon as possible,” Ayotte wrote Monday to Gina McCarthy, EPA administrator.

A meeting has been planned for 6:30 p.m. tonight at Peter Woodbury School in Bedford to discuss findings of low levels of PFOA at Greenfield Farms and Cabot Preserve in Bedford.

 

by Benjamin Storrow, originally published on March 29, 2016

 

by Ron Meador, originally published on March 29, 2016

 

As Flint’s ongoing crisis continues to dominate a better-late-than-never conversation about the safety of public drinking water supplies across America, a new report from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s internal audit arm makes clear that our worst problems aren’t confined to larger cities.

Plenty of small-town systems have super-size problems coming out of the tap, and they don’t always get better – even when targeted for special assistance, or enforcement, or both, by the EPA and its state regulatory partners, according to the agency’s inspector general.

“Small community water systems” are those that serve between 25 and 3,300 customers each, and there are 42,199 of these across the country. Indeed, among the nation’s 51,000 municipal water systems of all sizes, these small ones outnumber larger ones by 4 to 1.

And while their individual customer bases are small, the aggregate is not: 24.4 million people.

Nor are their problems dinky. As of October 2011, EPA classified 2,252 of the nation’s small community water systems as serious violators of federal drinking water standards – a determination that, by federal law, is supposed to result in either a correction of the problems or a formal enforcement action within six months.

Of those serious violators, 193 were classed in Tier 1 for health risks so significant – typically involving nitrates, fecal coliform or other microbial risk – that the systems had been given 24 hours to notify their customers of the problems. Also, you would think, to prepare for an enforcement action from EPA and/or the state agencies to which it typically delegates oversight authority for drinking water quality.

But fully three years later, the inspector general found in last week’s report, only 43 of the Tier 1 violators – 22 percent – and been brought back into compliance with federal standards.

The pace of inaction

Taking a closer look at Kansas, Texas and Puerto Rico, which together had 84 systems on the Tier 1 list, or about 40 percent of the total, the results were worse. Only a dozen systems had improved enough to achieve compliance – six in Texas, five in Kansas, one in Puerto Rico – while the other 72 had not.

And zooming in still closer on a sample of 30 troubled systems (10 from each state/territory),  the analysis found little evidence that higher authorities were applying much pressure to correct the difficulties:

Within our sample, 10 of the systems never received a formal enforcement order, only three of 20 enforcement orders met the timeliness standard in the Enforcement Response Policy, and few cases were escalated by the EPA or state when noncompliance persisted. Without assurance that necessary enforcement action has been taken, human health risks may continue at these small community water systems.

Even where more appropriate responses were made, other factors kept the system from attaining compliance.  Here’s an example to make you glad you’re not among the 182 customers of the water system in Weinert, Texas.

EPA had listed Weinert as a violator back in 2008 because of high levels of nitrate, which among other bad things can kill infants. Not quite four years later, in December of 2012, EPA got around to issuing a formal enforcement order.

Two state agencies, the Water Infrastructure Coordination Committee and the Water Development Board, then offered some assistance to Weinert, and city officials got a $350,000 loan to upgrade their system infrastructure.

Then they decided instead to purchase water to blend with supplies from their own wells. Then they found out that drought might cause their supplier of purchased water to cut back.

As a result, Weinert officials also plan to install a filtration system to reduce nitrate levels. Because the project would not be finished within the compliance scheduled time frame, Weinert officials requested, and the EPA granted, the compliance schedule extension until June 30, 2016. According to the EPA, construction was to begin in January 2016.

Despite this progress toward compliance, Weinert officials expressed concern about the system’s sustainability. Weinert relies on agriculture producers to purchase water for revenue, and officials expressed concern that as water rates rise, in part to fund the compliance fixes described above, farmers will drill their own wells, reducing the use of Weinert public water and reducing the revenue Weinert needs for loan repayment.

A well in a horse corral

But even that might be better than being on city water in Bayamoncito, Puerto Rico, where 180 households contend with a continuing problem of high coliform bacteria counts. EPA put it on the serious violators list in 2008, but the system still lacks a certified operator, and among other failings neglected to collect compliance samples for most of 2014.

This system remained in violation for total coliform as of March 2015, and at the time of our visit was under a boil water order. However, Bayamoncito did not certify that it notified the public about the risks faced from drinking the contaminated water and how to mitigate the risks, per the Public Notification Rule. During our visit to the system in January 2015, we observed a horse corralled at one of the two wellhead sites with no exclusionary fencing. The horse manure in the area presented a direct risk to the well from coliform pollution.

This system may not have adequate funds for operation and maintenance. According to the most recent sanitary surveys, the system charges each household a monthly fee of $15. If each household pays the fee, the system would receive $2,700 in revenue each month. However, the cost of electricity is $2,600 per month. The system operator indicated that the system relies on an agricultural subsidy to pay the electrical bills.

* * *

I tried without success to find a document listing all of Minnesota’s small community water systems that were tagged for serious violations. However, I did find several instances of fine reporting on the overall issue of small-town water problems by newspapers in the USA Today Network.

One of them, which I missed when it was brand new, was published 10 days ago in the St. Cloud Times, under Jenny Berg’s byline. Her focus was on small Minnesota systems that scored too high for lead, and the list ran to about two dozen names.

 

by Jake Griffin, originally published on March 29, 2016

 

A Wheeling condominium complex, a Mundelein seminary and a Lake Zurich health care facility for women with disabilities are just three suburban locations with drinking water systems receiving health violation notices from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency in the last year.

Over the past five years, more than 33 percent of the 172 public water systems in 89 suburbs have received some type of violation notice from the state agency, according to a Daily Herald analysis of IEPA records. While some of the violations stem from minor paperwork or administrative issues, nearly half are for “major” problems with the systems that could affect the public’s health. And more than 60 percent of the suburban water systems in the analysis have received some type of violation in the past decade.

Additionally in 2015, municipal systems in Schaumburg and West Dundee received violations, as did neighborhood water systems in parts of Crystal Lake, Libertyville and Long Grove. A St. Charles youth prison with a history of lead-related issues received its most recent violation notice in 2015 as well, this time for failing to properly notify users about water quality issues.

The most recent lead-related violation is from Jan. 8 at the University of St. Mary of the Lake, a seminary in Mundelein. The violation has yet to be cleared up, according to IEPA records. Seminary officials did not return calls seeking comment.

While the focus on public drinking water quality has been squarely on lead contamination in the wake of the Flint, Michigan, water crisis, reports on suburban water systems dating back to 1980 show violations for a variety of excess chemicals and contaminants that can cause immediate health issues or even long-term chronic health problems.

And while tests for lead are done every three years — unless there is a violation — tests for another 130-plus chemicals and contaminants are done much more frequently.

Residents of the Plum Creek Condominiums in Wheeling were so fed up with water issues, which included a lengthy history of excess levels of radium, they decided to switch over from well water to connect with Illinois American Water Co. lines feeding Lake Michigan water through Glenview. Last summer, the condos were without water for five days because a “pump shaft” broke. That was the final straw for many residents who had tired of dealing with their aged and oft-contaminated system that was reliant on well water. This year, residents decided to switch suppliers and the new, safer water started pumping into the 210 units earlier this month.

“They were experiencing a lot of maintenance issues and outright failures of the private water system, that’s what drove them to us,” said Richard Hermann, Illinois American’s senior manager of field service and production. “The radium is a source-water-related issue, so our water will clear that situation up for them, too.”

Unlike lead problems, which are almost always a result of the piping infrastructure of the system or a building, many of the other issues that can plague a water system are either products of the water itself or chemicals used to treat it.

Many municipal water systems test water samples daily to ensure the chemicals used to kill bacteria and other impurities are at a safe level. Many of the systems providing water to larger populations have far fewer violation notices from the state than their smaller counterparts that service only a particular neighborhood or facility. Suburban mobile home parks often have lengthy violation histories as well, according to the analysis. It’s a matter of manpower and resources, experts said.

“They just don’t have a lot of money or people handling the system and its day-to-day operations,” said Jeri Long, IEPA’s drinking water compliance manager. “That’s a big key to prevention.”

In Illinois, the IEPA maintains the Drinking Water Watch website, which allows consumers to check in on the testing results of their drinking water supplies. While not especially easy to navigate, the site catalogs every violation the systems have received dating back more than 30 years as well as test results for each water sample drawn during that time period.

Most commonly, water system operators are cited for failing to submit annual “Consumer Confidence Reports” on time, according to the analysis.

Only five of the systems have never been cited by the IEPA, according to the analysis. Municipal systems in South Barrington and Lakemoor have never received a violation notice, nor have smaller water systems that serve specific neighborhoods or facilities in Crystal Lake, Hawthorn Woods and Mundelein.

With violations come additional scrutiny and testing, which often result in additional costs to operators of these systems, many of which are municipal systems that rely on tax dollars as well as fees from users.

“Every violation has a set of steps that require follow-up reporting or testing to make sure the problem is being addressed and remedied,” the IEPA’s Long said. “And sometimes that additional monitoring will last for a few years and require increased sampling sites until you get multiple rounds of good results.”

Jerry McIntosh, director of maintenance at the Mount St. Joseph health care campus in Lake Zurich, said the facility’s first violation in 20 years in early 2015 resulted in days of additional testing to determine the cause of an increase in bacterial coliform counts from a sampling site.

“We do whatever (the IEPA) wants us to do,” McIntosh said. “When we got this bad sample back, we took a repeat sample that came back bad so we took even more samples upstream and downstream so we could narrow down the cause.”

Eventually, the spike in bacteria at Mount St. Joseph was attributed to a faulty “vacuum breaker” in a faucet. No one was sickened by the increased bacteria count, McIntosh said.

“There are many things that can trigger a violation,” Long said. “That’s why it’s important to be thorough and vigilant.

originally posted on March 28, 2016

At a community meeting, the Health Department stressed that PFOA levels found in the municipal well water supply, ranging from 26 to 27, are only slightly above Vermont’s 20 parts per trillion standard.

by. R. A. Monti, originally published on March 29, 2016

 

A Lower Burrell family claims the city’s 2013 $2 million project to extend sewer lines to about 125 homes between routes 780 and 56 contaminated drinking water at their home.

Leonard and Tammie Yohe claim in a lawsuit filed Thursday that when the Yohes’ Wildlife Lodge Road property was excavated for the new sewer lines, a well that had supplied the family with water for more than 30 years became contaminated.

The Yohes are suing the city, the city’s engineering firm, Alpha Engineering, and Penn Hills contractor W.A. Petrakis Contracting Co.

Tony Males, owner of Alpha Engineering, in Lower Burrell, declined to comment on the suit.

Lawyers for the Yohes and the city did not return calls for comment nor did anyone with W.A. Petrakis.

According to the suit, the Yohes’ water began to smell of sulphur after crews dug on their land.

The Yohes claim they never had a problem with their water prior to the work and that when crews dug on their property, they partially removed a seam of coal, causing the water to flow through the remaining coal and become contaminated.

The suit says that in August 2015, the Yohes had the water tested by the Department of Environmental Protection. The DEP found high levels of manganese and sulfates, making the water undrinkable.

The suit claims the sewer project caused a pond on the Yohes’ property to become contaminated.

The pond, according to the suit, is covered in algae, which the Yohes say never happened before. The Yohes claim fish in the pond and trees around the pond are dying and the pond’s water level is dropping.

The suit claims that the defendants trespassed on the Yohes’ land, negligently worked there and the project is a continuing nuisance.

According to the suit, members of the Yohe family have resided on the twelve-acre property for more than 80 years.

The suit does not state the amount of money the Yohes are seeking in damages because, according to the suit, the family wants to pass the land on to their children.

“The property has an importance to the plaintiffs that cannot be limited to or assigned a mere monetary value,” the suit claims.

The Yohes filed for a temporary injunction, asking the defendants to pay for clean water for the family until their well can be restored.

by Kurt Bresswein, originally published on March 28, 2016

 

The Bethlehem Area and Allentown school districts said Monday they are cutting off access to drinking water from the plumbing at three schools and testing water quality in response to a news report about lead levels.

WFMZ-TV 69 on Monday published a report with testing performed by a Lehigh University professor of environmental engineering, on drinking water at Bethlehem’s Northeast Middle School and Allentown’s Allen High School and Union Terrace Elementary School.

Profressor Arup SenGupta’s testing showed lead in the schools’ drinking water at three times the federal standard for what is acceptable, according to the report.

The Bethlehem Area School District in a statement said Northeast does not have lead pipes and water fixtures, such as fountains, meet required guidelines.

“The City of Bethlehem routinely tests water quality in the city, and has informed the BASD that all tests reveal lead levels well below federal guidelines,” the district states, noting that school officials were “concerned and surprised” by the WFMZ report.

“It is unclear whether or not WFMZ followed proper sample collection and testing protocols,” the statement says.

After consulting with St. Luke’s University Health Network’s Community Health Department and Bethlehem Mayor Bob Donchez and city staff, the district and city on Monday collected samples and sent them to a state-certified drinking-water laboratory for independent testing.

“Although not required by regulation, out of an abundance of caution, water fountains will be closed and water will not be used for cooking in the Northeast Middle School cafeteria until test results are received,” the statement continues. “Bottled water will be available.”

The district went on to say it is working with the city to test the water quality at all Bethlehem Area schools.

In Allentown, school officials said they are “certainly concerned by a Lehigh University professor’s claim of high lead levels.

“We would have liked to have had such concerning data immediately shared with us so we could investigate, examine the protocols for testing, and remediate the situation, if necessary,” the district said in a statement. “Since neither WFMZ nor the professor were provided access to these two schools, we cannot verify that proper testing protocols have been followed.”

As a result, the district had water testing done at the two schools Monday by certified professionals.

“Until we receive the results of this accurate analysis, both schools will refrain for using the water for consumption,” the statement continues. “The safety and well-being of our students and staff are our top priority.”

The WFMZ report follows a 2014 Pennsylvania Department of Health study that found 17 cities exceeded the statewide rate of 9.37 percent for children with dangerously elevated blood lead levels. Among them, Allentown topped the list with 23.11 percent of children tested showing elevated blood-lead levels; Easton was sixth with 15.81 percent tested above the threshold and Bethlehem, seventh with 14.32 percent, state data show.

 

by Dr. Shakeel Ahmed Raina

 

The rural population of India comprises more than 700 million people residing in about 1.42 million habitations spread over 15 diverse ecological regions. It is true that providing drinking water to such a large population is an enormous challenge. Our country is also characterised by non-uniformity in level of awareness, socio-economic development, education, poverty, practices and rituals which add to the complexity of providing water. In India, the financial and technical support for rural and urban water supplies are provided by the Central Government while the planning, designing, construction, operation and maintenance is undertaken by state government agencies.
The health burden of poor water quality is enormous. It is estimated that around 37.7 million Indians are affected by waterborne diseases annually; 1.5 million children are estimated to die of diarrhoea alone.
The provision of clean drinking water has been given priority in the Constitution of India, with Article 47 conferring the duty of providing clean drinking water and improving public health standards to the State. The government has undertaken various programmes since independence to provide safe drinking water to the rural masses. Till the 10th Plan, an estimated total of Rs.1,105 billion spent on providing safe drinking water. One would argue that the expenditure is huge but it is also true that despite such expenditure lack of safe and secure drinking water continues to be a major hurdle.
The Government of India’s effective role in the rural drinking water supply sector started in 1972-73 with the launch of Accelerated Rural Water Supply Programme (ARWSP).During the period 1972-1986, the major thrust of the ARWSP was to ensure provision of adequate drinking water supply to the rural community through the Public Health Engineering System.
The second generation programme started with the launching of Technology Mission in1986-87, renamed in 1991-92 as Rajiv Gandhi National Drinking Water Mission. Stress on water quality, appropriate technology intervention, human resource development support and other related activities were introduced in the Rural Water Supply sector.
The third generation programme started in 1999-2000 when Sector Reform Projects evolved to involve community in planning, implementation and management of drinking water related schemes, later scaled up as Swajaldhara in 2002.The Rural Water Supply sector has now entered the fourth phase with major emphasis on ensuring sustainability of water availability in terms of portability, adequacy, convenience, affordability and equity.. Adoption of appropriate technology, revival of traditional systems, conjunctive use of surface and ground water, conservation, rain water harvesting and recharging of drinking water sources have been emphasised in the new approach. The 2001 Census reported that 68.2 per cent of households in India have access to safe drinking water. According to latest estimates 94 per cent of the rural population and 91 per cent of the people living in urban areas have access to safe drinking water.
The average availability of water is reducing steadily with the growing population and it is estimated that by 2020 India will become a water stressed nation. Groundwater is the major source of water in our country with 85 per cent of the population dependent on it. While accessing drinking water continues to be a problem, assuring that it is safe is a challenge by itself. Water quality problems are caused by pollution and over-exploitation. The rapid pace of industrialisation and greater emphasis on agricultural growth combined with financial and technological constraints and non-enforcement of laws have led to generation of large quantities.
There is no doubt that water is a basic necessity for the survival of humans. In light of the increasing demand for water it becomes important to look for holistic and people-centred approaches for water management. Clearly, drinking water is too fundamental and serious an issue to be left to one institution alone. It needs the combined initiative and action of all, if at all we are serious in socioeconomic development. Safe drinking water can be assured, provided we set our mind to address it.
Lastly I would like to mention the predictions and suggestions regarding water of Dr. A. P.J Abdul Kalam who predicted that in 2070 there will be acute shortage of water and people will suffer due to kidney problem, a person of 50 years age shall be looked like an old man of 85 years age and he will feel himself as an oldest man of the society. There will be no greenery on the earth. People even women will shave their heads to keep their heads clean because they have no water to wash them. Lakes and dams will become dry. Industries will become standstill and unemployment will reach to the dramatic proportion. Assaults on gun points at streets for jerry can of water will be common. Only half glass of water will be available per person per day against present eight glasses of water on average. Scientists will investigate but there will be no solution. Babies will be born with deficiencies and deformities. Govt. will charge money for the air we breathe. We should think and realise at present try our best to save water. For saving water he suggested, keep closing the taps while washing hands, face and brushing teeth. Keep the tap closed while applying shaving foam and shampoo. Finish your bathing within five minutes, don’t use showers, use buckets. Keep buckets filled with water ready for washing utensils and clothes, don’t wash them under running water. Never waste the drinking water, fill the glass as per your requirement. After washing the vegetable and fruits, pour the water in plants.