Water contaminated on, near Joint Base — chemicals thousands of times higher than fed standards.
LAKEHURST — Foam used by the military at the Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst has contaminated several water sources on and off the base, according to a report.
The Air Force has been testing for perfluoroctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), an unregulated chemical used to make a firefighting foam to extinguish petroleum fires.
The foam is the source of the contamination at the base, which like other bases across the country over several decades, has dumped thousands upon thousands of gallons of the toxins into the ground.
According to NJ.com, results from wells on the base show thousands of times higher than the federal government’s health advisory level for drinking water, while three of 131 private, off-base wells tested for high levels.
Tests of water sources used by the surrounding communities of Jackson, Manchester and Pemberton came back with negative results, according to the report.
The chemicals are also used to make Teflon, Scotchgard, food wrappers and textiles.
The Joint Base will provide complete results to New Jersey 101.5 on Wednesday.
Contact reporter Dan Alexander at Dan.Alexander@townsquaremedia.com.
More from New Jersey 101.5

by Wendy Stueck, originally published on March 24, 2016

People in B.C.’s Lytton First Nation have grown accustomed to boil-water advisories for at least several months every year.

This year, however, they’re hoping there won’t be any – thanks to a treatment system installed last year through a group called Res’eau-WaterNet, a federally funded research program that links researchers and industry partners to remote and rural communities.

Launched first as a mobile pilot project, Lytton’s system – which uses filters, activated carbon, ultraviolet light and some chlorine to remove contaminants from water – was installed in a small, permanent facility last May.

“It provides our community with excellent drinking water so they no longer have to buy it from other sources,” Lytton First Nations operations manager Jim Brown said in a recent interview.

“They use their water right from the tap.”

That privilege, taken for granted by most Canadians, is not shared by residents of many First Nations communities across the country.

In B.C., as of March 22, there were 27 drinking water advisories for First Nations communities, including 22 boil-water advisories and five do-not-consume advisories, according to the First Nations Health Authority. Those advisories involve water systems that serve as few as a dozen people, as well as larger networks that serve up to 700.

Outside B.C., there were 135 drinking water advisories in effect in 86 First Nations communities in the rest of the country as of Jan. 31 of this year, according to Health Canada.

In the wake of a federal budget that set aside millions of dollars to improve access to drinking water, Res’eau-WaterNet’s approach could attract more attention.

Along with technical expertise, the project involves what it calls a “community circle approach” – working with communities to determine technical requirements and local capacity to maintain and run a new system.

“In the case of Lytton, listening extensively to the band members and working closely with the water operators, along with detailed information obtained on the quality of the raw water, helped us select the most feasible and yet optimum treatment system that the operators felt comfortable working with,” Madjid Mohseni, Res’eau-WaterNet’s scientific director, wrote recently in an e-mail.

“During our pilot work … the operators got the necessary hands-on training and were able to establish whether they could operate the system,” added Dr. Mohseni, who is also a chemical and biological engineering professor at the University of British Columbia.

The Lytton First Nation had previously been quoted a price of more than $1-million to upgrade its water treatment facilities. The Res’eau system was implemented for less than half that, including research costs, Dr. Mohseni said.

Last week’s federal budget included $1.8-billion over five years, beginning in 2016-17, to strengthen reserve-water and waste-water infrastructure and to end long-term boil-water advisories on reserves within five years.

In B.C., water advisories for aboriginal communities are monitored by the First Nations Health Authority, which took over responsibility for First Nations health care in the province in 2013 and tracks water quality in 201 communities.

Health Canada used to post information for B.C. First Nations drinking water advisories and still does for other provinces, but the FNHA does not post such information on its website. The agency provided a list on request.

One entry on that list likely requires updating: a boil-water advisory for the Esk’etemc community near Williams Lake.

Esk’etemc Chief Charlene Belleau says a new $3.4-million water treatment plant opened this week, shortly after the opening of a new school.

“We were lucky to get two major capital projects in one year – but the water treatment plant is completed now and we are off the boil-water advisory,” Ms. Belleau said.

“The impact is great – for a number of years, people could not drink the water here. The water treatment plant provides them with clean drinking water. For our community, it was a big thing.”

by Matt Rocheleau, originally published on March 24, 2016

Boston school officials are promising to step up testing for hazardous lead contamination at the system’s 38 buildings that still use tap water for drinking, including about two dozen where the water hasn’t been tested for at least six years.

The need for the enhanced testing has been highlighted by tests in recent years that found excessive lead in samples from three school buildings that were using tap water, including one where water flowing from a drinking fountain had seven times more lead than the state standard.

Children are particularly vulnerable when it comes to lead. Exposure has been linked to IQ deficits, shortened attention spans, behavioral problems, hearing damage, stunted growth, and lowered birth weight.

Less than a third of city school buildings still use tap water. The rest, 91, are using bottled water because of concerns about lead.

The school system’s testing program has complied with legal requirements, but some critics say those rules are lax. Now, school officials are promising to test more often than is required, starting at the end of this school year.

“The Boston Public Schools considers the health and well-being of its students a top priority,” spokesman Richard Weir said in a statement. “The district is committed to ensuring that students have access to clean, potable water in all of our schools.”

The 38 school buildings that use tap water for drinking do so because earlier testing showed those facilities to have acceptable lead levels in water drawn from fountains, officials said.

Concern over lead contamination has risen in the wake of the crisis in Flint, Mich., where the city’s water was recently found to be contaminated with high concentrations of the toxic chemical. The news has prompted water systems and schools around the country to look into the issue, sometimes unearthing serious problems.

City Councilor Tito Jackson, who chairs the council’s education committee, said the school system “should urgently test all of their buildings to determine whether or not the water is safe.”

Fellow councilor and education committee vice chairwoman Annissa Essaibi-George echoed his concerns and said she was pleased that the district plans to step up testing.

“My priority is that all children have access to good, safe drinking water,” she said.

The US Environmental Protection Agency recommends that schools do not use water when lead concentration exceeds 20 parts per billion. The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection says it holds water in schools to a stricter standard: 15 parts per billion.

The three school buildings where elevated levels were found in recent years were:

■ The Haley Elementary School in Roslindale, where a sample from a kitchen faucet in September 2015 measured at 27.1 parts per billion.

■ The Lee Academy Pilot School in Dorchester, where a sample from a kitchen faucet in October 2013 measured at 22.8 parts per billion, and another from a kitchen faucet in September 2012, when the building housed the Early Childhood Center, measured at 53.4 parts per billion.

■ The Chittick Elementary School in Mattapan, where a sample from a kitchen faucet in September 2011 measured at 46.1 parts per billion and another sample from a drinking fountain measured at 115 parts per billion.

School officials said that at all three schools, the kitchen faucets are used only for handwashing. The schools serve food that is prepared elsewhere.

As for the Chittick fountain sample containing 115 parts per billion — more than seven times the state standard — school officials said that several weeks after learning about the test result they conducted another round of testing that confirmed the high levels, and they immediately turned off the fountains at the school and switched to bottled water.

The other two school buildings still use tap water and will be included in the new testing program.

School officials said the district has a longstanding policy of notifying families of health and safety issues, including if high lead levels are found in water.

(By comparison, testing in recent months at 16 different school buildings in Flint found that every building tested had at least one sample test above 15 parts per billion. Numerous samples registered lead levels in the hundreds of parts per billion, and a few measured in the thousands, including one that measured at 2,856 parts per billion.)

Dramatic progress has been made overall in reducing lead levels in US water supplies in recent decades, but the latest research has found that no level is completely safe, particularly for children.

At 12 other Boston school buildings tested since 2010, lead levels measured below the state standard. But at five of the buildings, the results of at least one sample were still higher than the US Food and Drug Administration limit for bottled water, 5 parts per billion.

The school department said it is considering holding its buildings’ water to an even stricter standard than the state’s 15 parts per billion standard. But Weir said the new standard hasn’t been set yet.

The department said it had been planning since the spring of 2014 — before the Flint crisis made headlines — to increase testing. The department said it planned to develop a timetable for when each school would be tested and would hire an outside firm to conduct the testing. Results will be posted online.

The federal government recommends, but does not require, testing of water in schools, except for cases in which a school is considered to be its own public water system, meaning it uses its own water source, such as a well. This requirement does not apply to Boston.

Yanna Lambrinidou, an affiliate faculty member in the science and technology in society program at Virginia Tech who has researched the topic of lead in schools, said the lack of a requirement for all schools nationally to do regular testing is a serious problem.

“It’s a regulatory black hole that shouldn’t exist and should not have existed in the first place,” she said. “There’s evidence, just from the schools that are required to test, that there are problems in many schools.”

State and local governments can establish their own rules.

Massachusetts law requires each public water system (each town and city typically has its own system) to periodically collect samples from at least two water sources inside at least two different schools or early education facilities, selected on a rotating basis. The testing periods vary from every six months to every three years. Boston is required to test annually.

Lambrinidou said Massachusetts’ requirements also aren’t tough enough: “Sampling a couple of taps per school is going to give you quite a limited and a potentially misleading estimate of the amount of lead that children at the school are ingesting on a daily basis.”

DHH: Chlorine dioxide levels are dangerously high in Donaldsonville

by Bryn Stole, originally published on March 30, 2016

Donaldsonville Mayor Leroy Sullivan declared a “state of emergency” Tuesday night after the state warned residents not to drink tap water, saying he hopes that gets the town access to parish and state financial help.

The state Department of Health and Hospitals on Tuesday said town’s privately run Peoples Water Company had failed to report chlorine dioxide levels four to five times EPA guidelines, advising people not to drink the water until further tests can be conducted.

The state agency is conducting tests Wednesday, a spokesman said.

Last night, the town received 15 palates of bottled water from American Spring Water, some of which were distributed at the DPW building across from the Frank Sotile Pavilion at 2175 Thibaut Drive, Sullivan said. Another distribution will take place later today, possibly at South Louisiana Fairgrounds park.

Original story:

The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals is warning residents of Donaldsonville not to drink or cook with their tap water because of dangerously high chlorine dioxide levels.

A state inspection Sunday of the town’s privately run Peoples Water Company revealed the company failed to report chlorine dioxide levels four to five times EPA guidelines, Dr. Jimmy Guidry, the Louisiana State Health Officer, said Tuesday evening.

Exposure to elevated levels of the chemical, which in small quantities is used as a water treatment disinfectant, can cause serious health effects to the nervous systems of some infants, young children and to the fetuses of pregnant women, Guidry said.

However, the DHH notice says adults who are not pregnant and older children with developed nervous systems can drink the tap water.

According to DHH, records examined during an on-site inspection of the Peoples Water Company show that workers for the water system recorded chlorine dioxide levels above the EPA’s drinking water standards during the months of September, October, November, December, January and March.

The company, which serves roughly 10,000 customers in Donaldsonville, didn’t report the test results or collect additional samples for testing, DHH said.

“Today, we were provided with information that is both alarming and confusing,” Guidry said in a statement. “We are concerned that there appears to be elevated levels of chlorine dioxide leaving the plant. But we also have concerns about the testing procedures used by the water system and the overall training of the operators as well as questions about the technology used to conduct the sampling.”

Mayor Leroy Sullivan said Tuesday night, “They don’t know if the levels are actually higher or if there’s something wrong with the calibration.”

Sullivan said he’s waiting on state officials to investigate the situation but that indications the water company hadn’t reported elevated chemical levels were concerning.

“There has to be some accountability for Peoples Water Company,” Sullivan said. “We pay and depend on them for good drinking water. If there’s something wrong with it, we need to be notified.”

Guidry said he was alerted to the situation Tuesday afternoon and issued the order because state officials can’t currently guarantee the water is safe to drink.

Parish President Kenny Matassa said Tuesday evening the parish put out a reverse 911 call to Donaldsonville residents to warn them about the water.

He also said the city and parish are working together to provide drinking water to the residents. “The stores have run out of water, I’m sure,” Matassa said.

Sullivan said a local business donated bottled water for municipal officials to hand out to residents.

“We’re handing out a case of water per family just to get them through tonight,” Sullivan said Tuesday night. “We’re very limited in the amount we have.”

Ascension Parish Schools in Donaldsonville will provide bottled water for students at class Wednesday, the school board announced during its meeting Tuesday.

Beginning Wednesday, state health officials will conduct additional inspections of the water system, including independent testing of the water by another water company that uses the same technology as Peoples Water Company.

The results of the testing and inspection, which will provide more information about chlorine dioxide levels in Donaldsonville’s drinking water, will determine what steps DHH takes next, Guidry said.

by Logan Smith, originally published on March 18, 2017

Let me tell you about a community who woke up one day to learn their drinking water had been contaminated with toxic chemicals. Families who have been suffering from mysterious illnesses learn that the water they’ve been drinking day in and day out may be laced with poison. They plead with their Republican governor to do something about the contaminated water, but due to the governor’s business ties he finds it easier to simply ignore the public health crisis in their community. Months go by, and these families are still living off bottled water rather than turn on the faucet and risk lasting harm to their families. Meanwhile, instead of holding anyone accountable, the governor’s Department of Environmental Quality is simply trying to downplay the water contamination.

You probably think I’m referring to Flint, Michigan, but the community I’m talking about is actually in North Carolina. In fact, hundreds of families in more than a dozen communities across the state received “Do Not Drink” notices last year telling them their groundwater has been contaminated by toxic chemicals found in leaking Duke Energy coal ash pits nearby. These families have been living off bottled water for nearly a year, but Gov. Pat McCrory — himself a former Duke Energy employee of nearly 30 years — has refused to publicly acknowledge the public health crisis. Instead, the McCrory administration decided to simply dilute the water quality standards — claiming the previously-unsafe levels of contamination are suddenly safe again.

Amy Brown is a mother of two young boys living in Belmont, a small town just west of Charlotte. After receiving a Do Not Drink notice in the spring of 2015 informing her that her groundwater was laced with cancer-causing industrial chemicals such as hexavalent chromium, it didn’t take long for Amy to connect the dots to the Duke Energy coal ash pond less than 1,000 feet from her home.

“When we turn on the faucet, we turn on fear,” said Amy, who was told not to drink or cook with the contaminated water — but given no information about when the problem would be fixed or what to do in the meantime. After begging, pleading and finally even threatening Duke Energy, the company finally agreed to provide her family with bottled water. But nearly a year later, Amy’s family is still living off bottled water for drinking, cooking, and even brushing their teeth. And in the meantime, her repeated letters to Gov. McCrory about the situation have gone unanswered.

What has the governor been doing instead? Well, last summer he held a secret dinner meeting at his mansion in Raleigh with Duke Energy executives, their attorneys, and state environmental officials. Neither McCrory nor Duke Energy will say what was discussed at the secret meeting — but it just so happens that a short time later, the state reduced Duke Energy’s fine over leaking coal ash pits throughout North Carolina from $25 million for just one site, to $7 million for all 14 sites across the state. Meanwhile, the leaking coal ash pit next to Amy’s house was classified as “low priority” — an accurate description, Amy says, of how Gov. McCrory views her family.

Deb Baker is another Belmont resident who has been living off bottled water for nearly a year. Deb’s husband died in 2008 of a mysterious lung disease at the age of 46, despite being a non-smoker who had been perfectly healthy before they moved to Belmont. As her husband’s condition deteriorated, doctors told her the cause had to be environmental — but the source remained unknown until Deb received her own Do Not Drink notice years later.

“I definitely believe the coal ash had something to do with my husband’s lung disease,” said Deb, adding that some of her neighbors are showing the same symptoms as her husband.

As a registered Republican who voted for McCrory in 2012, Deb thought her governor would be willing to help clean up the coal ash pollution she believes contributed to her husband’s early death. But after her repeated attempts to contact the governor’s office were ignored, Deb is starting to regret helping McCrory become governor.

“I just don’t feel like he’s being very honest,” Deb said about Gov. McCrory’s secret dinner meeting with Duke Energy. “I really don’t feel like he’s on our side.”

Unfortunately, Amy and Deb’s stories are by no means unique. Over 400 families in more than a dozen communities across North Carolina have received these Do Not Drink notices, yet Gov. McCrory still refuses to publicly acknowledge their plight. Just like the tragic situation in Flint, North Carolina’s coal ash crisis is yet another example of a Republican governor putting business over people — and choosing a coverup over a cleanup.

One aquifer, 193, is on the west side of Osoyoos Lake between Gyro Park and the north end of the lake.
The aquifers naturally filter the water through sand and gravel underground.
With the exception of rural areas north and south of town during irrigation season, tap water doesn’t come directly from the lake.
The exception, well 6, is treated with chlorine because this water is sent to Irrigation District 8 and is fed into pipes that receive lake water during the irrigation season.
The treatment is a precaution in case there is any residual lake water from the irrigation system, Dinwoodie said.
The two areas receiving lake water during irrigation season are Irrigation District 8 and Irrigation District 9, north and south of the town, respectively.
The Town of Osoyoos is in the process of twinning the water systems of those areas to separate irrigation water from the lake and domestic water, which would come from wells from the aquifer year round.
Water from the town’s wells is pumped to underground reservoirs near Osoyoos Golf Course.
The water then goes into storage ponds, before being treated with chlorine and used to irrigate the golf course, Desert Park and ball diamonds.
After sitting for several years, the dried sludge can be put into landfill or be mixed with garden waste and used as compost.

by Mary Katherine Keown, originally published on March 20, 2016

The most pressing water issue for Ron Tough is its absence as a potable drinking source in more than 100 First Nations communities in Canada. It is an affront to social justice and to human rights, he said Sunday.

“Water is part of our social justice initiative. Water’s a human right,” he said, while standing in the shadow of the David Street water treatment plant. “Access to clean water, being a human right, it should be accessible to everybody. We hear there are 120 First Nations communities with no access to clean drinking water – and there’s water all around them, but it’s contaminated.”

The lack of potable water on those reserves defies common sense.

“They don’t have clean water or access to good sanitation, or pure water,” Tough said.

Tough was part of a water rally, sponsored by the Sudbury chapter of the Council of Canadians, that took place at the David Street plant a couple of days before the United Nations World Water Day (www.unwater.org).

March 22 is World Water Day and is “an important day for our City of Lakes,” the council says in a press release. “An important day, too, for Canadians all across the country who are alarmed about the disappearance of long-standing safeguards for our water sources.”

“We’re concerned there aren’t enough regulations to prevent environmental disasters, and in case there is a disaster, how readily can it be cleaned up,” Tough added. “There aren’t enough precautions taken when doing environmental assessments. If development was accompanied by good environmental assessments and regulations were put into place to prevent the water from being contaminated, then we’d be happy with that.”

As Tough said, 99 per cent of Canada’s water sources are no longer covered by protective legislation.

“That’s a huge piece of work – that’s all the water in Canada,” he said. “We’re mostly water in Canada. So we’re concerned that water, as a human right, is also a public good.”

He said the Council of Canadians is also concerned about the privatization of water.

“Municipalities should maintain control over their water. We don’t mind paying for our water, but we don’t want to be paying for it through bottled water,” Tough said. “Our biggest thing is access to clean drinking water for everybody.”

Penny Earley, a member of the Sudbury chapter of the Council of Canadians, added citizens need to lobby their governments to ban bottled water, at least on all municipal sites.

“There’s no reason we can’t do that here,” she said. “The other part of lobbying at the local level is to keep our water resources and treatment in the public domain. That’s something you can do right away – go home and write a letter to your city councillor and to the mayor.”

Finally, Earley said Canadians need to call on the national government to fund scientific research into water and to create a ministry of water.

“It was promised by Stephane Dion when he was the Liberal leader, but of course it never happened,” she said. “It should be back on the agenda, now that the Liberals are once again in power. … We need to recognize the human right to water and sanitation, that should be recognized through policy and funding at the federal level.”

David Robinson also attended Sunday’s rally. The Laurentian University economics professor ran in the last federal election as a Green Party candidate, primarily because of his own concerns over climate change. He said Sunday that Sudbury is in a unique position, with 330 lakes within the city borders.

“We’re probably one of the most privileged communities in the world because of our water,” he said. “The city started calling itself the City of Lakes, but right now that name is just an ad for tourists – you can imagine seeing it on a sign as you’re coming into the city, but you don’t see it on the mayor’s desk. You don’t see it on engineers’ desks or over the door at city hall. The city planners haven’t been told to make it part of our city plan. In other words, it’s kind of like an abused elephant that someone’s leading around to get credit for, but not taking care of.”

Robinson also raised doubts about the Maley Drive extension project, which would cut through wetlands and the Junction Creek corridor.

“That’s actually clearly a contradiction with any notion of the City of Lakes,” Robinson said. “When they planned the route, they actually didn’t know the headwaters were there. When they revised their environmental assessment, they discovered two more tributaries of Junction Creek. The city has not taken into account this wonderful opportunity and heritage that makes this city so special.”

Robinson suggested that each classroom be named for a local lake or that Mayor Brian Bigger declare a “lake of the day.”

“With a little bit of fiddling with the definition, a little bit of fiddling with a couple of swamps, we could have a lake every day of the year,” he said.

Bob Rogers said Sudbury should be known as the city of water, not lakes. It makes a stronger point, he said.

“Without water, there is death – of the trees, the plants, dogs, for you and me,” he said. “I think we should be called the city of water to take in a much larger group of people.”

by Jim Waymer, originally published on March 18, 2016

Florida has its limestone aquifers to thank for shielding most drinking water from lead contamination off corroding pipes and plumbing fixtures.

But the Sunshine State is not immune from lead spikes in drinking water, which can cause brain damage, lower IQ and lead to other disabilities. There’s no safe level of lead exposure for children. And in adults, lead causes hypertension, decreased kidney function and reproductive problems.

According to a FLORIDA TODAY analysis of U.S. Environmental Protection data:

•Almost 50,000 people in Florida were potentially exposed to unsafe lead levels in drinking water between January 2012 and June 2015. During that time frame, 64 water systems exceeded the federal standard for lead a combined 81 times. These were systems where more than 10 percent of testing samples exceeded 15 parts per billion for lead, the level that triggers water operators to notify the public, take corrective actions such as corrosion control, or to increase monitoring.

•Of the 81 instances, 19 (23 percent) were in Hillsborough County, 10 (12 percent) were in Polk County and 7 (8.6 percent) in Marion County. The rest were scattered throughout Florida. None popped up in Brevard County, but a few water systems in the county had individual samples spike at as much as 10 times the federal standard.

•While almost 99 percent of the 1,600 Florida water systems tested annually fall below the federal lead standard, the highest 10 percent of samples can spike several orders of magnitude higher than the federal standard.

•Some of the worst lead problems can be found in small, old private water systems, mobile home parks, churches, schools and daycare centers. Thousands of Florida children test at blood lead levels above what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers safe.

Like elsewhere in the country, Florida’s aging water distribution systems and treatment plants pose uncertain risks of lead leaching off aged pipes. The EPA estimates Florida needs $16.5 billion over the next 20 years to fix aging drinking water infrastructure, $10 billion of that for transmission and distribution infrastructure.

The recent exposure of thousands in Flint, Michigan to unsafe lead levels underscores the ticking time bomb of aging infrastructure. While lead-based paint in old housing is considered a significant source of lead exposure, recent research shows the lead burden from drinking water could be higher than previously thought. In Florida, most lead pipes have been removed, but solder used to join together pipes lurks as a potential threat whenever water turns corrosive.

“It’s the solder that’s the biggest issue,” said Thomas Waite, an environmental engineer at Florida Institute of Technology. “In a way, there’s almost no way to control this, because everybody’s home is a little different.”

Federal rules require water systems test annually, every other year, or every three years, depending on the water system’s previous compliance. And those tests must target the oldest housing at highest risk of lead or copper contamination, taking into account the presence of lead-copper pipes and lead solder. Operators solicit volunteers, whom they rely on to follow water sampling instructions. But testing methods and results can vary wildly, experts say, with tap water turning from healthy to toxic just days later or varying drastically within the same distribution system.

Smaller systems face toughest lead challenges

Lingering lead problems surface most often in Florida’s mobile home parks, RV parks and other small, private water systems, according to federal and state environmental databases and documents. Often owners of small systems can’t afford necessary fixes, allowing problems to fester. The professionals who operate and maintain Florida’s water systems say it’s up to all homeowners to figure out if they have any lead water service lines, solder or plumbing fixtures and get their water tested if they suspect a problem.

“There’s a lot of things that can contribute to it,” said Jim Witteck, of J.C. Witteck Utility Services in Vero Beach. “It can even be old rusty storage tanks.”

Sometimes lead levels spike from seldom-used taps.

A sample at Orange Avenue Baptist Church in Fort Pierce tested at 23.5 parts per billion for lead last year. A water fountain there tested at almost twice that level the previous year, well above the 15 parts per billion level that triggers more monitoring or corrective actions.

“A lot of it is usage in the particular tap that you’re sampling,” Witteck said. “They sit, and they’re not used frequently. This is the whole problem with representative samples … It’s an acceptable practice to flush prior to your sample time.”

Owners of small water systems that lack money or the will to maintain their systems view certified water service operators as inconvenient whistleblowers, Witteck said. So they seek out operators who will help them look the other way to save on maintenance, he said.

Sampling methods also can water down lead risks

But even when testing protocols are followed properly, the results don’t always capture the extent of the lead risk. Sometimes, problems are missed or masked, environmental engineers say.

For example, a water system might test with a 90th percentile lead value well under the federal action level, and yet have some of its samples measuring at rates that are through the roof.

According to Florida Department of Environmental Protection documents:

•In September, Summit Cove, a condo community of about 226 people off U.S. 1 in Micco, in Brevard County, tested at a 90th percentile of 8.6 parts per billion. But one building tested at 152 parts per billion. The water operater said the community is notified any time there is an exceedance.

•In August, Ranch Oaks Estates, a mobile home park of about 164 people in Hillsborough County, tested within the federal action level for lead, at 8 parts per billion, but one sample tested at 6,000 parts per billion, 400 times the federal standard. A typographical error in the consumer notice letter put the lead level at 600 parts per billion. A subsequent test in early October measured 200 parts per billion.

•Palm Beach County’s Lake Region plant — which serves 30,536 people — had a 90th percentile of only 2.13 parts per billion in samples drawn in August and September. But the highest of the 36 samples hit 900 parts per billion, 60 times the federal standard.

•Last fall, MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa thad a 90th percentile value of 10 parts per billion, but four results were higher, and two were much higher: 234 parts per billion and 610 parts per billion.

•In September, Talquin’s Leon County East Regional system — which serves about 1,654 people — had a 90th percentile lead value of 3 parts per billion. But one of the 10 samples taken hit 50 parts per billion.

“In some utilities, the way the sampling is done can miss some of the lead that is there,” said Sheldon Masters, senior environmental engineer at Corona Environmental Consulting in Philadelphia.

Masters has seen cases in which water samples from the same tap tested at very low lead levels, only to have a subsequent sample test five times higher.

“By collecting one sample, you can’t necessarily say the water is safe to drink,” Masters added. “It’s extremely, extremely variable, even across the distribution system and a single tap … It’s just inherent in what the material is. There are always these random or semi-random events.”

And water conservation measures in recent decades may have had the unintended consequence of exacerbating lead problems, Masters said, by increasing the time water reacts with the interior of pipes.

“We’re encouraging consumers to use less water,” Masters explained. “Because of that, the water age in the building is much higher than it was years ago.”

In general, research shows the longer water spends between the treatment plant and the tap, the more opportunity for problems. Spikes in lead and other contaminants tend to happen at the extremes: those closest and those farthest from the treatment plants. Too much chlorine can chemically pit copper pipes and dissolve lead solder, but lack of chlorine allows biological corrosion of pipes.

People concerned about lead can ask their utility to test their water, Masters said, or have a lab do so for about $20 per sample.

Even a “clean” report could be misleading

Researchers at Virginia Tech accused Flint, Michigan officials of “gaming the system” on lead testing, only sampling lower-risk homes and failing to resample homes that tested high the previous year.

The number of samples drawn is based on the size of the population served by the water system.

Locally, the city of Cocoa, for example, must collect samples from at least 50 homes in its distribution area built between January 1983 and June 1986. The homes must have copper plumbing and no water softener or filter system. Samples must be collected from a tap that has not been used for a minimum of 6 hours.

But, ultimately, it’s up to the volunteer to do it right.

“We actually send a little video out to them that shows them how to do it,” said Tim Van Deventer, plant superintendent for Palm Bay. “The first water that comes out of your kitchen sink, grab that water, don’t flush it.”

“It’s kind of up to them,” Van Deventer added. “We keep a list of the samples we’ve collected and we try to sample the following year … Maybe because of the Flint issue, we may have some more volunteers.”

Again, experts warn that one sample is only a snapshot, and consumers should read public notices carefully.

Consumer reports sent out last year by Palm Bay cited a 90th percentile lead sample of 6.2 parts per billion, from sampling in August 2013, putting the city under the federal action level. Notices to the homeowners who volunteered their water start off: “Good news!” … and go on to assert that corrective actions are not needed with the city’s water. But three of the 55 samples exceeded 15 parts per billion, the highest at 85 parts per billion, almost six times the EPA standard. That was from a just-rebuilt bathroom sink with old fixtures that hadn’t been used in a year, Kimber Beard said of the water drawn from her Tarkio Street home at the time.

Beard said she worries more these days about bacteria than lead in her water. She has an osmosis system under her sink and drinks bottled water. “I’m not confident (in the water), it worries me,” she said.

Louise Scepka’s water also tested just above the action level, at 16 parts per billion, at her 45-year-old home off Turkey Creek Drive in Palm Bay. She distrusts her tap water, so drinks bottled water, instead. She’s not sure if the service lines to her home or the city water, or both, caused the problem.

“I don’t know if they did anything about it or not,” Scepka said.

Even when neighborhoods fork out special assessments to convert private systems to new city water pipes, old lead-containing service lines and plumbing fixtures can remain.

“I would say most customers don’t have a clue whether they have lead in their solder or not,” Van Deventer said.

In most instances, just allowing taps to flush out for several minutes can make the water safe, he said.

Limestone aquifers buffer most Florida drinking water from lead

Florida’s limestone aquifers create higher alkalinity in the raw water, which buffers from the corrosion that can leach lead from pipes and soldered joints, as happened in Flint, Michigan.

“That helps sequester anything in the pipes going on, so Florida has an advantage there,” said Waite, of Florida Institute of Technology.

But when Florida water systems don’t have access to good, stable groundwater and must tap the more acidic and spotty groundwater, rivers or lakes, lead can sometimes became an issue.

And old homes with old pipe can present problems

Plumbers favored lead piping and plumbing until 1930, when copper replaced it for service lines. Galvanized pipes were used for interior plumbing between 1920 and 1950. And copper pipe used between 1970 and 1986 used lead solder until it was banned in 1986.

But tearing out and replacing all the old pipe isn’t cheap.

“Nobody’s going through the cost of it, it’s too expensive,” said Kipp Cooper, of Classic Plumbing of Brevard, LLC. “Melbourne’s got a bunch of old homes, too, down University (Boulevard), all that stuff of Eau Gallie Boulevard, all that’s cast iron.”

In late February, the Obama Administration urged states to double-check lead and copper monitoring procedures. And to boost confidence in public drinking water, EPA said states should make lead and copper testing results and the location of lead water pipes available online.

Werner Troesken, professor of economic history at University of Pittsburgh, said the feds should conduct a systematic epidemiological study of the health effects and a cost-benefit analysis of removing all the lead pipe. Troesken wrote the 2007 book, “The Great Lead Water Pipe Disaster,” which traces the 150-year history of lead pipes in America and the scientific and public health debate.

“No matter what setting you look at, when you look at the effects, they’re almost always larger than you anticipate,” Troesken said.

Cooper said, ultimately, there is probably only so much that can be done. He clings to a plumber’s pragmatism about the lead issue.

“Something’s always going to get you sooner or later.”

Blood lead levels in Florida

Florida has about 200 lead poisoning cases per year in children under age six. In 2012, CDC data shows about 3,600 children of 177,750 tested in Florida (2 percent) had blood lead levels of 5 micrograms per deciliter or greater, compared to two years earlier, when 7,449 children of 203,401 (3.6 percent) tested had blood lead levels greater than or equal to that amount.

•Nationally, the percentage of children who tested at 10 micrograms per deciliter of greater has dropped from 7.6 percent in 1997 to .53 percent in 2014, according to CDC.

•3,605 children in Florida tested at elevated blood lead levels in 2012, including 21 children in Brevard, ranking it 26th among the number of cases by county. Here were the 10 counties with the most cases:

1. Miami-Dade — 828

2. Hillsborough Co — 381

3. Broward County — 285

4. Duval County — 282

5. Palm Beach Couny — 244

6. Polk County — 184

7. Orange County — 147

8. Pinellas County — 91

9. Alachua County — 73

10. Volusia County — 71

Source: CDC, Florida Department of Health

How much is 15 parts per billion?

Imagine 15 kernels of corn in a 45-foot high, 16-foot diameter silo, or 15 silver dollars in a roll of silver dollars stretching from Detroit to Salt Lake City.

Source: “Reporting on Risk,” Michigan Sea Grant

National Lead Information Center at 800-424-LEAD; call the EPA’s Safe Drinking Water

Hotline at 1-800-426-4791; or contact your health care provider

What to do

Some faucet and pitcher filters can remove lead from drinking water. If you use a filter to remove lead, be sure you get one that is certified to remove lead by NSF International. For information, visit www.epa.gov/safewater/ lead, or call the Safe Drinking Water Hotline at 1-800-426-4791.

Source: EPA

Florida community water systems with a lead action level exceedence

•2013 — 999 water systems with lead samples, 18 had a lead exceedance (98.2 percent without)

•2014 — 1,673 water systems with lead samples, 16 had a lead exceedance (99 percent without)

•2015 — 1,663 water systems, 21 with a lead exceedance (98.8 percent without)

Source: Florida Department of Environmental Protection

Some 350 water systems that failed lead tests in recent years provide drinking water to schools and child-care centers.

-by Laura Ungar

Whenever Jamison Rich got thirsty after gym or recess, he took a drink from the nearest water fountain at his elementary school.

Only last month did his family learn that the water bubbling out of some fountains contained high levels of lead, a notorious toxin that can silently damage developing brains and slow growth in little bodies like his.

Recently, a blood test on the 7-year-old found more than twice the average level of lead for young children, even though as far as anyone knows he’s never come in contact with lead paint or tainted soil.

Jamison’s school, Caroline Elementary in Ithaca, N.Y., is one of hundreds across the nation where children were exposed to water containing excessive amounts of an element doctors agree is unsafe at any level, a USA TODAY NETWORK investigation found. An analysis of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data showed about 350 schools and day-care centers failed lead tests a total of about 470 times from 2012 through 2015.

That represents nearly 20% of the water systems nationally testing above the agency’s “action level” of 15 parts per billion.

One water sample at a Maine elementary school was 41 times higher while another at a Pennsylvania preschool was 14 times higher. And a sink in a music-room bathroom at Caroline Elementary tested this year at 5,000 ppb of lead, results released by the school system show.

That’s the cutoff where the EPA labels a substance “hazardous waste.”

“It’s a scary thing. Nobody expects to have this in their schools,” said Jamison’s mom, Nicole Rich. “Who knows how big the problem actually is?”

Researchers say it could be very, very big.

But at this point it’s impossible to know how big because the federal government requires only about 10% of the nation’s schools and a tiny fraction of day cares — the 8,225 facilities that run their own water systems — to test for lead at all.

The EPA estimates that about 90,000 public schools and half a million child-care facilities are not regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act because they depend on water sources such as municipal utilities expected to test their own water. That means parents have no assurance lead isn’t seeping into children’s water from a school building’s pipes, solder or fixtures.

In fact, many schools that have tested for lead voluntarily have found it, hinting at the true scope of the problem.

“There’s a regulatory black hole when it comes to schools and day-care centers,” said Yanna Lambrinidou, a Virginia Tech researcher who studies lead in water nationally. “In some ways, it’s an official endorsement of exposure to lead and large-scale health harms that go undetected.”

Babies and children also are left vulnerable at schools and day cares required to test for lead. The USA TODAY NETWORK investigation found spotty enforcement from the EPA and some state governments, as well school leaders’ failures to test as often as required, notify parents about problems in a timely way or fix problems immediately in many cases.

Doctors stress that lead is a cumulative poison that builds up in the body and comes from several sources.

A groundbreaking study from Bruce Lanphear, a professor at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia who studied lead exposure among children in Rochester, N.Y., found that about 20% was attributed to water, 10% to 15% to contaminated soil and 20% to 30% from other sources such as paint dust. He adds that many variables and sources should be considered, and not everything can be explained.

Compounding the problem:

• Lead-tainted water isn’t used just for drinking and washing. It’s often used for cooking school lunches — where it can wind up in foods like pasta — or making infant formula, posing a particular risk to babies because they consume so much water compared to their size.

• Lead concentrations can rise as water goes unused and stays in contact with plumbing since schools and day cares often are vacant for long stretches. Also, lead particles tend to release sporadically, so a child can go days drinking from a contaminated water fountain before ingesting the toxin.

“It’s like Russian roulette,” Lambrinidou said.

• Blood testing for lead poisoning is typically done in babies, not school-aged children. Symptoms usually don’t show up until dangerous levels have accumulated and even then can be vague, so they often are missed until the damage — such as lowered IQ, behavior problems and developmental delays — has been done.

Given the dangers, the EPA recommends that schools and day-care centers test for lead even if they’re not required to under the agency’s Lead and Copper Rule and work to reduce the toxin. In an email response to questions from USA TODAY NETWORK, the EPA says these facilities serve sensitive populations, so the agency and states prioritize assisting those that test above actionable levels by helping them collect samples and look into practices and equipment that could be causing high lead levels, such as old plumbing.

But a growing chorus of researchers, activists, parents and school officials say this isn’t enough and that all schools and day cares should have to test for lead.

“Our children are drinking this water every day,” Rich said. “The fact it doesn’t always have to be tested kind of blows my mind.”

“EPA regulations have not moved forward with the science,” said President and CEO Ruth Ann Norton of Green and Healthy Homes Initiative, an anti-lead advocacy group. “These are our children. This is poison. … It’s a toxin being ingested, and that should never be OK under any circumstances.”

Among schools and day cares required to test, the USA TODAY NETWORK analysis found problematic lead levels in 42 states. If more than 10% of samples are above 15 ppb, that triggers a water system to take action.

States with the most were Maine, with 44 samples taken from drinking fountains and faucets showing high lead levels at 26 facilities; Pennsylvania, with 43 samples testing high among 37 facilities; and New Jersey, with 34 high readings among 23 facilities. Some schools and day cares failed lead tests four or even five times.

The district took Waterboro off its well and hooked it to municipal water three years ago, put in a water-filtration system at another school and replaced problematic faucets at several schools, Superintendent John Davis said. The system tests for lead regularly and notifies parents quickly.

“Typically, schools are very responsive,” said Roger Crouse, Maine’s drinking water program director.

But responses to lead problems are not always so efficient.

In Bucks County, Pa., one water sample in 2013 tested more than 14 times above the actionable level at Quakertown Christian School’s preschool campus, a rural school in a small borough 50 miles north of Philadelphia. But not until two years later did school leaders turn off the drinking fountains and bring in bottled water for its 60 students and staff members.

Pennsylvania’s state environmental protection department didn’t suggest doing so earlier, and it wasn’t required, said Bill Kirk, the school’s interim executive director. The school took state officials’ advice to change a faucet.

Lead tests taken in September again found high levels of lead. School officials sent a letter to families saying they were trying to minimize lead exposure by providing bottled water and replacing a well head pump and piping.

In Arizona, the USA TODAY NETWORK found that water providers didn’t always conduct the required follow-up tests or notify customers when tests were flagged for high levels of lead.

A school district near Sedona didn’t notify parents until February that a water fountain and a faucet in a preschool room tested in 2013 for high levels of lead in the water. A faucet in a church at a boarding school near the Navajo Reservation triggered an exceedance in 2013, but again no additional testing was done until last year, and no one was notified until last month.

The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality didn’t tell the boarding school to act until after a reporter asked for information about lead tests. The principal of Holbrook Seventh Day Adventist Indian School  — located near Navajo Country and surrounded by quiet, windy, high-desert lands — said the first he had heard about a possible lead problem was a phone call in February from a state staffer.

“It was a bombshell,” Principal Pedro Ojeda said, adding that the caller said, “You’re going to get a letter, and this is going to get reported to the paper and even USA TODAY.”

The school contracted with a private consultant to test the water and submit results to the state, Ojeda said. Staff was not aware of the test results.

The elementary school near Sedona similarly received a letter from Arizona environmental officials about the results of its water sample showing high lead contamination just a couple of weeks after the USA TODAY NETWORK began asking questions. Although a follow-up test came back clear, that school is replacing pipes in the problem area.

Administrators at both schools said they plan to test for lead more often.

Ithaca City School District, where young Jamison is in second grade, also failed to comply with EPA regulations — in this case parents weren’t told about problems quickly so they could protect their kids.

The 5,500-student district is located in a small city that also is home to Cornell University and Ithaca College. Two district schools, Caroline and Enfield elementaries, run their own water systems and are required to test for lead while the other 10 are not because they are connected to municipal water.

A total of four samples from Caroline and Enfield tested above the EPA action level in August and two in follow-up tests in January, according to fact sheets from the county health department.

Even though the first test results came back in September, parents didn’t learn of the problem until February despite requirements to notify the public within 30 days.

Superintendent Luvelle Brown blames “internal and external communication problems” but wouldn’t elaborate except to say personnel issues were involved. He said he wasn’t told about results of the August tests until months afterward and shared them days after he learned them — adding he understands the gravity of the issue, since “my child drinks out of the faucets every day.”

Parents complained about the delay at community meetings, and the district tested the water again at sinks and water fountains throughout Caroline and Enfield, finding numerous levels greater than 100 ppb, according to results the school system released. The highest was the 5,000 ppb sample from the music-room bathroom sink at Caroline.

Officials turned off drinking water sources at the two schools, made bottled water available throughout the district and began looking into what went wrong with the notification process. They also started to review water-sampling data from 2005 for Caroline and Enfield, as well as other district schools not required to test, Brown said.

He shared plans to test all district buildings and vowed to fix any problems, “whatever it takes.”

Amid the turmoil, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., pushed for help from the EPA and recently announced the agency was sending lead experts to help the school system by assisting with tests of the water sources at Caroline and Enfield. In a March 3 letter to the community, the superintendent wrote, “Recent sampling procedures may have produced inaccurate results,” and the health department has advised re-testing.

Parents are incensed.

“My trust is completely gone in the district,” said Rich, who has two children at Caroline and a middle-schooler. The notification delay “took away our choice as parents to provide an alternative.”

Parent Melissa Hoffman agrees. She has three children in the district, and said her daughter, Sareanda, used to drink every day from a water fountain in her kindergarten classroom that measured high for lead.

“No amount of lead is safe,” Hoffman said. “We just don’t know what has been done to our children.”

Her 10-year-old Asyra, a fourth-grader, also drank from a water fountain that tested high for lead, she said. She didn’t show any signs of sickness, but Sareanda used to come home with a rash around her mouth and so tired she needed a long nap.

Doctors say fatigue can be a sign of lead poisoning but a rash isn’t typical although Flint residents also have reported them.

Hoffman said tests for lead in her daughters’ blood came back normal, but she’s still concerned because doctors say lead can be missed if too much time elapses between the exposure and the blood test. Both girls are now drinking bottled water, and Hoffman said Sareanda no longer comes home from school exhausted, and her rash has cleared up.

But Rich wonders about long-term harm to Jamison. The active boy, who runs around a lot and often gets thirsty, was the only one of her children found to have lead in his blood. He’s at twice the average for lead in his blood and just barely under the level that the federal government considers elevated.

Rich said her water at home tested below 15 ppb for lead and she has no lead paint there, so the likely culprit is the water at school.

Observers say high lead levels among the mostly small schools and day-care centers required to test are alarming enough. But voluntary testing at larger schools provides troubling evidence that the lead problem may be much bigger than what the EPA exceedance numbers suggest.

Longstanding lead issues have arisen in some of the nation’s biggest cities, including Washington, D.C.; and Baltimore. According to a 2010 article by Lambrinidou, Edwards and a co-author in the journal New Solutions, Baltimore City Public Schools first became aware of lead-in-water contamination in 1992. Drinking fountains were shut off but school administrators unaware of the problem later turned them back on.

After future testing also found high levels of lead, the school system decided on a long-term strategy to use bottled water.

Early this month, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection advised Newark Public Schools to use alternate drinking-water sources after voluntary tests found elevated levels of lead in 30 of 67 district schools. Measurements ranged from 16 to 558 ppb, according to 2015-16 results posted on the department’s website. The school system temporarily shut off all drinking fountains in affected schools, posted warnings in bathrooms not to drink water from faucets, and brought in water coolers and bottled water.

Other schools not required to test have decided to do so in wake of the Flint crisis, uncovering problems of their own.

The Indiana School for the Deaf in Indianapolis sampled its water this year “out of an abundance of caution” and found two water fountains with high levels: one initially testing at 130 ppb and the other at 519 ppb. Both were taken out of service with plans to replace them.

Binghamton City Schools in New York also voluntarily decided to correct lead-in-water problems in February, prompted in part because of issues in nearby Ithaca. Superintendent Marion Martinez had learned the district completed testing in 2013, but nothing was done about locations found to in excess of 15 ppb, and the final report included no recommendations.

After Martinez got a copy of the report, the district shut down seven drinking-water sources flagged as having high lead levels. Five have since been repaired, flushed, re-tested and come in below 15 ppb, and two more remain shut off.

The district now plans to label which are safe to use for drinking

“We don’t have a state or federal legal requirement to test the water, but we have a moral requirement,” Martinez said. “Going into the future, we commit ourselves to testing our drinking water sources every three years. We are obligating ourselves to do that.”

EPA officials say they not only encourage voluntary testing but provide guidance to schools and day cares that want to do it while also helping those required to test stay in compliance.

Plumbing materials that contain lead make the agency’s goal of zero lead unreachable, officials said. Regulations help water systems move in the right direction by requiring those with problems to control corrosion and reduce lead in tap water “to the extent feasible.”

In a way, “the violations are the good news. Those schools are testing” and correcting problems, Virginia Tech’s Edwards said. “The ones you should be worried about are … the vast majority of schools not required to test. There, you can have any level of lead.”

Lambrinidou agreed, adding that regulations are fine as far as they go, but there is “a nationwide lack of enforcement.” Many schools also don’t fully understand how lead gets into water or how to test correctly for it, she said.

Even the way action-level exceedances are calculated is problematic because up to 10% of samples can be above 15 ppb of lead, which “allows for 10% of (locations tested) to dispense any concentration of lead whatsoever,” Lambrinidou said.

Another obstacle to dealing with lead-in-water problems is that permanent solutions can be expensive.

The tiny one-school Klondike Independent School District, which sits amid a cotton patch in Lamesa, Texas, plans to replace its entire water system at a cost of $600,000. Superintendent Steve McLaren called the expense “a big chunk of our money.”

McLaren said he’s concerned about how high lead levels might affect students and understands the need to take action.

“I’m always concerned about their health,” he said. “I think we’re doing the best we can with the finances we have.”

Conley Elementary, a rural New Jersey school with five action-triggering water samples from 2012 through 2014, tried several fixes before finding one that worked. School leaders shut down water fountains and cafeteria sinks and began using bottled water for drinking and cooking, attempted to make the water less corrosive, then finally decided to re-pipe the entire system out to the well at a cost of $187,000.

Edwards said he understands many facilities are strapped for cash, but “there’s a law, and we have to follow it.” He points out that not all remedies are expensive: Some water filters cost only $20, and even designating taps as drinking or non-drinking can be temporary fixes.

Norton, with the anti-lead group, said she would like to see tax credits, grants and loans made available to schools and day cares seeking to tackle lead problems because the human cost of failing to address them is too high.

“We see learning difficulties, hyperactivity, developmental delays,” said Marcie Billings, a pediatrician with Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. “Any damage is irreversible.”

And while the dangers of lead are clear, some researchers say it’s not clear how big a part lead-tainted water plays in overall lead exposure, especially since so many schools and day cares don’t have to test for it.

“We don’t really know the collateral damage that’s being caused by lead in water,” Norton said. “We must address this as a society. We’re all better off with children who can read better because they haven’t been harmed by lead. We all benefit when children are healthy.”

originally posted on March 17, 2016

This week at Georgia’s state capitol, citizens and community leaders from around the state shared their stories and concerns about the safety of their drinking water.

While our nation is transfixed on water issues in Flint, Michigan, communities right here in Georgia are also struggling with water contamination.  Arsenic, bacteria, uranium, and other contaminants have infiltrated drinking water wells and other groundwater sources.

Earlier this week participants of the Georgia Water Coalition’s Clean Water Day of Action traveled to Atlanta from Cairo, Waycross, Shell Bluff, and Ocilla to communicate their concerns and the need for better protections for drinking water supplies in Georgia with their legislators.

Aline Rundle, a Cairo resident and concerned parent shared the story of learning about the contaminated underground water supplies that provide water to her family.  “After testing our water and learning about the high arsenic levels, my neighbors and I met with the city.  The City responded quickly to our concerns, and is now investing in technology and applying for funding to treat and remove arsenic from its wells.”

But not every community has responded as quickly as the City of Cairo to address contamination concerns.

“People in our community are sick,” said Annie Laura Howard Stephens of Shell Bluff, Georgia. “We believe that radiological pollution in the water is the cause.”

“In the Waycross area,” said Joan Tibor in an emotional testimony, “over 50 children have developed cancer.  We believe that exposure to environmental pollution in drinking water is part of the cause.”

Additionally, people on private wells must test their own water to determine if the water is polluted.

“Contaminants found in Georgia’s drinking water supplies, like arsenic, mercury, radiological contaminants, and other pollutants are a risk to our health – especially children that are already sick,” said Dr. Yolanda Whyte, an Atlanta pediatrician.  “Due to the risks of documented, contaminated drinking water here in Georgia, I advise my patients to only drink purified water.  It’s a shame because access to clean water isn’t a privilege. It’s a basic human right.”

Many of Georgia’s underground water supplies are pristine. These underground water supplies support local economies by irrigating crops, running industries, and providing drinking water for residential homes and businesses. Additionally, these underground supplies are superior to alternatives in terms of cost and reliability.  Unlike in other states across the country, Georgians are fortunate to have access to and reasonable use of water on or under their property.

“I pull water from our wells to irrigate my organic vegetable crops,” said Relinda Walker, owner, Walker Organic Farms near Sylvania. “We’re committed to growing clean food for our community, so I’d like our politicians and regulators to make sure that the water we use stays clean.”

State Sen. William Ligon (R-Brunswick), who spoke at the Clean Water Day of Action press conference, introduced Senate Bill 36 because current Georgia laws and regulations do not provide enough protections for our groundwater.  There are no adequate state requirements for monitoring, testing, or reporting the volume or extent of contaminated waters that reach an aquifer by any means.

“Protecting clean water isn’t a Republican issue or a Democrat issue,” said Michael Wedincamp, a Georgia Southern University student from Statesboro.  “I have been drinking well water my entire life, and it’s important that it is protected.”

Rev. Leeann Culbreath, an Episcopal deacon from Tifton, offered a profound moral reason for all Georgians to respond to the water crises faced by these various communities, when she stated at the press event, “Love of neighbor is a tenet of all major faith traditions. And sometimes, love looks like legislation. We need to support SB 36 and protect groundwater for these Georgia residents and for generations to come. We have a moral responsibility to protect our water resources and stop this suffering.”  Culbreath serves as the South Georgia Outreach Coordinator for Georgia Interfaith Power & Light (GIPL), a faith-based environmental organization and partner of Georgia Water Coalition.

SB 36 passed the Senate with only three dissenting votes during the 2015 session.  The bill is now held-up in the House Natural Resources and Environment Committee.  The bill does three things:  it affirms the public nature of aquifer resources; it confirms the private property right to undiminished natural water quality from the resource; and it requires the Department of Natural Resources Board to promulgate rules that will protect private property and groundwater resources.

“Georgians depend on drinking water from pristine aquifers,” said Emily Markesteyn, Ogeechee Riverkeeper.  “We should not risk contaminating resources that nature has taken thousands of years to create.”