Carmen Garza, 74, moved to the city of East Chicago, Indiana 41 years ago. She bought her house with her husband and quickly made it home, turning their backyard into a tomato and chili garden every summer. “They were so good,” Garza tells Colorlines in Spanish. “Riquísimos.” Three years ago, that ended after a neighbor asked the couple why they were growing vegetables in contaminated dirt. The Garzas quickly abandoned their garden. But they were left with more questions than answers: “She told me it was contaminated, but she didn’t say of what,” Garza recalls. The contaminant turned out to be lead, the couple ultimately found out thanks to community efforts to discover this information. And it’s not just in the dirt—it’s in the Garza’s drinking water, too. This is because East Chicago, a predominantly Black and Latinx city of nearly 30,000, is located on the USS Lead Superfund Site. The former USS Lead facility ran here until 1985. The site was placed on the National Priorities List of the worst contaminated sites in the country in 2009, but the EPA was aware since the facility’s closure that it was contaminating nearby areas, according to this 1985 inspection report. And as a Chicago Tribune investigation in December 2016 unearthed, government officials were warned that this contamination posed a public health risk for decades. Still, they failed to test the soil or begin cleanup efforts until 2014. That soil data didn’t make it into city officials’ hands until May 2016. With it, they saw how severe the problem really was: Some homeowner’s backyards had lead levels higher than 45,000 parts per million, far beyond the federal limit of 400 parts per million. No one told prospective buyers like Garza—not when she first bought her home or even when government officials came to inspect her yard about 10 years ago to “examine the dirt in people’s yards to clean for the animals,” as she says officials told her. She didn’t find out what was going on until last year when community members from the West Calumet Housing Complex started organizing around the issue. “Imagine you stop going outside,” Garza says. “You don’t grill steak outside anymore. What can I do? I don’t have money to move.” And…

While lead pipes were banned decades ago, they still supply millions of American households daily with drinking water amid risks of corrosion and leaching that can cause developmental and neurological effects in young children. One common abatement: Dig up old lead lines and replace a portion of them with another metal, such as copper. However, this technique can dislodge lead particulates and release them into the water supply. Furthermore, partially replacing the lead pipe connection instead of entirely exchanging it is problematic. A team of engineers at Washington University in St. Louis has developed a new way to model and track where lead particles might be transported during the partial-replacement process, in an effort to keep the water supply safer. “We all know lead is not safe, it needs to go,” said Assistant Vice Chancellor of International…

One common abatement: Dig up old lead lines and replace a portion of them with another metal, such as copper. However, this technique can dislodge lead particulates and release them into the water supply. Furthermore, partially replacing the lead pipe connection instead of entirely exchanging it is problematic. A team of engineers at Washington University in St. Louis has developed a new way to model and track where lead particles might be transported during the partial-replacement process, in an effort to keep the water supply safer. “We all know lead is not safe, it needs to go,” said Assistant Vice Chancellor of International Programs Pratim Biswas, the Lucy and Stanley Lopata Professor and the chair of Energy, Environmental and Chemical Engineering at the School of Engineering & Applied Science. “This is the first comprehensive model that…

On 16 January, Governor Bruce Rauner of the state of Illinois signed into law legislation mandating testing water sources for lead at Illinois elementary schools and daycare centers. The plan requires only a one-time testing of schools with students up to fifth grade and facilities built before 2000. The cost of testing and notifying parents will be paid by schools and facilities which could run into hundreds to thousands of dollars. If the water sources tested show contamination above five parts per billion (ppb) the school is required to notify parents.There are no provisions in the law that require action be taken by the school if contamination is discovered. At present, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommends schools shut off water facilities when results show 20 ppb or greater of lead. The law allows districts to use property tax dollars levied for school safety to cover testing and remediation costs. The impetus for this legislation was based on earlier testing that had been conducted in April-May of 2016 as a pilot project. Citing concerns after learning of tainted water in Flint, Michigan, the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) hired private companies to test drinking water in elementary schools deemed at greatest risk because of their pre-K programs, or because kitchens and or other facilities were built before 1987. The use of lead pipes in construction was finally banned by an act of Congress in mid-1986. Other schools that did not fit the criteria paid for their testing. Thirty-two schools were tested, obtaining 236 samples. Twenty-five schools had no traces, six had levels below EPA standards and one school, and Henry O Tanner had elevated levels. CPS was prompted in May 2016 to order the testing of drinking water in all their districts, comprising 527 campuses, with 470 campuses built before 1987. As an initial measure, the three water fountains at Tanner were removed, and water coolers were brought in. Lead levels at these three fountains ranged from 19.8 to 47.5 ppb. The one fountain with the highest level had been turned off for some time. Standing water in lead pipes tends to leach the metals out of the piping. By June, 327 schools had completed testing. Of 6,167 fixtures tested, 184 fixtures (3 percent) from 113 different schools returned levels above the EPA’s action levels of 15 ppb. Scientific research shows that even the most minute amounts of lead, under five pbb, can cause significant…

The plan requires only a one-time testing of schools with students up to fifth grade and facilities built before 2000.
If the water sources tested show contamination above five parts per billion (ppb) the school is required to notify parents.There are no provisions in the law that require action be taken by the school if contamination is discovered.
The law allows districts to use property tax dollars levied for school safety to cover testing and remediation costs.
A group of environmental organizations, citing the results discovered in the Chicago Public schools, pushed for a law requiring schools throughout Illinois to test for high lead levels in drinking fountains, sinks, and other water sources.
There are more than 4,000 miles of water mains under the city and the 10-year plan will replace 900 miles of water pipes.
The process of replacing these water mains actually disturbs the lead service lines and increases the amount of lead in the city’s drinking water.
Children ages five and younger continue to be harmed at rates up to six times the city average in corners of impoverished, predominantly African-American neighborhoods, according to a Chicago Tribune analysis of city records.
Chicago has cut funding for their anti-lead programs by 50 percent to $4 million.
Congress went even further by slashing funds 94 percent.
After three years without funding, Chicago received $347,000 last year compared to $1.2 million yearly between 2005 and 2010.

California in 2014 enacted the nation’s first drinking water standard for hexavalent chromium, or chromium 6.
Now with Vacaville, in Solano County 55 miles northeast of San Francisco, plotting the final pieces of a multimillion-dollar chromium 6 removal plan, environmentalists are demanding that the city stop telling its 92,000 residents that their water is safe.
“The city’s transport of chromium 6 in this case creates an imminent and substantial endangerment to human health or the environment,” the complaint states.
River Watch’s attorney Jack Silver in Sebastopol did not respond to an interview request Tuesday.
Prolonged exposure to chromium 6 increases the risk of lung cancer and asthma, particularly when it’s inhaled.
Recent tests revealed that five of Vacaville’s 11 groundwater wells exceed the new state standard, two of which have been in operation since the 1970s.
The city says there are no known cases of chromium 6-related cancers due to Vacaville’s groundwater and that the carcinogen occurs naturally in its water supply.
To comply with the 2020 deadline Vacaville plans to install chromium 6 filters valued at more than $1 million per well to some of its wells.
“The city is taking steps to provide water with hexavalent chromium at or below the maximum contaminant level.
The data do not account for water supplies contaminated with chromium 6, such as Vacaville’s five wells.

Harrietsfield homeowners struggling for more than a decade to deal with contaminated water have won a victory. The former operators of a recycling site last week lost their Supreme Court appeal of a provincial order directing them to test residential wells monthly for contamination. The operators, including the now-closed RDM Recycling, were ordered by the court to follow the ministerial orders implemented by the province’s minister of environment after claims surfaced that they had contaminated residential wells in the area. Lawyer Kaitlyn Mitchell and a co-worker with Ecojustice represented community members Marlene Brown, Melissa King and Angela Zwicker, who were interveners in the case. “The interveners argued that the ministerial orders should be upheld. The orders require those responsible for the contamination to undertake monitoring, studies and planning for remediation of the site,” wrote Mitchell in an email to the Chronicle Herald this week. The first appeal was dismissed in November, as appellants Roy Brown and Michael Lawrence, now deceased, tried to have the orders dismissed. They were upheld by Justice Denise Boudreau. “The inclusion of the appellants in this order is a possible, acceptable outcome, given the definitions provided in the Act. As such, I uphold…

NAIROBI — Despite dire warnings recently from humanitarian agencies, thousands of children remain severely malnourished and remain vulnerable to cholera, diarrhea and other diseases in Somalia; the international community is not prepared.
About half of Somalia’s population – 6.2 million people – need humanitarian assistance.
Of those, Save the Children estimates that about 1 million Somali children will become malnourished this year, with almost 200,000 at risk of death from severe acute malnutrition.
“In the last two months, we had 7,731 cases of cholera with 183 people dying.
Just last week – 1,352 cases of cholera and 38 people dying.
With chronic malnutrition on the rise, more children will suffer from preventable diseases like cholera and diarrhea if humanitarian actors fail to act in time.
The U.N. and humanitarian agencies are keen to avoid a repeat of the 2011 drought when the international community was criticized for responding too slowly to a “preventable” crisis; 260,000 people died as a result of the drought between 2010-2012.
“The surge in deaths during the 2011 drought happened in April – and the drought was less severe then,” Watkins said in the statement.
Just last week, Somali President Mohamed Farmajo – whose recent election Guterres praised as a “moment of hope” for Somalia – declared the drought a “national disaster,” urgently appealing to the international community to help respond to the crisis.
Unless more funding is promised to the drought appeal in Somalia, it is likely that cholera rates will continue to rise.

WESTFIELD, Mass. (The Westfield News) – For city resident Kristen Mello, the desire for knowledge exists because of concern. That’s why she started an online petition asking for blood testing for residents who may have been exposed to city water that had a possible contamination of perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), also known as perfluorinated carbons (PFCs), through the city’s public water supply wells. “The contaminated wells were taken offline but before that I drank this water for 30 years,” Mello said. “We deserve to know what our exposure is.” Over the summer, two of the city’s eight public drinking water wells were taken offline due to both having levels of PFAS or PFCs that was above a lifetime exposure limit advisory given by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). According to the EPA, who lowered the acceptable amount of Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA)—types of PFAS—in drinking water from 600 parts per trillion to 70 parts per trillion in June of last year in a health advisory, the compound has a potential to be linked to health issues. According to the EPA’s advisory, studies on laboratory animals that were “informed by epidemiological studies of human populations” showed that certain levels of the substances may result in adverse health effects, including effects on children’s development, livers, kidneys, thyroids and immune systems, as well as risks of cancer. However, according to the ATSDR’s public health statement on perfluoroakyls: “It is difficult to interpret the results of these studies because they are not consistent; some studies have found associations, but others looking at the same…

BLOG ROUND-UP: Are pumps killing fish or ammonia from water treatment plants?, Evading dam nation, headwaters, Trump and the EPA, and more ….
A group called “Families Protecting the Valley,” recently used this and a 2008 story from another newspaper to once-again emphasize that the fish problems inherent in the Delta are not because of the large pumps that move water from the Delta near Tracy to San Luis Reservoir, but are likely caused by ammonia brought on by municipal wastewater plants flushing the collective toilets of large cities into the Delta.
Recent storms “exposed problems with Sacramento-area wastewater systems that failed to contain sewage.”: Families Protecting the Valley writes, “We have been saying for a long time that too much emphasis is being put on how much water farmers use and too little time spent on how much sewage is flowing into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Recent storms “exposed problems with Sacramento-area wastewater systems that failed to contain sewage.” Fish First, Then People!
The Cosumnes is the only river draining the western Sierra Nevada Mountains that has no major dam.
… ” Read more from the California Water Blog here: Evading Dam-Nation to build a working floodplain on the Cosumnes River Why the headwaters matter for natural infrastructure: “When most people think about water infrastructure, they picture reservoirs, canals, and levees.
… ” Read more from the American Rivers blog here: Why the headwaters matter for natural infrastructure The Changing Conversation in the Sacramento Valley: The Northern California Water Association blog writes, “The Northern California Water Association (NCWA) last week celebrated its 25th Annual Meeting at the Sierra Nevada Brewery in Chico with a focus on The Changing Conversation in the Sacramento Valley.
But there is, as yet, little agreement about what specific investments should be made.
… ” Read more from the Pacific Institute Insights blog here: National Water Infrastructure Efforts Must Expand Access to Public Drinking Fountains Sign up for daily email service and you’ll never miss a post!
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