Advocates Mark 500 Days Of Water Contamination In Hoosick Falls

Marking 500 days of water contamination in Hoosick Falls, residents gathered at the state capitol on Thursday to pressure state leaders to find a new, uncontaminated source. Organized by Environmental Advocates of New York, residents of the Rensselaer County community of Hoosick Falls traveled to Albany Thursday to demand drinking water free of the chemical PFOA, a carcinogen. They’d like to see the newly created $2.5 billion clean water fund in the state budget used to restore clean water now. Pressuring the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, EANY’s Water and Natural Resources Associate Liz Moran said every day that Hoosick Falls residents are relying on filtered water, they’re still afraid. “I think the DEC and the state have done some good work in response to Hoosick Falls. But the clock is ticking,” said Moran. The Departments of Environmental Conservation and Health have faced tough criticism over the past year-and-a-half for what many perceived as a delayed response to the contamination crisis. To date, the state has installed more than 800 point-of-entry treatment systems on private wells to remove PFOA from contaminated groundwater. A permanent filtration system has been installed on the Hoosick Falls municipal water supply, paid for by company Saint-Gobain, under…

Skol: DNR bears responsibility for water

After Gretchen and I built our home in the town of Onalaska some 26 years ago, we learned, to our surprise, that the town was embroiled in a dispute with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources on how to deal with water pollution from a town landfill on Brice Prairie.
The landfill had been dug close to the Black River decades earlier and residues from discarded solvents and pesticides — included in the trash that filled the pit before it was closed — seeped through the porous soils into the groundwater.
Eventually the landfill was declared a Superfund site and all of the landowners in the town paid a surcharge (we paid $200 a year for 10 years) on our tax bills to pay our share of the cleanup costs.
This news came to some 2,000 property owners in the western part of the towns of Onalaska and Holland who depend on private wells for their water in the form of a warning from the La Crosse County Health Department.
Nitrate and coliform contamination can be caused by malfunctioning septic systems, manure and human waste spreading and excess fertilizer use.
Both nitrate and coliform contamination constitute a human health risk at levels in excess of levels set as safe by regulators.
The warning was triggered after the county received data it demanded from the DNR last August following the report by the Legislative Audit Bureau critical of DNR’s enforcement of pollution discharge permits.
Why, the county is left to wonder, didn’t the DNR alert the county and the home owners of the risk?
Without the aggressive county response to the audit, we’d still be in the dark about the risk.
DNR bears much of the responsibility for fixing Wisconsin’s water issues.

EXCLUSIVE: The Investigation Into Water Contamination At Camp Lejeune May Reopen Soon

EXCLUSIVE: The Investigation Into Water Contamination At Camp Lejeune May Reopen Soon.
The toxic water crisis at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, that left 750,000 Marines, sailors, spouses and their families exposed to contaminated drinking water between the 1950s and the 1980s may face a renewed investigation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
On May 10, the CDC posted a sources sought notice for a cancer incidence study on water contamination at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
The purpose of the study, according to the notice is to: “… assess whether there is an association between exposure to the contaminated drinking water at Camp Lejeune and the incidence of specific cancers in approximately 463,922 cohort members, the study will require that vital status and cause of death for decedents be obtained for 425,319 of the cohort members who had not died prior to January 1, 2009 before accessing cancer registry data from up to 55 state, territorial, and federal cancer registries.” The difference between this proposed study, which is focused on cancer incidence, and previous studies, which focused on mortality rates, is that a “cancer incidence study would have a greater capability of evaluating cases of highly survivable cancers than a mortality study.” A 2005 panel of scientists recommended that a cancer incidence “should receive the highest priority,” but one has yet to be conducted.
The study, though still tentative at this time, may start to gain ground in the coming months, Bernadette Burden, a spokesperson for the CDC, told Task & Purpose in an email: “The request for capability studies is a step to make sure we are on the right track with the proposal request and have clearly stated the needs and intent,” Burden said.
“We are still planning to post the request for proposals this summer.
The study has received all the necessary approvals.” The water contamination that occurred at Camp Lejeune ranks among the biggest in U.S. history, but it wasn’t until January of this year that the Department of Veterans Affairs announced that veterans stationed at Lejeune in the 1950s through the 1980s were eligible to submit applications for VA benefits.
“Hundreds of mothers suffered miscarriages or gave birth to stillborn babies or infants with birth defects, such as spina bifida.
And while the Department of Defense cleared Camp Lejeune water of toxins after Dec. 31, 1987, families posted there in the years following believe their health issues may be the result of water contamination.
A 2014 mortality study using two groups — one from Lejeune and one from Camp Pendleton, California, where there were no instances of contaminated water — revealed that residents of Camp Lejeune had a higher mortality rate for the following causes of death: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; cancers of the bladder, brain, cervix, colon, esophagus, female breast, kidney, larynx, liver, lung, oral cavity, pancreas, prostate, rectum, and soft tissue; hematopoietic cancers; Hodgkin’s Lymphoma; leukemias; multiple sclerosis; Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma; non-cancerous kidney diseases; non-cancerous liver diseases; and multiple sclerosis.

Dog’s Eye View: Reaching critical mass

Editor’s note: This column was originally published in summer 2016.
This weekly column about dog training publishes on Fridays in the Steamboat Today.
Our parks and trails are increasingly polluted as this product is leached into the ground.
According to the EPA, this contaminant is as toxic to the environment as chemical and oil spills and is the number 1 cause of water pollution.
This is our only way to contain the spread of contamination to our planet.
Editor’s note: This column was originally published in summer 2016.
This weekly column about dog training publishes on Fridays in the Steamboat Today.
Our parks and trails are increasingly polluted as this product is leached into the ground.
According to the EPA, this contaminant is as toxic to the environment as chemical and oil spills and is the number 1 cause of water pollution.
This is our only way to contain the spread of contamination to our planet.

Letter: Forest, water supply at risk

Letter: Forest, water supply at risk.
The plan from the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service opens eastern reaches of the Wayne National Forest, abutting the Ohio River near Marietta and its watersheds, to industrialization.
Ohioans may recall that in May 2014, a well-head failure caused 100 barrels of drilling mud to spill into a tributary creek of the Ohio River near Beverly, Ohio, contaminating the creek with the drilling mud and crude oil.
The incident killed 70,000 fish along 5 miles of creek.
And in March 2016, a truck hauling drilling wastewater overturned in eastern Ohio, sending thousands of gallons of toxic water into a nearby creek and contaminating a drinking water reservoir in Barnesville in Belmont County.
Most recently, Energy Transfer Partners — the same Texas company behind the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline — spilled an estimated 2 million gallons of drilling fluid from its Rover Pipeline in two separate incidents in Richland and Stark counties.
By opening national forest lands to fracking, the plan will enable wholesale industrialization of entire watersheds, including national forest land and adjacent property.
And for wildlife such as river otters, bobcats and the endangered Indiana bat, the habitat destruction and devastation caused by fracking will make their survival and recovery that much more difficult.
For that reason, a coalition of groups last week sued to block it.
Ohio’s only national forest deserves better than being bulldozed for oil industry profits.

DNR to provide clean drinking water for contaminated wells

DNR to provide clean drinking water for contaminated wells.
LUXEMBURG, Wis. (WLUK) — The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is planning to provide clean drinking water to people whose wells are contaminated by manure runoff.
So Wagner and his family drink bottled water.
“I only get one gallon of water per hour,” Wagner told us As a Kewaunee County Board member, Wagner is happy to hear about the DNR’s program to provide clean water to his constituents dealing with similar struggles.
Wagner told FOX 11 he can’t benefit from the DNR’s program because the water that comes out of his well is only contaminated with nitrates, not bacteria.
We still haven’t found any bacteria, which is a good thing,” he explained.
Wagner said this is a good step, but: “How come this didn’t come out sooner?”
In statement, the DNR said several programs worked together to take this step as quickly as possible.
The DNR will only provide clean water for six months.
That year-old program is for people with contaminated wells in the Kewaunee and southern Door County area.

 

The report – Inquiry into Havelock North water contamination

The report – Inquiry into Havelock North water contamination.
Overview [4]Hastings District Council ("District Council") supplies drinking water to consumers in Havelock North.
[7]This Inquiry has found that several of the parties with responsibility for the water supply regime for Havelock North (in particular the District Council, DWAs and Hawke’s Bay Regional Council ("Regional Council")) failed to adhere to the high levels of care and diligence necessary to protect public health and to avoid outbreaks of serious illness.
The Outbreak [31]In August 2016, an outbreak of gastroenteritis occurred in Havelock North.
Given the evidence received by the Inquiry in relation to the unconfined nature of the aquifer and the security of the Hastings bores and the Brookvale Road bores, the Inquiry considers this was a necessary and prudent decision.
3.What was the source and cause of the contamination of the Havelock North drinking water supply in August 2016.
How was the outbreak managed.
The Regional Council alleged that the District Council had failed adequately to maintain the bore works’ structures for Brookvale Road bores 1 and 2.
He also advised that plans were underway for the Joint Working Group to investigate the security of the aquifer and that the District Council was in the process of reviewing its management and accountability processes in relation to the operation of Brookvale Road bore 3, and the Hastings bores.
[95]As part of the updating evidence, the Inquiry also received evidence from the Chief Executives of the District Council, Regional Council, and the District Health Board as to the workings of the Joint Working Group.

Congress Budget Deal Protects Water Programs

Congress Budget Deal Protects Water Programs.
By Brett Walton, Circle of Blue The Trump administration’s talk of slashing environmental programs in fiscal year 2018 did not translate into big cuts in a 2017 spending agreement negotiated by Congress.
“The fiscal year 2017 deal seemed to indicate there is good bipartisan support in Congress extending to the full suite of programs that support clean and safe water in the United States.” Water Across the Budget The agreement’s water-related provisions are many.
The agency’s two main water infrastructure loan programs are funded at the same level as in 2016: $US 1.4 billion for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund and $US 863 million for the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund.
Combined with funding from a bill signed in December, the program will be able to loan just over $US 3 billion for large water projects.
Notice does not need to be “immediate.” Jennifer Caddick of the Alliance for the Great Lakes, an advocacy group, told Circle of Blue that though there is a long history of bipartisan support in Congress for the Great Lakes, the administration’s pronouncements that the restoration fund should be cancelled in 2018 is a cause of concern.
The agreement provides $US 67 million for construction of federal reservoirs or state-owned water storage projects.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s rural water loan and grant program is allocated $US 571 million, an increase of $US 48 million.
Certain firefighting foams — class B aqueous film forming foams — that are used for putting out petroleum fires have contaminated drinking water wells on bases and in nearby communities.
Aaron Clark, spokesman for Fitzpatrick, said that the report will be “a positive step towards remediating the contamination in our water supply.” But Fitzpatrick will continue to seek legislation requiring a health study of those affected by contaminated wells.

DNR giving water to those with tainted wells

With livestock contamination of drinking water a growing concern in Wisconsin, the Department of Natural Resources has quietly started efforts to provide temporary water supplies to people with tainted wells. The DNR posted an update on its website in April that said it would provide temporary emergency drinking water when tests show that a water supply is contaminated and is likely due to groundwater contaminated by manure, a person on the property contracts a water-borne illness or there is a sudden change in color or odor of well water, Two environmental groups issued statements Tuesday announcing the state initiative. Afterward, the DNR said in a statement the agency used aspects from several programs under existing law to set up the water program. It also notified authorities in Kewaunee County, where well contamination has been most severe. The program’s low-key rollout on a high-profile issue perplexed environmental groups who say the agency has been reluctant to criticize the farm community over manure spreading. “This relief…

DNR to provide clean drinking water for contaminated wells

DNR to provide clean drinking water for contaminated wells.
LUXEMBURG (WLUK) — The DNR is planning to provide clean drinking water to people whose wells are contaminated by manure runoff.
So Wagner and his family drink bottled water.
"I only get one gallon of water per hour," Wagner told us As a Kewaunee County Board Member, Wagner is happy to hear about the DNR’s program to provide clean water to his constituents dealing with similar struggles.
Wagner told FOX 11 he can’t benefit from the DNR’s program because the water that comes out of his well is only contaminated with nitrates, not bacteria.
We still haven’t found any bacteria, which is a good thing," he explained.
Wagner said this is a good step, but… "How come this didn’t come out sooner?"
In statement the DNR said several programs worked together to take this step as quickly as possible.
A group of farmers called ‘Peninsula Pride Farms’ already offers clean drinking water.
That year-old program is for people with contaminated wells in the Kewaunee and Southern Door area.