Water Contamination Not Only Affects Michigan.
Houston, we have a problem.
Flint, Michigan is not the only area in the United States that has contaminated water supply.
According to Jan Murphy, writer for PENN LIVE, Pennsylvania received a failing letter grade in taking action to prevent pipeline lead from reaching faucets in schools.
Contamination in drinking water is expanding in schools all over the state and this in turn, affects the health of children.
Their lack in effort of tackling this situation can potentially result in death among students.
Lead consumption has the same health effects in Pennsylvania as it does in Flint, Michigan.
Pennsylvania’s government will have to do some serious prioritizing because we’re talking about someone’s life being on the line.
If children continue to consume this poisonous substance, their developmental skills will fall backwards, defeating the initial purpose of school.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the writer and are not representative of The Slate or its staff as a whole.

Because the state data doesn’t account for the nearly 2 million Californians still relying on private wells or factor in contamination from Chromium-6, experts said the number of people with toxic water is likely even higher.
“When I shower my kids, I use to give them hot baths, but not anymore,” Gonzalez said.
“Now we just wash, rinse and get out.” The water that comes out of her Oakvale Park home is contaminated.
The contaminated water runs into about 100 homes in the area.
“It can cause cancer (and) in the case of nitrate in very high levels, it can even cause death after a few days of high exposure.” Her organization said short-term health effects of drinking uranium-contaminated water include nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, as well as liver and kidney damage.
Water is shut-off to some 18,000 students at four different school districts as further testing is done.
“Having toxic water coming out of your tap, not being able to access water in schools, this is really basic.” Tainted water in wells and public water systems in the San Diego area contain unsafe levels of uranium, fluoride, nitrate and arsenic, according to the state data.
“Here we are in the 21st century in the great state of California, one of the largest economies in the world, and people do not have water running in their homes.” While the state has made progress in getting clean, safe drinking water to rural residents, Felicia Marcus, chair of California’s Water Resources Control Board, says there’s more to do.
Although more than a million residents are estimated to be affected by contaminated water, it’s not something on the minds of those living in California’s urban centers.
In Oakvale Park, Juana Gonzalez helps some of her less fortunate neighbors by giving them a ride to the nearest place to buy water.

2017 PRNDI Entry – Continuing Coverage: Toxic Water: PFC Contamination in Southern New Hampshire.
Entry note: An audio montage of this submission is featured below, in addition to individual stories.
In March of 2016, officials in Merrimack, New Hampshire learned a multi-national plastics plant may have contaminated the region’s drinking water.
Since then, NHPR’s Emily Corwin has covered incremental updates such as state-funded blood testing and new federal health advisories; she’s investigated the use of likely toxic perfluorichemical replacements at the plant; and told the stories of residents, some of whom fear their drinking water has already made them sick.
Scientific studies have shown links between perfluorichemicals (or "PFCs") and a variety of cancers, and the EPA has advised companies to stop using certain types of them.
Nevertheless, these chemicals remain unregulated by the federal government, and health officials in New Hampshire continue to tell residents the chemicals’ effects are not yet known.
Listen to a montage of Emily’s reporting: Water contamination features and interviews: 3.10.16: DES Criticized For Understating Health Risks Of Merrimack Water Contaminant 5.6.16: In Addition To Saint-Gobain, 43 Companies In N.H. Have Used Perfluorinated Chemicals 5.19.16: EPA Announces Lifetime PFOA and PFOS Advisory Level 5.23.16: Connecting The Dots: PFOA, Congress And The EPA 5.31.16 Emergency Rule Means N.H. Can Regulate PFOA and PFOS 6.7.16: U.S. Companies Replace Teflon Toxin With Chemical Cousin.
Is It Safe?
6.24.16 Merrimack Town Councilor Calls Water District’s Communication "Inept" 8.16.16: Last Chance To Weigh In On N.H.’s ‘Teflon Toxin’ Drinking Water Standard 8.24.16: Likely State Water Standards Not Safe Enough, Says Harvard Research Fellow

Families on edge over water contamination at former New Hampshire air base.
Photo Credit: Elise Amendola/AP None of the three women can definitely say the exposure has been linked to health problems.
Still, they wonder whether their children’s frequent fevers and infection might suggest the chemicals are affecting their immune systems.
He’s active.
More worrisome, they said, is what the future holds for their children, since the chemicals can remain in the body for years.
"My concern is that their long-term health will be impacted by this significant exposure that they had as small children," said Amico, whose two children attend a Pease day care and have elevated PFC levels.
Prompted by an EPA advisory issued last year, the Air Force has investigated 190 bases for foam contamination and is treating groundwater or bringing in water at 20 bases, including Pease — a number that could grow.
Since 2015, New Hampshire health officials have tested the blood of more than 1,500 people — including 366 children — who worked on or lived near Pease or attended day care there.
It also found that children’s levels of some PFCs were twice as high as those in a 2012 study in Texas that examined 300 children; Dalton’s son had levels four times higher.
And several studies from the C8 Science Panel found links between exposure to PFOA and several types of cancers.

Drinking water is contaminated in some parts of Whidbey Island.
WHIDBEY ISLAND, Wash. — The water that’s flowing through some parts of Whidbey Island is contaminated.
But it was only recently that Hovland, of Coupeville, learned her drinking water tested high for PFAS, a chemical compound found in firefighting foam and now linked to certain cancers.
The Navy has been using the foam since the 1980s.
You need to have the Adobe Flash Player to view this content.
“If it comes in above the advisory level of 70 parts per trillion, then the Navy is going to provide drinking water,” Welding said.
“When you are worried, very, very worried, you don’t have room for anger yet,” Hovland said.
Several years ago, Hovland says her husband was diagnosed with prostate and bladder cancer; now she wonders if their drinking water is to blame.
The Navy says they are largely phasing out the use of the firefighting foam as they continue to test more areas for contamination.
“The Navy is concerned about their health, too, that’s why we have gone out and done this testing,” Welding said.

So far, the military’s cleanup costs have reached into the tens of millions of dollars, and the contamination has initiated widespread concerns about potential health effects.
Sen. Casey’s language, inserted into the 2017 defense appropriations bill, appears to require the secretary of defense, within 120 days of passage, to provide a report to Congress updating them on the department’s progress.
“The language makes clear that PFCs have adverse impacts on public health and directs the Department of Defense to report to Congress on: One, the number of military installations where the fire-fighting foam was used and two, the impact of contaminated drinking water on communities around these sites,” read a press release announcing the language.
While the Department of Defense has already stated where it believes foams have been used, the speed of cleanup has irked communities such as those in Bucks and Montgomery counties, where pollution from the chemicals continues to flow unimpeded from groundwater at the Horsham Air Guard Station into area waterways.
The defense appropriations bill determines the annual military budget, and this year’s version is already delayed, with the military still operating on 2016 appropriation levels.
Last year, Sen. Casey attempted to insert an amendment into the authorization act that would have required the military to, upon discovery of a contamination at a base, notify local residents and provide them with an alternative drinking water source within 15 days, develop a remediation plan within 45 days, and provide a public status report every 45 days.
However, the amendment ultimately did not survive the budgeting process.
“We worked pretty diligently with a number of Senate offices … it’s very rare to have something like this happen,” Rhoads said.
Two things the language does not include are a requirement for the military to provide funding for blood tests for those exposed to the chemicals, and a health study to determine whether or not residents were made ill. “Senator Casey continues to believe that (the Department of Defense, EPA and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) should work together to make available health studies and monitoring for affected communities,” a press release from Casey’s office stated.
Enjoying our content?

(Slide through timeline for more information on the lead problem on campus) The issue of water contaminated with lead coming from Sacramento State’s drinking fountains and faucets goes back longer than the university had previously indicated, and a second phase of testing is set to begin.
Foran said he does not know what happened to the water sources in the Children’s Center, as he was told by the university that University Enterprises, Inc. — not Sac State — owns the Children’s Center, and would not allow Foran’s group to return, though he was told they would remediate the situation.
27 water sources were above 15 parts per billion, which is the EPA action level, meaning they legally must be shut off.
Additionally, the university sent out an email last week saying that after recent testing, all food establishments on campus have water sources under the EPA action level, but the final report on specific lead amounts have not come back.
Foran said the only responsible standard to use in his view is the California Public Health Goal, .2 ppb.
That’s a pretty big leap.” According to Foran, knowing where the untested sources are isn’t easy because the testing group was never provided with a comprehensive list of water sources on campus in the first place; the group made one on its own, and suspected it to be incomplete from the beginning.
When the testing group arrived there, it was told by officials that the suite dorm rooms could not be tested because residents were currently living there.
Sac State, under the direction of Parker, is choosing not to do so just yet without more comprehensive water testing.
Parker said at the time of the hiring that her goal was “using all professional standards in the profession of sampling, for occupational exposure, to make a definitive determination of what the water levels are first.” Foran believes that this step being taken by Parker and the university is unnecessary for multiple reasons.
“To me, the bigger issue here is that there are something on the order of almost 380 fountains and faucets on this campus that have lead concentrations above the California Public Health Goal,” Foran said.

NBC Bay Area The latest data from California’s Water Resources Control Board show 700,000 Californians are currently being exposed to contaminated water at home or at school.
In addition to those with contaminated water, another 3,511 California households reported having wells that are still dry according to state data released in January, 2017.
“We found that the majority of those drought impacted public water systems were serving disadvantaged communities.” Five years ago Jerry Brown signed legislation making California the first state in the nation to declare that access to clean, safe drinking water is a fundamental human right.
“They’re all in crisis,” Firestone said.
Having toxic water coming out of your tap, not being able to access water in schools, this is really basic.” State data shows 292 different California water systems currently contain levels of contaminants so high they violate safe drinking water standards.
“I think a lot of people forget that.” Tulare County resident Esperanza Venegas remembers when the well providing water for her family dried up last year.
In unincorporated East Porterville, thousands of residents have had no running water for nearly three years.
Though local and state officials recently began connecting some East Porterville residents to a nearby public water system, there are about 800 eligible homes still waiting to be hooked up.
"The public water systems have a lot of local control over the sources of water and how they manage it.
“We’ve got to be thinking about it if our goal is to get clean, safe and affordable drinking water to all Californians.” None of these efforts can come fast enough for residents struggling to get by with dry taps or contaminated water.

$6.5M sought to treat Hyannis water contaminants.
A vote will be taken at the Barnstable Town Council meeting Thursday on whether to appropriate $6.5 million to purchase, design and construct a carbon treatment system at the Maher wellfield on Old Yarmouth Road.
When testing to find a solution effective for treating 1,4-dioxane is complete, another appropriation to construct that treatment system will be brought before the council.
"We really don’t have a choice.
Unfortunately we’re at a place where we have a lot of issues because the area has become highly developed."
The water contamination at the Maher wells is not part of the town’s lawsuit against Barnstable County, in which it contends the chemicals entered some of the wells servicing Hyannis after firefighting foams were used at the Barnstable County Fire and Rescue Training Academy.
Water typically provided to Hyannis residents from the Maher wells is being blended with water provided through an interconnect with the Yarmouth water system at a cost of nearly $1.25 million per year.
"There is a cost savings associated with constructing the carbon treatment unit," Santos said.
The permanent interconnect with Yarmouth will stay active in the event that either town needs to access the other’s water supply, according to Santos.
A health advisory warning pregnant women, nursing mothers and infants not to drink the water in Hyannis was in effect from late May until early July 2016, after the EPA lowered its advisory threshold for perfluorinated compounds.

Town will test water at Folly Cove for possible contamination.
ROCKPORT — The Board of Health will conduct additional water quality testing on its septic system this summer to ensure there is no contamination in wetlands and tidelands near Folly Cove.
“I am concerned about possible contamination of nearby wetlands and tidelands,” said Bill Thoms in a statement to the board at its Jan. 31 meeting.
Thoms lives on Washington Street, within the watershed area that drains into the ocean at Folly Cove.
He also asked for testing in the nearby seawater in Folly Cove.
The board agreed to have the water tested in the cove as well as the streams in that area.
“That’s why at a time of high rain fall we’ll sometimes close the beach for two days.” The Board of Health regularly tests beaches and public swimming areas in town; Thoms, however, is asking for testing in an area that is not a public swimming area.
“Testing should include measurement of fecal coliform, Enterococci, and E. coli bacteria,” he wrote.
Results will be available to the public on the town website.
Those 50 houses weren’t connected to the town sewer system because of cost, according to Wedmore.