Hamtramck issues boil-water alert.
The city of Hamtramck issued a boil-water alert Tuesday night after the city said the water system lost pressure and “contamination may have occurred.” “Due to a drop in pressure in the city of Hamtramck water supply, bacterial contamination may have occurred in the water system,” a notice on its Facebook page said.
“Bacteria are generally not harmful and are common throughout our environment.
Corrective measures are currently being undertaken to correct the situation.” The city warned residents not to drink the water and recommended using bottled water or tap water that is boiled first.
“Bring all water to a boil, let it boil for one minute, and let it cook before using,” the Facebook post said.
The city said it was working with the Great Lakes Water Authority to restore pressure and “water staff” will take remedial action such as flushing and collecting samples to determine if the water quality meets state drinking water standards.
The boil-water advisory will remain in effect until sampling finds the water is safe, the city said.
The water authority, the city said, estimates the issue will be resolved by Friday morning.
Call the city’s Public Services Department at (313) 800-5233 with questions.

More than four years after a WPX Energy Appalachia wastewater impoundment leaked and contaminated the drinking water of five Westmoreland County families, the shale gas company has agreed to pay the state a $1.2 million penalty.
But the families still don’t have sufficient, permanent water supplies, said Melissa Marshall, community advocate for the Mountain Watershed Association, an environmental organization.
It is next to Donegal Lake, which drains into Loyalhanna Creek, a tributary of the Allegheny River.
“We quickly worked to rectify the situation from its onset, immediately emptying and ultimately closing a containment pond for recycled water as soon as we became aware of potential issues,” Mr. Swan said.
“Importantly, no individual’s health was ever at risk even by the most stringent state and EPA standards,” he said.
The company also installed single-faucet water filtration systems in the five homes, but according to Ms. Marshall, those systems don’t provide enough water.
The families, who live near Stahlstown, must supplement the filtered water with bottled water.
“The filtration systems are completely insufficient in providing for the water needs of the families, and that’s been true for years,” Ms. Marshall said.
This settlement doesn’t help the residents, who are still in dire need.” She said DEP consent orders issued over the past three years requiring WPX to replace the permanent residential water supplies don’t specify the amounts of water the company needs to provide, and the filtration systems the company installed in the five residences don’t come close to meeting the families’ needs.
“My interview notes say that on the high end, one family estimated the reverse osmosis system made three gallons every six hours.

Citizens Campaign unveils map of 1,4-Dioxane water contamination.
According to their recent evaluation of public water suppliers across Long Island, water suppliers have reported the highest levels of 1,4-dioxane contamination in the nation.
The chemical, found in products including detergents and baby wipes, is listed as "likely to be carcinogenic to humans" by the Environmental Protection Agency.
(1:40 PM) FARMINGDALE – The Citizens Campaign for the Environment has made it easier for residents to see just how widespread the contamination of Long Island’s water is.
According to their recent evaluation of public water suppliers across Long Island, water suppliers have reported the highest levels of 1,4-dioxane contamination in the nation.
The chemical, found in products including detergents and baby wipes, is listed as "likely to be carcinogenic to humans" by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The Citizen Campaign has posted an interactive map on its website that will allow Long Islanders to view their town’s level of 1.4-dioxane in the groundwater.
"Florida has chosen the standard of 3," Esposito says.
"California has chosen the standard of 1.
She is calling on all citizens to call their representatives to outlaw products that use the chemical in an effort to prevent further contamination.

The Riskos worry that nearby development has finally caught up to them; that PFOA and PFOS have, over decades, crept down from military bases miles to the north through area waterways and infiltrated their lives through a pair of private wells the couple uses for drinking water.
The Riskos’ situation shows that concerns about PFOA and PFOS contamination reach beyond the boundary lines that the military is using to investigate the issue.
Within the boundaries, more than 200 private wells have been found to be contaminated at levels deemed unsafe, but those like Risko wonder if there are even more beyond those lines.
Just how far away are the public wells?
The military and EPA have sampled hundreds of private wells in the region, finding more than 200 have been contaminated above 70 ppt by the chemicals.
Military officials have also previously said they’re legally unable to provide remediation for wells with levels below 70 ppt, because it is the number the EPA has established as safe.
Her private well has been tested twice by the EPA; both times the chemicals were detected at about half the agency’s recommended limit.
In the second half of 2014, the military began testing public and private water wells in the region.
About two years after the test, the family is still waiting to be connected to public water.
Jones said connecting the Johnson home to public water is taking some time because it is "one of the properties that does not have a readily accessible existing water main to tap into."

Blood tests offered, no cleanup plan yet for Westhampton water contamination.
Five of them are above the EPA’s advisory level.
Five of them are above the EPA’s advisory level.
Dr. Tomarken and other officials said at the time they believed the chemicals came from the 106th Air Rescue Wing of the Air National Guard based at Gabreski Airport.
In a statement to News 12, the state Department of Health says, "The Water Quality Rapid Response Team…identified PFOS (Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid) contamination in some private wells in the Westhampton Beach area near the Gabreski Airforce base.
In addition, the DOH says it is working to identify a local laboratory that will administer the testing and should have one picked out soon.
Environmental advocates say they would like to see the contamination cleaned up as soon as possible.
"[PFOS] has been directly linked to such cancers as kidney cancer…but has also been linked to thyroid problems, hormone disruption," says Adrienne Esposito, of the Citizens Campaign for the Environment.
"It’s a serious chemical, it’s very persistent, which means it doesn’t break down in the environment or in our body, and it builds up."
Dozens of families in the community are now hooking up to the public water supply as a precaution.

Homeowners Near Westhampton Air Base Plan To Sue Suffolk County Over Drinking Water Contamination.
Those tests have always come back negative—which made it all the more surprising when they were contacted in July by Suffolk County officials who wanted to test their well water for two new chemicals, perfluorooctane sulfonate, or PFOS, and perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA.
In December, the Suffolk County Water Authority finished hooking up their home to public water at no cost.
“I had heard inklings of possible contamination at the base years ago,” Mr. Green said this week.
The contamination was announced in July when Suffolk County officials said they had detected both chemicals in testing wells at Gabreski Airport.
At the time, Suffolk Health Department officials tested the wells at 69 private homes and said they discovered contamination in eight, with levels ranging from 0.086 ppb to 1.88 ppb.
That raises additional concerns for local residents, like the Greens, who have likely been drinking contaminated water for decades.
Elizabeth and Jerome Liggon, who owned a home on Peter’s Lane on Quiogue for 10 years, said this week that they feared there were issues with their water for years, citing the high number of their neighbors who would complain about various illnesses.
According to Mr. Lanciotti, Suffolk County is currently reviewing all of the notices of claim and has requested a hearing with each individual plaintiff to review their charges and evidence filed against the county.
After the hearings are finished, Mr. Lanciotti said the county will have a chance to respond to the claims.

DENR clears Bataan plants of air, water contamination.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has revealed that there was no contamination of air and water around a power plant and fuel refinery in Limay, Bataan.
These are San Miguel Corporation’s (SMC) subsidiaries SMC Consolidated Power Corp. plant and Petron Bataan fuel Refinery’s coal-fired plant.
“The coastal water along PLT Cove was found as not contaminated with substances that could be attributed directly to Petron’s dumping of bottom ash in the area,” the DENR said.
DENR’s monitoring in January found no volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and hydrogen sulfide (H2S).
“Total suspended particulates and sulfur dioxide from air samples at the PEX site and Carbon Site were “within National Ambient Air Quality Guideline Values,” DENR – Environment Management Bureau Central Luzon said.
The DENR-EMB added that ash disposal facilities of both PLT Cove and SMC are covered in soil, compacted and sealed with water for ash dispersion and deposition prevention in near communities.
3, 550 metric tons (MT) of ash were hauled out to SMC’s Northern Cement Consolidated in Pangasinan while 7.950 MT were treated, according to data from Petron Corp. Two bottom ash dump facilities inside the Petron Bataan Refinery (PBR) complex have not been used after DENR ordered the halt of dumping activities on the site.
In 2016, residents of Limay, Bataan accused the power plants of causing health problems because of an alleged ash spill in their storage facilities.
EMB Central Luzon will continue to assess the environment quality in Limay communities.

Dartmouth College Installs ‘Pump And Treat’ System To Treat Water Contamination.
This weekend, residents of a Hanover neighborhood near a Dartmouth College hazardous waste site went to check out a system designed to clean up their groundwater.
The pump and treat system went online in early February.
It was designed specifically for the Hanover contamination of the chemical 1,4-dioxane, a probable carcinogen which has been found in local drinking water.
The chemical was left over from a mid-century hazardous waste burial site where Dartmouth research labs had previously dumped materials.
Currently, the system pumps over 1,400 gallons of contaminated ground water a day – but that will likely increase in the future.
Jim Weick is a water geologist and the manager overseeing the project.
He explained to neighbors how the $2 million system will work over the next five-plus years.
“It’s a filtration type of system,” Weick said on the Rennie Farm property recently.
“The media that is in it — a synthetic resin — passes through that material … [it] is capable of filtering out the 1,4-dioxane where it’s difficult for a lot of other media to do it.” Weick and Dartmouth are exploring the possibility of creating a second pump and treat system to mitigate the plume, which has reached about a mile away from the original waste site.

UPDATE: Boone Co. ‘Do Not Use’ water advisory lifted; Boil water advisory in effect.
UPDATE 2/18/17 @ 3:39 p.m. BOONE COUNTY, W. Va. (WSAZ) — The "Do Not Use" water notice has been lifted for West Virginia American Water customers in the Camp Creek and Julian communities.
WVAW says they have flushed the area, collected multiple samples for testing and all of those samples show no signs of an outside contaminant in the system.
The release says affected customers may resume using their water, but should boil it until further notice.
UPDATE 2/17/17 @ 11:10 p.m. BOONE COUNTY, W.Va. (WSAZ) — William Sutphin says his normal Friday went down the drain when he flushed some funky water down his.
"It was blue," Sutphin said.
Not long later, a "Do Not Use" water advisory was issued for the Camp Creek and Julian areas.
According to a release, the event is in the communities of Camp Creek and Julian.
A backflow event has occurred in the area suspected to be from blue toilet bowl cleaner from a bathroom that back flowed into the the local water distribution system.
According to release, it is not safe to use the water for any purpose.

Contamination Prompts Suffolk County Water Authority To Install New Mains In Westhampton Beach.
The water main connections will be an extension of existing pipes and will be funded entirely by the ANG, according to a letter submitted by the Suffolk County Water Authority to the Village of Westhampton Beach, though the letter did not specify how much the installation will cost.
The move is in response to the discovery of chemicals known as perfluorooctane sulfonate, or PFOS, in the groundwater.
The ANG has taken responsibility for the contamination, which most likely stems from when the facility was used as a firefighter training location that routinely used fire suppressing foam—a product known for containing the potentially hazardous chemicals.
To date, Suffolk County has found the chemicals in eight private wells and in the groundwater, though it has been treated to nonhazardous levels in the water authority system.
Last week, the Village Board unanimously voted to allow the water authority to extend the water main on Mickie’s Way to reach one of the affected homes.
Village Mayor Maria Moore said the project will not cost village taxpayers any money and that it is possible other private homeowners will be asked to allow similar projects on their streets.
Officer Promoted Westhampton Beach Village Police Officer Steven McManus has been promoted to detective.
“I want to say thank you to the chief and the Village Board for promoting me,” Det.
McManus said this week.