Ketchikan beaches remain contaminated with fecal bacteria.
The southeast Alaska beaches found to be contaminated earlier this month have again tested positive for high levels of a wastewater and sewage pathogen.
The continued contamination has state officials taking a closer look at the water to determine the cause, The Ketchikan Daily News reported (http://bit.ly/2xJDxMV ) on Saturday.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation is working to determine if the fecal bacteria are coming from wildlife, pets or humans.
If the contamination is coming from humans, it could be due to leaking sewer lines, private and municipal waste-treatment systems or boats moored in local harbors, according to the department.
Test results are expected in mid-September.
Seaport Beach, Rotary Beach, Thomas Basin and Knudson Cove are the recently tested beaches that showed continued high levels of the bacteria.
Contact with water contaminated with the bacteria can cause stomach aches, diarrhea and infections.
Officials warn against swimming in the water while it is contaminated.
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Site lets residents check on water quality.
@ClevelandTinker A database that monitors contaminants flowing from public water treatment plants can be helpful and confusing to those who use it to determine the quality of their drinking water.
The database shows the detected contaminants in a water source and compares them to state, national and health guidelines.
The database suggests Gainesville Regional Utilities’ Murphree Water Treatment Plant, which serves more than 181,000 people, has a presence of trihalomethanes above “health guidelines,” and cites the California assessment draft.
“But that’s not the case because though the database says GRU has trihalomethanes above health guidelines, the levels of the contaminant is well below the EPA guidelines, and that is very important.
He said the bottled-water industry is not as regulated as public water treatment plants.
According to the EWG database, the High Springs Water Treatment Plant is the only water system out of 15 in Alachua County that doesn’t meet federal health-based drinking water standards.
Four contaminants — chromium, haloacetic acids, radiological contaminants and trihalomethanes — were detected in High Springs’ drinking water with levels above federal health guidelines.
“They (EPA guidelines) are not purely based on a health value,” Leiba said.
EPA regulations have not kept up with the latest science, Leiba said, and the EWG database shows there are more than 160 chemicals detected in U.S. water supply for which the EPA has not set a regulatory limit.

Tasman District Council to bore into water contamination risk at Motueka.
Up to 2000 private bores in Motueka are likely to be inspected in the wake of the 2016 campylobacter outbreak in Havelock North.
The Havelock North water supply sources water from the Te Mata aquifer, which was thought to be confined.
Stage one of a Government inquiry into the incident found that the aquifer was not fully confined, as assumed, and that surface/shallow groundwater was percolating into the lower aquifer.
One of those recommendations was to undertake a risk assessment of the private water bores in Motueka.
Included in the risk assessment resolution was a statement that it should have "recommendations to ensure a secure urban water supply for Motueka".
"This is going to cause a lot of concern among the residents of Motueka who are on private bores," Ogilvie said.
"I can see no real reason for what is implied here, for the whole town to be reticulated because of a potential contamination."
"We do have an aquifer there, there’s a whole lot of bores intersecting that aquifer – potential points of contamination – and we’re raising that with you," Kirby said.
After the meeting, Schruer said there was no budget for the work and he would aim to get the project into the Long Term Plan 2018-28, which meant the funding could be in place after July 2018.

CLEVELAND, Ohio – A national, non-profit health research and advocacy organization released a report this week that found widespread contamination of drinking water in Cleveland and throughout Ohio.
The Environmental Working Group determined that, in 2015, virtually every large water system in Ohio produced tap water with detectable levels of the same seven or eight contaminants that exceeded health guidelines, but not federal standards.
EWG obtained its health guidelines from the latest state and federal scientific research, as well as from health and environmental agencies and EWG’s own research, said David Andrews, a senior scientist at EWG.
Nearly all of the contaminants listed by EWG are byproducts of chlorine and other disinfectants used in the treatment process that water systems typically use to purify their raw water from natural sources.
All of the contaminants are legal, as there have been no additions to the nation’s list of regulated chemicals since 1996, the EWG said.
Chromium remains a problem in much of the nation’s drinking water, including Ohio, according to the latest EWG report.
All Ohio public water systems are in compliance for chromium federal standards, Lee said.
He noted that all of the Cleveland Water department’s 1.3 million customers receive drinking water that meets or exceeds all state and federal standards established by the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Ohio EPA.
"EWG recommends that you drink filtered tap water," Andrews said.
EWG’s drinking water quality database includes nearly 30 million test results for 502 contaminants.

Atlanta Tap Water Has Contaminants, Advocacy Group Says.
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has created a database that shows what contaminants are in tap water, based on ZIP code.
After analyzing test results from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the group concluded that Atlanta’s tap water meets environmental legal limits, but could still be harmful.
Capp said the EPA tries to set achievable standards for the quality of tap water, taking into account access states have to technology and other water management resources.
They don’t set standards that are unachievable," Capp said.
Disinfection byproducts are one of the contaminants found in Atlanta’s tap water.
"The disinfection is necessary to ensure that you kill any microbial contamination, but at the same time, it’s an indication, often, of upstream pollution," Andrews said.
"It’s an elevated risk and as a concentration increases, that level of risk increases.
Andrews recommends Americans filter their tap water with a simple water filtration system with contaminant levels where they are.
Capp said the tap water in Atlanta is fine to drink on its own.

A consultant hired by the city of Joplin will soon do a preliminary test of water discharged by the Turkey Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant to test for zinc and cadmium contamination.
A test is to be conducted to see if the city can persuade the Missouri Department of Natural Resources to make allowances for the limitations it wants to set on zinc and cadmium contamination of water released from the plant as part of a renewed operating permit for the plant.
The city’s former public works director, Nick Heatherly, said in March the city needed to resolve the issue of whether Turkey Creek water itself adds to the city’s discharge levels of the metals.
Public works officials for the city believe the contamination comes from the inflow and infiltration of surface water into the sanitary sewer system.
As part of the city’s disaster recovery, it also has been examining sewer lines for unused connections left open by buildings and houses destroyed by the 2011 tornado and closing them.
Those open connections allow more seepage of rainwater into the sewer system.
The city also has completed $26 million worth of construction at the Turkey Creek plant as well as the city’s second treatment plant, Shoal Creek Wastewater Plant.
But agency officials agreed at a meeting with city officials in April to allow the city to commission water testing to determine the natural occurring levels of contamination in the water upstream from the sewer plant before finalizing the permit, according to city documents.
The initial test will be done by collecting treated water discharged by the plant that is not mixed with creek water from upstream.
Water discharge About 7 million gallons of water are treated at the Turkey Creek plant on a normal day, but that amount can increase to 15 million to 20 million gallons during heavy rains.

Pasco testing well water around massive sinkhole for contamination.
LAND O’ LAKES, Fla. — On Monday, Pasco County officials started testing the water near that massive sinkhole that opened up on Friday in Land ‘O Lakes.
Neighbors say they are worried that whatever made its way into that hole and down to the water table might be contaminating their water supply.
Their test radius spread out beyond the nine houses in the immediate area of the massive sinkhole.
“I think I’m going to be in trouble,” said Emily Geldbaugh, whose house is right next door to the collapsed homes.
Geldbaugh is concerned about her water, not just because of the proximity.
“I’m right beside that house.
The problem with getting the power turned back on to test the water is that officials have to replace at least three power poles affected by the sinkhole.
But if they come back positive they say they would then widen that circle and continue testing to see just how far any contamination may have reached.
Officials say they were more concerned about E. coli than fuel or other potential contaminants seeping into the well water.

The Air Force has built a $2.7 million water treatment facility at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to scrub contaminants from two drinking wells at the sprawling base.
BARRIE BARBER/STAFF
Two tainted drinking water wells that serve thousands at Wright-Patterson started pumping water in June after a more than year-long shut down, an environmental official says.
The latest drinking water samples pumped out of the two tainted wells show the treated water has nearly “non detectable” indicators of contaminants typically found in firefighting foam, according to Raymond F. Baker, 88th Civil Engineer Group branch chief.
Two groundwater production wells in Area A exceed U.S. Environmental Protection Agency health advisory limits of 70 parts per trillion for lifetime exposure to perfluooctanoic acid, or PFOA, and perfluoroctanesulfonic acid, or PFOS, results show.
Before treatment, one well show contaminant levels around 700 parts per trillion and the second at about 200 parts per trillion, Baker said Thursday.
Wright-Patterson started pumping drinking water out of the wells on June 2., he said.
The base has four additional drinking wells in Area B. Wright-Patterson has an estimated 27,000 employees.
The Ohio EPA has had concerns a groundwater contamination plume could reach seven city of Dayton water production wells at Huffman Dam near the military installation.
In June, the city tested groundwater monitoring wells on the site which showed contamination levels were below the EPA threshold of 70 parts per trillion, she said in an email Thursday.

Moorestown seeks assistance in tracking down cause of water contamination.
Council unanimously approved a resolution to put out a request for qualifications from firms specializing in cost recovery services for water treatment improvements.
For years the township has been working to address the issue after the discovery of the chemical compound trichloropropane — also known as 1,2,3-TCP — in two of its wells in 2013 as part of an EPA program monitoring unregulated contaminants.
In Moorestown, the contamination led to the shutdown of two wells in October 2014 and forced the township to spend millions on buying extra water from New Jersey American Water as well as developing and installing a temporary filtration system at the North Church Street water treatment plant.
With the system in place the township was able to reopen one of the two wells in March and continues to monitor the water for contaminants.
"They would put together all the costs and they would go after those who caused the issue in the first place," he continued.
"That would include the cost of New Jersey Amercian Water purchases we’ve made, plus all the recovery costs for the interim treatment and final treatment."
Township Manager Thomas Merchel said the municipality is working with the state Department of Environmental Protection on the matter.
He added the firm chosen will likely have a team in place that specializes in these investigations and would be hired on a contingency basis.
Prior to selecting a firm, a committee, which has yet to be formed, will go over the proposals and make a recommendation to the full council.

The majority of residents in the San Joaquin Valley rely on groundwater for some or all of their drinking water, and many California groundwater basins are contaminated with a mix of manmade and naturally occurring toxicants.
California set the drinking water standard for nitrate in 1962 and has regulated water quality since 1969.
The San Joaquin Valley is particularly hard hit by nitrate: 63 percent of the state’s public water systems that report violations of health standards for the contaminant in 2015 were in the Valley.
"Nitrate is the most critical, the most immediate contaminant in the San Joaquin Valley," Harter says.
State regulators are in the second year of a program to help keep agricultural nitrate out of groundwater in the Central Valley.
Other major human sources of groundwater contaminants in the San Joaquin Valley include pesticides that are banned but still linger in the environment.
The San Joaquin Valley has three of the four California counties with the highest DBCP levels, which are triple that deemed to be safe by the state.
In 2015, 60 percent of the state’s public water systems reporting health violations for arsenic were in the Valley, and Madera County drinking water has the highest levels of arsenic statewide.
He only found out when he started working as policy director at the Community Water Center, which advocates for safe drinking water in the San Joaquin Valley, and he realized his town was one that had found the contaminant in its drinking water.
"We don’t know how air pollution impacts the body differently from water pollution or how multiple effects work out," Capitman says.