All schoolchildren deserve clean, safe drinking water: Connie Leyva and Eloise Gomez Reyes.
If no one tested the water, those pipes could remain in use for decades — slowly releasing dangerous lead particles into our drinking water.
Lead in drinking water can be dangerous for a person’s health, especially for young children with growing bodies and brains that are still developing.
This year, the San Ysidro School District found lead contamination in several drinking fountains at three of its local schools.
These numbers may seem small, but they represent dangerous lead levels in thousands of schoolchildren.
School districts are now able to receive free testing from their local water agency to check for lead and copper in their water.
Advertisement Earlier this year, we authored SB210 to ensure that K-12 students across California have access to clean drinking water at school.
Children spend a large part of their weekdays at school, and we are proud to stand alongside California families to make sure that our local schools are using the resources available to them to check for and fix the lead contamination that may be harming their children.
We urge you to contact your local schools and school districts where your kids attend to make sure that — if they have not already done so — they request free testing from the local water agency.
State Sen. Connie M. Leyva, D-Chino, represents the 20th Senate District.

Stuart replaced wells after EPA found too much PFOS and PFOA in drinking water.
In 2016, when the EPA recognized the chemicals’ dangers and lowered acceptable PFOS levels by 65 percent, the city closed and later replaced the wells that were contaminating the water supply to all customers, city spokesman Ben Hogarth said.
Cleaning the water Stuart’s levels meet today’s EPA standards, as they did before 2016, but they’re still higher what many experts consider safe.
Heightened exposure can cause cancer, liver damage, low birth weight and a weakened immune system, according to the EPA.
The only safe level is 1 part per trillion, said Bill Walker, an Environmental Working Group senior scientist.
That’s analogous to one square inch in 250 square miles.
The city also has allocated $600,000 in the 2017-18 proposed budget for additional water treatment that would remove these chemicals, Peters said.
Some experts caution individuals against relying on such filters, however.
"We think this is an issue that needs to be addressed on a community level, and it shouldn’t be down to the individual homeowner to remove these types of chemicals," said Andrews, the Environmental Working Group senior scientist.
Their health effects are unknown, and they’re not as easy to remove from water as PFOS and PFOA, said Phil Brown, a Northeastern University professor who co-authored a study with the Environmental Working Group on PFOS and PFOA levels in drinking water throughout the U.S. More studies Stuart’s previously high levels were cited in that study, released Thursday.

Drinking water here is safe but has dissolved minerals that are tough on plumbing, state and local officials said Thursday at a meeting with some of the 130 utility customers who raised concerns this winter about water quality.
Water from Valley’s two well fields has been hard since the day the 133-year-old utility first tapped into those sources.
Several said the water coming out of their taps is cloudy, has an off- taste and smells.
The residents said they buy and drink bottled water.
Keith Merwin of Shuttlemeadow Road said people are sick of spending money for replacement appliances and for bottled water to drink.
"It’s frustrating to hear people say that they can’t drink the water," Lori Mathieu, chief of the state health department drinking water section, said.
"I’ve lived her all my life and the water has always been hard," she said.
Options could include new treatment equipment to remove dissolved minerals from raw well water or purchase of soft surface waters from nearby water utilities to dilute Valley’s harder water.
The company will explore options to reduce levels of dissolved minerals and tell customers the findings and what the cost will be.
This particular issue would be outside the normal supervision of state utility regulators who usually set rates, Vaughn said.

Access to clean water improves health in Tanzania.
The Canadians are members of a PWRDF delegation that has come to the diocese of Masasi to learn more about All Mothers and Children Count (AMCC), a larger project that builds off work done during CHIP.
“Now, because water is here, it is easier for us now to educate people about [medical] treatment.” But having accessible water isn’t just about having water that is safe to drink.
Girls whose time might otherwise have been spent carrying water can stay in school longer, and mothers have more time to take their children to the clinic for a checkup, he notes.
Setting up a borehole is no small task.
Once the Canadian and Tanzanian governments sign off on it, the drilling can begin.
Once the borehole has been drilled, water samples are sent to a laboratory in Mtwara for testing.
If the water is deemed safe, the pump can be installed.
“You may find that work is going to take place, maybe in July or in August, but the process started last year!” says Monjesa.
“Especially for a hungry person, for a thirsty person, waiting that long period is very difficult for them.” Fortunately, according to Monjesa, all 30 of the boreholes dug as part of the CHIP program hit safe drinking water on the first try.

Access to clean water improves health in Tanzania.
The Canadians are members of a PWRDF delegation that has come to the diocese of Masasi to learn more about All Mothers and Children Count (AMCC), a larger project that builds off work done during CHIP.
“Now, because water is here, it is easier for us now to educate people about [medical] treatment.” But having accessible water isn’t just about having water that is safe to drink.
Girls whose time might otherwise have been spent carrying water can stay in school longer, and mothers have more time to take their children to the clinic for a checkup, he notes.
Setting up a borehole is no small task.
Once the Canadian and Tanzanian governments sign off on it, the drilling can begin.
Once the borehole has been drilled, water samples are sent to a laboratory in Mtwara for testing.
If the water is deemed safe, the pump can be installed.
“You may find that work is going to take place, maybe in July or in August, but the process started last year!” says Monjesa.
“Especially for a hungry person, for a thirsty person, waiting that long period is very difficult for them.” Fortunately, according to Monjesa, all 30 of the boreholes dug as part of the CHIP program hit safe drinking water on the first try.

LUVERNE — Gov.
Mark Dayton’s recent signature on a state bonding bill should pave the way for Blue Mounds State Park in Luverne to get access to a new water source, but a question remains: how long will it take?
This is the fourth summer visitors to the state park will have to rely on bottled water for drinking, cooking and handwashing — and use of the Luverne Aquatic and Fitness Center for showers — since E. coli bacteria was first discovered in the park’s water system in late May 2014.
On its website, the state park notes showers and sinks will not be turned on, and advises RV campers to fill their freshwater tanks at fill stations in Luverne or Pipestone.
Minnesota State Parks and Trails Southern Regional Manager Kathy Dummer said Thursday that water access to the park is a high priority for the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), but she doesn’t know how it ranks in the scope of all of the bonding projects that exist.
The bonding bill included $15 million for the Minnesota DNR, which Dummer noted was less than half of the governor’s request, for asset preservation projects across the state.
The state park has been in talks with Rock Rapids, Iowa-based DGR Engineering as its water woes continued, and the plan — once funding becomes available — is to connect the state park to Rock County Rural Water (RCRW), which runs approximately three miles “as the crow flies” southwest of the park, said RCRW Manager Brent Hoffmann.
“It depends what we find for rock once we get to the state park,” he said.
Dummer said the DNR will continue to work with RCRW to coordinate the water delivery project and develop a construction timeline.
At The Globe, Julie covers the agricultural beat, as well as Nobles County government, watersheds, community news and feature stories.

Changes To America’s Infrastructure Could Make Our Tap Water Unaffordable.
Now they say it got lead and stink in it (New World Water) Fluorocarbons and monoxide Push the water table lopside Used to be free now it cost you a fee Those are lyrics to a song that is 18 years old, yet prescient as ever.
In 1999, Mos Def’s “New World Water” described the dystopian, greed-driven trends in the government’s treatment of the planet and its citizens.
Referencing many of the hot-button issues popular today in discussions about climate change, the rapper now known as Yasiin Bey also touched on the privatization of the global water supply, co-opting a human right into a for-profit service.
In 2017, the state of America’s infrastructure – including its water systems – remains substandard, and with a presidential administration with apparently no regard for Earth’s rising temperatures or poor Americans’ access to clean drinking water, we have a tragic case of art imitating life on our hands.
Trump is expected to submit his official plans for the nation’s infrastructure – buildings, roads, utility supplies – this fall.
Along with things like crumbling bridges and rotting foundations, the nation’s infrastructure responsible for bringing millions of Americans tap water will likely be addressed in the literature.
Directly overseeing the organization’s Water for All campaign, Grant is critical of any politician who supports the privatization of America’s tap-water systems and warns that “it seems like the Trump administration is putting forward a plan that relies heavily on privatization of our essential infrastructure.” Inherently troubling about such a position is, of course, that privatizing infrastructure means that the bottom line becomes more important than public good – precisely the kind of ethical dilemma that led to the human-rights disaster in Flint.
“It’s a myth when you talk about privatizing infrastructure assets like water systems, and think that it’s going to reduce the cost of the service — it doesn’t, you pay more when private companies take over water systems.
They want to use their water systems as cash cows to pay for other government services,” she warns.

Story Highlights A group of students in Taiwan created popsicles out of sewage water to emphasize the need for clean water. They collected polluted water from 100 sources throughout the city. Popsicles are typically a tasty treat, but a team of students in Taiwan has used them to highlight the importance of clean water. By making them out of sewage. Operating under a name that translates to 100% Pure Sewage Ice, the group consisting of Hung I-chen, Guo Yi-hui and Cheng Yu-ti from the National Taiwan University of the Arts used polluted water from 100 sources in the…

New Report Ranks Alabama Second-Worst in Drinking Water Pollution.
Alabama has the second-highest number of water systems in the nation where contaminants called perfluorinated chemicals or PFC’s have been detected in the drinking water, according to a new report.
And for decades they were used to manufacture things like non-stick cookware and fabric stain protectors.
Alabama has 15 public water systems where the US Environmental Protection Agency has detected these toxic chemicals, plus three more sites with known contamination.
David Andrews, senior scientist with the Environmental Working Group, says Alabama’s ranking has to do with the number of contaminated water systems, related lawsuits, and media coverage of the affected communities.
“And this is partially due to the presence of a large manufacturing facility in the state,” Andrews says.
That large manufacturing facility is 3M, maker of Scotchgard and other products, which lawsuits contend is the source of contaminants in the Decatur area.
Much of the data in the report is based on EPA samples.
The EPA only issues guidelines.
So he urges residents to get their water tested through the local utilities, and to push state lawmakers to implement protections.

LUVERNE — Gov.
Mark Dayton’s recent signature on a state bonding bill should pave the way for Blue Mounds State Park in Luverne to get access to a new water source, but a question remains: how long will it take?
This is the fourth summer visitors to the state park will have to rely on bottled water for drinking, cooking and handwashing — and use of the Luverne Aquatic and Fitness Center for showers — since E. coli bacteria was first discovered in the park’s water system in late May 2014.
On its website, the state park notes showers and sinks will not be turned on, and advises RV campers to fill their freshwater tanks at fill stations in Luverne or Pipestone.
Minnesota State Parks and Trails Southern Regional Manager Kathy Dummer said Thursday that water access to the park is a high priority for the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), but she doesn’t know how it ranks in the scope of all of the bonding projects that exist.
The bonding bill included $15 million for the Minnesota DNR, which Dummer noted was less than half of the governor’s request, for asset preservation projects across the state.
The state park has been in talks with Rock Rapids, Iowa-based DGR Engineering as its water woes continued, and the plan — once funding becomes available — is to connect the state park to Rock County Rural Water (RCRW), which runs approximately three miles “as the crow flies” southwest of the park, said RCRW Manager Brent Hoffmann.
“It depends what we find for rock once we get to the state park,” he said.
Dummer said the DNR will continue to work with RCRW to coordinate the water delivery project and develop a construction timeline.
At The Globe, Julie covers the agricultural beat, as well as Nobles County government, watersheds, community news and feature stories.