Water Works won’t appeal lawsuit, calls for bold laws.
DES MOINES — The Des Moines Water Works will not appeal a decision in a landmark Federal Clean Water case, the utility announced Wednesday morning.
The United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa issued its ruling on March 17, dismissing all of Des Moines Water Works’ claims against the boards of supervisors in Sac, Buena Vista and Calhoun counties.
If the federal guys wanted to trump Iowa law, that would have probably been their only option to keep the suit going.
The lawsuit called for the drainage districts to take all necessary actions to comply with the Clean Water Act.
Water quality is an issue that we take very seriously, and the conclusion of the lawsuit will not change that,” said Bill Stowe, CEO of Des Moines Water Works.
The risks remain and demand immediate accountability to protect our state.” Stowe claims that the ruling dismissing the case did not dispute the assertion that drainage districts cause water quality problems in the river watershed.
Stowe added, “Policy and law must keep pace as public health and water quality concerns demonstrate both risk and cost to water consumers; that includes 100-year-old Iowa Code dealing with drainage districts and implementation of the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy.” The Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy estimates that 92 percent of nitrate in Iowa’s water comes from unregulated sources, namely agriculture, and 8 percent from regulated sources, such as sewer systems, Stowe said.
“We hope that, rather than wasting valuable time and resources crafting legislation designed to punish Des Moines Water Works for filing the lawsuit, our legislators can create bold laws that address water pollution,” Stowe said.
“I can only speak for the farmer side of it.

Water scarcity.
Although water is one of the basic necessities, in Pakistan around 38.5 million people have no access to clean and safe drinking water.
Water unfit for consumption has been a never-ending problem in the country’s slums and underdeveloped areas.
However, now, the same problem has swiftly penetrated in big cities.
The country’s federal capital, Islamabad, also faces the problem of the water scarcity.
A large number of people can be seen at filtration plants queued with bottles in hands.
The CDA has established around 38 filtration plants at different parts of the city, but most of them are either out of order or have become a source of contaminated water because of the lack of care.
According to the director general of the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR), Lubna Bukhari, regular chlorination is required at filtration plants to keep water clean, but the same is not implemented by the CDA.
These can, however, be prevented if people consume boiled water.
The CDA is urged to take necessary steps to maintain the water filtration plants to avoid water borne diseases and to provide safe and pure drinking water to the people of city.

You’ve no doubt heard it before: "L.A.’s water is terrible."
Usually, it’s a transplant throwing the shade, complaining that the water in their [insert home city] is "so much cleaner."
Well, now there’s a little science to throw back at all the L.A. water haters: tap water in Los Angeles is just as clean and healthy — if not better—than bottled water, or filtered water, says the LADWP.
The department’s annual Drinking Water Quality report has been released, detailing the city’s tap water.
What’s more, at half a cent per gallon, it’s a whole lot cheaper, too.
The improved taste and quality of our fair city’s drinking water is a result of a change in how we treat it.
Let’s back up: this is not to say all of Los Angeles’ water is zapped by UV light, or currently goes un-chlorinated or un-ammoniated.
We can say, however, that a second UV light treatment plant will be opening up in Granada Hills by 2020, further changing the ratio.
"LADWP’s major efforts to comply with these regulations include addressing its three remaining open reservoirs, enhancing the city’s water supply disinfection system with UV treatment, and changing the distribution system disinfectant from chlorine to chloramine."
Both chlorine and chloramine are approved disinfectants for use in drinking water by the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the California Department of Health."

A local environmental group is taking the fight against water pollution straight to Long Islanders’ lawns through a new “I Love Long Island” campaign meant to curb the use of potentially harmful high-nitrogen fertilizers.
The ambitious project, spearheaded by the nonprofit Grassroots Environmental Education, coincides with Earth Day, which is on April 22.
The site provides educational material about certain lawn products and encourages people to sign a pledge to refrain from using fertilizers containing 10 percent nitrogen or more on their property.
Part of the problem is people are constantly seeking “that perfect lawn…but they don’t realize there’s a payment for this,” he said, adding that stormwater runoff can lead to contaminated drinking water, algae blooms and fish kills.
Wood sees an opportunity in changing people’s habits toward how they treat their lawns.
Along with launching the new website, GEE is creating 500 “I Love Long Island” lawn signs that will be ready for distribution on Earth Day, and he commissioned a short video explaining the potential dangers associated with high-nitrogen products.
While nitrogen produced by wastewater has been blamed for threatening protective marshlands, experts also point to other pollutants and fertilizer as possible factors of environmental degradation.
Wood acknowledges that many homeowners are simply unaware about the effects of high-nitrogen products, and he’s sympathetic to landscapers who understand potential consequences but are “kind of forced by the market to use these chemicals.” He also understands that the higher price tag associated with organic fertilizers can be a deterrent.
“I’m not trying to take business away from anybody…I’d like to see everyone do well,” he said.
In the past, Wood’s organization has trained more than 1,000 landscapers in the science of lawn care, and was hired by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation to train school facility directors on the topic.

Kelsey Kremer/The Register Des Moines Water Works will not appeal a federal judge’s decision to dismiss the utility’s lawsuit against 10 northern Iowa drainage districts over high nitrate levels in the Raccoon River. The Water Works Board of Trustees unanimously made the decision Tuesday, ending a more-than-two-year legal battle. “Central Iowa will continue to be burdened with expensive, serious and escalating water pollution problems,” Water Works CEO Bill Stowe said in a news release. “The lawsuit was an attempt to protect our ratepayers, whose public health and quality of life continue to be impacted by unregulated industrial agriculture.” Des Moines Water Works filed a federal lawsuit in March 2015, claiming drainage districts in Sac, Buena Vista and Calhoun counties were funneling high levels of nitrates into the Raccoon River, a source of drinking water for 500,000 central Iowa residents. The board agreed to spend $1.35 million to pursue the lawsuit. “The board views these resources would be better spent finding other avenues to pursue environmental protection rather than legal action, like trying to affect public policy through lobbying,” Stowe said. The lawsuit contended that drainage tiles used to make farmland more productive were short-circuiting natural conditions that otherwise keep nitrates from entering streams and rivers. The utility sought damages and penalties for the costs it incurred removing nitrates from central Iowa drinking water. Water Works said it spent $1.2 million to operate its nitrate removal equipment in 2015. It also sought to have…

How a Judge Scrapped Pennsylvania Families’ $4.24M Water Pollution Verdict in Gas Drilling Lawsuit.
In a 58 page ruling, Magistrate Judge Martin C. Carlson discarded the jury’s verdict in Ely v. Cabot and ordered a new trial, extending the legal battle over one of the highest-profile and longest-running fracking-related water contamination cases in the country.
John-Mark Stensvaag, an environmental law professor at the University of Iowa, said that orders to re-try cases “are not as rare as one might think.” “This does not mean that the plaintiffs have no case,” he added, “it only means that, in [Judge Carlson’s] opinion, they have not presented a case justifying the jury’s verdict and should be given a second opportunity to present an adequate case.” Carter Road Water Contamination There’s little question that something is very wrong with the water on Carter Road, despite lingering questions in the legal battles centering around that contaminated water.
Indeed, on New Year’s Day 2009, one of Dimock’s contaminated drinking water wells did explode.
In 2010, the state’s Department of Environmental Protection concluded that Cabot’s drilling operations had contaminated the drinking water supplies of 19 homes in Dimock and reached an agreement with Cabot requiring the company to pay out $4.6 million over the harm to the families’ wells.
Throughout EPA’s work in Dimock, the Agency has used the best available scientific data to provide clarity to Dimock residents and address their concerns about the safety of their drinking water.” A PowerPoint presentation obtained by DeSmog and published in 2013 shows that EPA scientists had concluded there was a definitive link between the drilling in the area and water contamination.
That presentation was barred from being entered into evidence by Judge Carlson, despite the plaintiffs’ request to present it to the jury.
Evidence Catch-22 An underlying theme of the case for the plaintiffs’ attorney Lewis and her clients has centered around a struggle over the evidence the plaintiffs could present to the jury, which has come back to haunt them with the recent ruling by Judge Carlson.
Ely, the lead plaintiff at the trial, also said he was harassed by McAleer in a sworn testimony exhibited as part of the same June 2016 court filing submitted to the court by Lewis and Radow.
As a result of McAleer’s conduct, Judge Carlson ordered the jury to be placed under escort by federal marshals when they entered and left the courthouse during the remainder of the trial.

KMC to install water meters in households of Wards 1-6.
The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) will install water meters in every household in Wards 1 to 6 respectively in North Kolkata to assess wastage of drinking water.
The funding agencies like Asian Development Bank had suggested imposition of water tax in the city.
Banerjee said not only would water tax not be imposed but also stressed that supply of filtered water would be augmented.
Accordingly, the KMC took steps to augment water supply.
So, wastage of water will be stopped.
A senior civic official said that when roadside taps were there in the city, nearly 10 million gallon of filtered water was wasted daily.
After the abolition of roadside taps, the wastage has been reduced to a great extent.
Once the KMC has this figured, it will be easier to stop the wastage.
He said that in the next few years, there would be no water scarcity in the city including some pockets where there is a shortage for various reasons.

This invention can turn seawater into drinking water.
(Web Desk) – Researchers have created a ‘graphene sieve’ that removes salt from seawater, providing clean drinking water for millions of people who struggle to access adequate clean water sources.
Graphene is the world’s thinnest material, a layer of pure carbon that is incredibly strong.
A team at Manchester University in the UK made an oxidized membrane with tiny holes.
Water can flow through it freely but salt can’t.
Professor Rahul Nair, at The University of Manchester said: “Realisation of scalable membranes with uniform pore size down to atomic scale is a significant step forward and will open new possibilities for improving the efficiency of desalination technology.
“This is the first clear-cut experiment in this regime.
We also demonstrate that there are realistic possibilities to scale up the described approach and mass produce graphene-based membranes with required sieve sizes.” It is hoped the technology will revolutionize water filtration as current desalination is extremely energy intensive and expensive.
Cheap seawater filtration would provide safe drinking water for millions of people.
It is hoped that graphene-oxide membrane systems can be built on smaller scales making this technology accessible to countries which do not have the financial infrastructure to fund large plants without compromising the yield of fresh water produced.

Boil-Water Advisory Issued for Southwest Shirley.
The Suffolk County Water Authority has issued a boil-water advisory for the next 48 hours for southwest Shirley following a water main break on William Floyd Parkway and an extended shutdown of the water main serving this area.
Harmful microbes in drinking water can cause diarrhea, cramps, nausea, headaches, or other symptoms and may pose a special health risk for infants, some elderly, and people with severely compromised immune systems.
But these symptoms are not just caused by microbes in drinking water.
If any of these symptoms are experienced and they persist, medical advice should be sought.
Door-to-door notifications are being conducted in the area roughly south of Fawn Place and west of William Floyd Parkway, and also on a number of streets just to the east of William Floyd Parkway.
Water samples are being collected to ensure the safety of water supplied to the area as a precaution.
For more information, residents are advised to call the Suffolk County Water Authority Call Center at 631-698-9500.
The Suffolk County Water Authority is an independent public-benefit corporation operating under the authority of the Public Authorities Law of the State of New York.
Serving approximately 1.2 million Suffolk County residents, the Authority operates without taxing power on a not-for-profit basis.

jmcmenemy@seacoastonline.com @JeffreyMcMenemy PORTSMOUTH — Sens.
Jeanne Shaheen, D-NH, and Rob Portman, R-Ohio, are introducing bipartisan legislation aimed at improving federal efforts to identify the public health effects of emerging contaminants, such as the PFCs that contaminated a city-owned well at the former Pease Air Force Base.
Shaheen noted that PFCs and other emerging contaminants – like cyanotoxins – are increasingly being detected in drinking water around the country.
A state Department of Environmental Services official listed a number of health effects — including cancer — he says are associated with exposure to PFOS and PFOA in drinking water.
The legislation, according to Shaheen, will: • Direct the EPA to create a program to provide federal support and technical assistance to communities with emerging contaminants in their water.
• Direct the EPA and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to convene an interagency working group to “improve federal efforts to identify and respond to emerging contaminants.
• Compel the Office of Science and Technology Policy to develop an “interagency federal research strategy to improve the identification, analysis and treatment of emerging contaminants.” Portsmouth resident Andrea Amico, who led the successful fight to get anyone exposed to PFCs at the Pease International Tradeport to have their blood tested, said she is “really excited to learn about the proposed legislation by Sen. Shaheen focusing on emerging contaminants.” “I think communities like Pease will benefit from this legislation because it takes a more proactive approach to addressing emerging contaminants,” Amico said Monday.
Amico also wants the EPA to set health advisories for all the PFCs, not just PFOS and PFOA and hopes Shaheen’s bill will inspire them to do that.
“It puts some money into it, it puts some force behind it.” Messmer, who is one of the founders of the New Hampshire Safe Water Alliance, added that her group “applauds Sen. Shaheen for introducing legislation that would improve the state and federal response to emerging contaminants.” “NHSWA was founded to advocate for safe drinking water across New Hampshire where contaminants such as PFCs and 1,4-dioxane threaten the drinking and surface water resources of many cities and towns,” Messmer said.
“NHSWA feels that this proactive legislation is a critical step in protecting our drinking water and reducing chronic illness.” Portman, in a statement Monday, said the legislation will improve federal efforts to identify the health impacts of unregulated contaminants found in our drinking water sources.”