Americans’ Fears About Water Pollution Hit A 16-Year High.
rolling back water protections .
According to a new Gallup poll , 63 percent of respondents said they worried “a great deal” about pollution of drinking water, while 57 percent of overall respondents also said they were concerned about pollution of rivers, lakes and reservoirs.
The percentage of respondents with water concerns is at its highest level recorded in Gallup’s annual environmental poll since 2001.
The pollsters say respondents’ water pollution concerns are likely linked to the high-profile drinking water crisis in Flint, Michigan, which has elevated an issue that is often out of sight and out of mind.
The poll found that lower-income respondents were far more concerned with water pollution than more affluent ones.
These findings did not come as a surprise to water experts.
Nneka Leiba, deputy director of research at the Environmental Working Group , said the situation in Flint is just one example of a water quality concern likely weighing on Americans’ minds.
At the same time, other cuts President Donald Trump has proposed for water initiatives have raised serious concerns among environmental and public health groups.
Cutting the program, advocates fear, could devastate small towns that are already struggling to consistently deliver safe drinking water to their residents.

The U.S. population appears to be more concerned with polluted water than it has been in over a decade, just as the Trump administration is rolling back water protections.
According to a new Gallup poll, 63 percent of respondents said they worried “a great deal” about pollution of drinking water, while 57 percent of overall respondents also said they were concerned about pollution of rivers, lakes and reservoirs.
The percentage of respondents with water concerns is at its highest level recorded in Gallup’s annual environmental poll since 2001.
The pollsters say respondents’ water pollution concerns are likely linked to the high-profile drinking water crisis in Flint, Michigan, which has elevated an issue that is often out of sight and out of mind.
The poll found that lower-income respondents were far more concerned with water pollution than more affluent ones.
These findings did not come as a surprise to water experts.
Nneka Leiba, deputy director of research at the Environmental Working Group, said the situation in Flint is just one example of a water quality concern likely weighing on Americans’ minds.
“The reality is setting in because real examples are happening.” Unable to play video.
Though some of these examples have been many years in the making, the poll’s findings take on heightened meaning at a time when the Trump administration is pushing to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency’s “waters of the U.S.” Clean Water Rule and slash the EPA’s budget significantly ― actions that could impair the agency’s ability to effectively intervene in future crises.
Cutting the program, advocates fear, could devastate small towns that are already struggling to consistently deliver safe drinking water to their residents.

New research demonstrates the real-world potential of providing clean drinking water for millions of people who struggle to access adequate clean water sources.
Until now, however, they couldn’t be used for sieving common salts used in desalination technologies, which require even smaller sieves.
Previous research at The University of Manchester found that if immersed in water, graphene-oxide membranes become slightly swollen and smaller salts flow through the membrane along with water, but larger ions or molecules are blocked.
The pore size in the membrane can be precisely controlled which can sieve common salts out of salty water and make it safe to drink.
When the common salts are dissolved in water, they always form a ‘shell’ of water molecules around the salts molecules.
"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."
Mr. Jijo Abraham and Dr. Vasu Siddeswara Kalangi were the joint-lead authors on the research paper: "The developed membranes are not only useful for desalination, but the atomic scale tunability of the pore size also opens new opportunity to fabricate membranes with on-demand filtration capable of filtering out ions according to their sizes."
This technology has the potential to revolutionise water filtration across the world, in particular in countries which cannot afford large scale desalination plants.
More information: Tunable sieving of ions using graphene oxide membranes, Nature Nanotechnology, nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nnano.2017.21

Drinking Water Pollution Concerns at 15-year High.
Concerns About Drinking Water Pollution at 15-year High Drinking water pollution is major environmental concern.
With the continuing high-profile instance of polluted drinking water in Flint, Michigan concerns about the issue of drinking water pollution have remained on people’s minds.
Americans tend to be more concerned about water pollution than they have in over 15 years (since 2001).
People are stressed over the not just drinking water pollution but the pollution of lakes, rivers, and reservoirs too.
Jump to: Best water filters if you’re worried about drinking water pollution Drinking water pollution concerns The elevated levels of lead in the public drinking water in Flint first came to public awareness in 2015.
Since that time, 48%-72% of Americans have expressed concerns about the pollution of drinking water.
Key points from the Gallup poll about drinking water pollution concerns 63% worry a great deal about drinking water pollution.
Read more about the Gallup poll here: In US, Water Pollution Worries Highest Since 2001 Worried about drinking water pollution?
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New Mexico hit by ‘flash drought’ weather phenomenon.
ALBUQUERQUE – Across New Mexico, unusually warm March weather and virtually no rain for a month prompted dust storms that closed highways, warnings for some to stay inside and rapid mountain snow melting that could threaten drinking water supplies and farmers’ irrigation needs.
This weather phenomenon – driven by a quick increase in temperatures and a lack of precipitation resulting in bone-dry soil – is called a flash drought.
In New Mexico, the flash drought is ending as quickly as it began because of the recent arrival of rain.
That left a swath of New Mexico’s eastern plains and parts of the Rio Grande Valley in central and southern New Mexico with no moisture in the soil’s top lawyers.
“Things went dry and went dry very fast,” Fontenot said.
Flash droughts typically aren’t severe, but Fontenot said the level of damage that ensues depends on when the phenomenon strikes.
The dry, windy conditions also fueled devastating wildfires in the Texas Panhandle, charring hundreds of square miles and killing four people.
The warm weather prompted faster-than-normal snowmelt atop New Mexico mountains that supply key drinking water supplies and irrigation resources for farmers.
It’s also expected to persist in southwestern Arizona and in parts of southern California as well as parts of Colorado and Oklahoma.

A company aims to raise 500 000 days of clean water to help with the water crisis in South Africa.
Procter & Gamble SA has announced it has a goal to raise 500 000 days of clean water, as part of the global P&G Children’s Safe Drinking Water Programme, an which initiative looks to tackle water issues currently facing South Africa.
As we have seen, flash flooding, as a result of drought, can also wreak devastation on underprivileged communities.
Since 2004, the programme has provided more than 11 billion litres of clean water to desperate communities around the world.
To help address the problem of access to clean water in Africa, in the last 12 years, the programme has managed to provide over 6 billion litres of clean drinking water to 40 countries on the African continent through its P&G water purifying packets.
“Clean water does not only quench thirst, promote health and prevent unnecessary deaths, it means more people can work and enhance productivity.
In fact, the World Health Organisation has estimated that every one US dollar invested in clean water, sanitation and hygiene generates four US dollars in increased productivity, which enables sustainable and equitable economic growth,” said Mabaso, addressing the long-term effects of water in destitute communities.
This will assist in achieving one of the United Nation’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals – ensuring availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.
The CSDW continues to provide clean water to our neighbouring countries as well, to ensure that even more communities have their lives enhanced by this basic human right,” Mabaso concluded in his statement.
P&G’s clean water programme comes at a crucial time in South Africa.

Tasks set for water supply.
– Cuttack to get more than 100 kiosks Cuttack, April 2: The Public Health Engineering Division (PHED) has initiated a slew of measures to ensure undisrupted drinking water supply in the city this summer.
The PHED and the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) have jointly planned to deploy water tankers in dry areas, install new tube wells and repair dysfunctional ones and also set up a control room to monitor distribution of safe drinking water.
Water tankers of the civic body will regularly fill these plastic tanks with drinking water.
The tanks will be placed by the end of this week after a consultation with the councillors of all the 59 wards," executive engineer of PHED, Cuttack, Sushant Ghadei told The Telegraph today.
While 44 of the 59 wards are covered under piped water system, the rest remain partially covered.
So far, the CMC was responsible for supplying drinking water to 29 wards of the city (wards 1 to 29) and PHED the remaining 30 wards (wards 30-59).
Member of CMC’s standing committee for public health, sanitation and water supply Ranjan Kumar Biswal said: "As per the joint agreement with the PHED, we have asked them to place at least two plastic tanks in each of 59 wards to be filled up by tankers.
Biswal said the PHED has also been asked to make functional all the cold water supply units that have been set up across the city with MPLAD or MLALAD funds.
"But taking permission from the municipal authority to set up kiosk has been made mandatory," Biswal said.

Researchers: Flood-drought cycle can deteriorate drinking water.
March 31 (UPI) — Extreme changes in weather will lead to deterioration in the quality of drinking water, Kansas University researchers say in a report.
The findings, published in the journal Biogeochemistry, indicate that "whiplash weather," in which weather veers from drought to flood, for example, will lead to changes in farm production, with particular concern about how it will affect fertilizer use.
"Instead of going into the plants, which would be harvested, it stays in the soil — and no water is flushing it away."
The abnormal amount of nitrogen remains in the soil until a deluge, the researchers say, which will cause later problems down the road.
"The soil is like a sponge, and when it’s dry the nitrogen stays put, but as soon as you wet it, like when you wring a sponge, the nitrogen can flood into the rivers," added co-author Amy Burgin.
Remediating high nitrogen content in drinking water will involve the construction of new water treatment facilities, straining taxpayers, the report says.
Loecke cited an Iowa drought and flood cycle in 2012 and 2013, which resulted in a nitrogen increase in water and the construction of a $4.1 million nitrate removal plant costing $7,000 per day to operate.
"Increased weather whiplash will, in part, increase the frequency of riverine N [river-borne nitrogen] exceeding EPA drinking water standards.
Thus, our observations suggest increased climatic variation will amplify negative trends in water quality in a region already grappling with severe impairments," researchers wrote in the report.

Support has been “incredible”: Quaiff.
PRINCE EDWARD COUNTY – Residents here who use the Picton/Bloomfield drinking water system continue to be encouraged to boil their water before using it.
A cautionary boil water advisory implemented earlier this week remains and place and is expected to for a number of days while officials continue to grapple with water issues after a barge became partially submerged in Picton Bay late last week.
While no contaminants have entered the drinking water system the advisory was issued earlier this week as a precautionary measure and the water filtration plant has been shut down in the interim.
During Friday’s meeting Mayor Robert Quaiff spoke to the support the municipality has received not only from neighbouring municipalities but from higher levels of government, as well.
As well, he said, residents’ conservation efforts have helped in maintaining a steady level at the reservoirs.
“I’m confident we’re moving in the right direction.” County public works commissioner Robert McAuley stressed none of the contaminants entered the drinking water system and the municipality is starting to formulate a plan on when to re-establish the distribution system, but warned it is “still days away though.” In the interim, Quaiff noted the municipality specifically asked the canadian Coast Guard to restrict any vessel traffic in the area.
As a part of this, aggregate shipping from the Picton Terminals has been stopped.
The mayor said the municipality requested the shipping stop and “there was no hesitation on Picton Terminals’ part.
We’re very thankful for that.”

Bengaluru: Now, special ‘ambulances’ to meet water needs in rural areas.
The government has been encountering problems in streamlining drinking water supply to residential areas in the rural belt.
Therefore, it has been decided to press ‘water ambulances’ into service for proper management of water supply and redressal the problems on the spot.
One water ambulance (drinking water emergency service vehicle) will be functional within the jurisdiction of each of the zilla panchayats.
As per the order issued by rural water supply and sanitation department, these water ambulances will be obtained through outsourcing.
The expenses to maintain the service will be met out of the fund allotted for National Rural Drinking Water Scheme.
Staff having enough experience and technical expertise have to be appointed for receiving complaints, managing the ambulance and repairing it, as per the requirements and their emoluments would be met out of the above fund.
The scheme requires the officials to receive complaints at taluk and district levels and record the same in logbook or registration register.
For the purpose of maintenance of this service, space should be set aside in the divisional offices of rural water supply department, with one nodal officer at the district level to monitor its implementation.
The order has also stipulated that report should be submitted on the last day of every week about the functioning of water ambulance.