Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand, D-N.Y., announced Tuesday she is introducing a bill in an effort to help communities clean up and monitor drinking water systems.
“Clean water is something every New Yorker should have access to,” Sen. Gillibrand said during a conference call.
“Across NY state, drinking water contamination has been hurting communities.” The Contaminant and Lead Electronic Accounting and Reporting Requirements would do several things, including providing resources to identify, test and clean up drinking water systems and force the EPA to share more information about water pollution in New York.
The act would increase funding for assisting small and disadvantaged communities with water quality compliance from $60 million a year to $230 million next year and $300 million from 2020 through 2023.
“If your water supply has been contaminated, it’s expensive to clean it up,” Sen. Gillibrand said during the press conference.
“Congress has a responsibility to make sure if a town’s water has been contaminated, they’re not stuck with no way to clean it up.” It would also force the EPA to set up electronic reporting of water quality compliance, provide technical assistance with public water systems trying to meet compliance standards, research contaminants, and provide grants for local educational programs on the health effects of contaminated water.
“The EPA has a responsibility to make sure that communities have all the information they need to understand exactly what’s happening when contamination occurs, and whether they need to start a cleanup effort,” Sen. Gillibrand said.
“The EPA should never hold back information from the public when it comes to our health and safety.” Sen. Gillibrand’s office could not immediately supply any particular New York communities that she thinks the bill will help if passed, but the senator made it clear she thinks the bill will benefit New York specifically.
“No one should ever have to wonder if their water is safe,” she said.

Many are heading to the beach to escape the hot temperatures this summer, only to find the water is closed.
Now, a group of researchers is trying out a new method that could deliver water testing results faster.
Camp counselor Matt Bartosz has been working with kids at Woodlawn Beach for most of the summer and, he says, the water is rarely open for swimming.
“We only went in the water once, because it’s always closed,” he said.
The water is sometimes closed for swimming, because of elevated bacteria levels.
At Woodlawn, a method is used where results are provided daily.
“Most beaches around the country don’t have such a model.” For many beaches around the Great Lakes region, there’s a 24-hour turnaround period for water testing.
Richardson’s group is working to improve that.
They were at Woodlawn taking water samples and trying out a new process for water testing.
They’ll be compiling their results and if everything looks promising, then they’ll start the process of getting approval to use this approach.

Carol Vaughn video Understanding the extent of contamination at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility from dangerous industrial chemicals that also made their way into the drinking water for the nearby island town of Chincoteague will take years, officials said this week.
Although NASA has been providing supplemental drinking water since the chemicals were first detected over a year ago, Town Manager Jim West said he sees it as a risk for both NASA and the town not to make a change.
We want to relocate somewhere we think we will be safe," said West.
The town’s wells where PFAS was detected were taken offline, and Wallops began providing extra water.
More: Pony Penning is ‘Christmas in July’ in Chincoteague, a homecoming for thousands The agency recently submitted a site investigation plan for review by federal and state officials, officials told The Associated Press this week.
The plan calls for sampling soil and groundwater and using monitoring wells to try to understand exactly where the PFAS is and how it’s moving in those areas, said TJ Meyer, associate chief of the medical and environmental management division at NASA Wallops.
NASA has already installed perimeter wells, and testing so far has shown the PFAS is not leaving Wallops’ property, Meyer said.
The summer is highlighted by the annual Pony Penning July 25-26 that attracts thousands of visitors to the town.
NASA is not charging the town for the extra water or the testing.
But Chincoteague did pay about $350,000 to buy the property for new wells and to drill two test wells — money West hopes NASA will eventually reimburse along with the millions more it’s expected to cost to develop the new wells.

Aquarion Water Company officials said test results show contaminant readings in its drinking water wells are still significantly below the federal health advisory level.
[File photo] NORTH HAMPTON — A Route 1 car wash has stopped discharging PFAS chemicals near Aquarion Water Company’s supply at the state’s direction, but state officials say another potential source of the contaminants could exist nearby.
State officials say they learned this week Abenaqui Carriers, a truck yard at 38 South Road, has also been discharging wastewater that may have sent contaminants toward Aquarion’s nearby water supply, which serves Hampton, North Hampton and Rye.
PFAS levels in Aquarion water have not exceeded federal or state standards, and the company says the water is safe to drink.
State officials learned 30 days prior the car wash was putting violation levels of certain PFAS chemicals and 1,4-dioxane into nearby groundwater.
Kernen said Pro-Wash now keeps water used to wash cars in a holding tank, then has it hauled to another facility.
He said it is too early to tell if DES will also require Abenaqui to test for contaminants yet, but he said the company has already been determined to have committed a violation, as neither their holding tank nor their discharge was permitted or registered with DES as required.
Abenaqui told DES several weeks ago it was storing wastewater in a holding tank, then later contacted DES to say they had been mistaken and in fact were discharging into the ground, Kernen said.
Monday, Aquarion Vice President of Water Quality and Environmental Management John Herlihy told Hampton selectmen tests of PFAS levels in Aquarion water consumed by customers have remained consistently level and meet not only federal regulations but more stringent requirements enacted or proposed in other states.
Officials have said that Coakley is leaching contaminants, including PFAS, into nearby groundwater.

The RTDNA called the investigative reporting “an amazingly well-told, thorough examination of a serious problem.” Carnegie-Knight News21 is a national reporting initiative headquartered at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, which brings top journalism students from across the country to report and produce in-depth, multimedia projects for major media outlets.
Konieczny was chosen in the spring of her senior year for the summer 2017 internship.
She is the third St. Bonaventure student to be chosen.
Lian Bunny, Class of 2016, earned the Carnegie-Knight News21 internship the year before and Bryce Spadafora, Class of 2018, is doing the internship this summer.
+6 Konieczny is working this summer as a paralegal/marketing intern with the Sommer Law Group in Pittsburgh.
This fall, she begins her second year of law school at the University of New Hampshire, where she plans to specialize in intellectual property (copyright and trademark) law.
The Carnegie Corporation of New York and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation joined forces in 2005 to launch News21 as a cornerstone of the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education.
More than 500 top journalism students in the United States have participated in the landmark national initiative, exploring topics such as gun rights, veterans’ issues, and food safety.
Work produced by News21 has appeared in major media outlets including The Washington Post, NBC News and USA Today.

BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese artist Brother Nut can point to some success from his Beijing exhibit that used 10,000 bottles of yellowish water to raise awareness of contaminated rural ground water, although it did not go down so well with Beijing authorities.
While it has stepped up clean-up projects in recent years, environmental activists say awareness of the issue lags far behind that of air pollution, while enforcement of quality standards is patchy.
“People have focused more on air pollution, because smog is easy to spot.
He uses a pseudonym and says he does not want to use his real name to “protect” himself.
So in June, he set out to change things.
Xiaohaotu residents say the water is contaminated with pollutants.
While that prompted the environmental bureau covering Xiaohaotu to launch an investigation and oil giant Sinopec to partly stop drilling in a gas field residents say is the source of the contamination, Beijing authorities took a dim view of the art and confiscated most of the bottles.
When Brother Nut took the remaining bottles and his exhibit on the road, local officials pounced to confiscate them, saying he had parked illegally and was driving without a license.
He even tried to organize a heavy metal concert in Xiaohaotu on land he says was “deeply contaminated by heavy metals”, to raise awareness.
Huabei oil-and-gas company, the Sinopec subsidiary in charge of the project, declined to comment and referred Reuters to an online statement announcing that drilling had been partly suspended pending the outcome of the environmental investigation.

Bill Theisen has myopia (Letter to the Editor, The NEWS, June 27).
He misleads the public just as industry does by using a small preliminary study to come to absolute conclusions about fracking and drinking water contamination.
The results of the study are just what we would hope for!
Now there is a baseline against which possible future contamination will be compared, just as the University of Cincinnati study concludes.
The following are links to articles about drinking water contamination caused by horizontal fracking including reference to the federal EPA Drinking Water Study which concluded there can be drinking water contamination caused by fracking.
The UC study in eastern Ohio was not conclusive.
It only examined 22 wells over a short time period with the lead researcher stating that it’s vitally important that “the people of eastern Ohio should have access to regular monitoring so that they know whether well-casing failures or surface spills have occurred and that their drinking water is still safe.
Higher methane content has been linked to well-casing issues and spills in other areas, including the Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania.” Further questioned about the water-quality study’s results, the UC professor agreed that “it’s an overstatement to say the study found no evidence of ‘drinking water contamination’ since it had a relatively narrow focus.
It wasn’t looking for some types of contaminants.”

Bill Theisen has myopia (Letter to the Editor, The NEWS, June 27).
He misleads the public just as industry does by using a small preliminary study to come to absolute conclusions about fracking and drinking water contamination.
The results of the study are just what we would hope for!
Now there is a baseline against which possible future contamination will be compared, just as the University of Cincinnati study concludes.
The following are links to articles about drinking water contamination caused by horizontal fracking including reference to the federal EPA Drinking Water Study which concluded there can be drinking water contamination caused by fracking.
The UC study in eastern Ohio was not conclusive.
It only examined 22 wells over a short time period with the lead researcher stating that it’s vitally important that “the people of eastern Ohio should have access to regular monitoring so that they know whether well-casing failures or surface spills have occurred and that their drinking water is still safe.
Higher methane content has been linked to well-casing issues and spills in other areas, including the Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania.” Further questioned about the water-quality study’s results, the UC professor agreed that “it’s an overstatement to say the study found no evidence of ‘drinking water contamination’ since it had a relatively narrow focus.
It wasn’t looking for some types of contaminants.”

(KUTV) — Panguitch City is now on a boil order following contamination found in the water supply Saturday.
Residents were warned not to drink the water after bacteria was detected from mud and other contaminants from a flash flood credit to the burn-off from last year’s Brian Head Fire.
Boiling kills bacteria and other organisms in the water.
"These bacteria can make you sick, and are a particular concern for people with weakened immune systems," the notice from the Garfield County Sheriff’s Office stated and posted on Facebook.
Residents are advised not to drink the city water without boiling it first.
"Bring all water to a boil, let it boil for one minute, and let it cool before using, or use bottled water," the advisory stated.
Boiled or bottled water should be used for drinking, making ice, brushing teeth, washing dishes, and food preparation until further notice, the advisory also stated.
For more information, please contact the Garfield County Sheriffs Office at 435-676-2678.
General guidelines on ways to lessen the risk of infection by microbes are available from the EPA Safe Drinking Water Hotline at 1-800-426-4791.

OTSEGO, Mich.– A community advocacy group in Allegan County held a public meeting Saturday morning about health problems potentially caused by contamination in their drinking water.
Members of the Justice for Otsego group believe the cancer cluster in their county may be tied to the city’s drinking wells being tainted by years of dumping from local businesses.
"It’s really just a matter of getting the government agencies activated and focused on this issue," congressional candidate George Franklin (D) tells FOX 17.
"It’s real, it’s significant and something needs to be done."
The group has called on the EPA and MDEQ to investigate what’s caused so many in their community to have unexpected cases of cancer.
The City of Otsego said previously that water is not the source of these health problems.
"I think the first thing is we gotta figure out what is going on exactly and where the source of the contamination is," former Kalamazoo County Commissioner Peter Battani tells FOX 17.
"I think that’s the first order of business and then we have to fix it."
The group’s efforts have not gone unnoticed.
Federal and state officials plan to investigate and release their test results in the coming days.