An oil sheen drifts between a sunken shrimp boat and pieces of a destroyed home along Bayou Pointe au Chien in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida in Pointe-aux-Chenes, Louisiana, on Sept. 14, 2021. Experts say more intense storms driven by climate change are boosting contamination risks for privately-owned drinking water wells.

Associated Press

ST. LOUIS — After a record-setting Midwestern rainstorm that damaged thousands of homes and businesses, Stefanie Johnson’s farmhouse in Blandinsville, Illinois, didn’t have safe drinking water for nearly two months.

Flood water poured into her well, turning the water a muddy brown and forcing Johnson, her husband and their two young children to use store-bought supplies. Even after sediment cleared, testing found bacteria — including E. coli, which can cause diarrhea. The family boiled water for drinking and cooking. The YMCA was a refuge for showers.

“I was pretty strict with the kids,” said Johnson, who works with a private well protection program at the local health department. “I’d pour bottled water on their toothbrushes.”

Though estimates vary, roughly 53 million U.S. residents — about 17% of the population — rely on private wells, according to a study conducted in part by Environmental Protection Agency researchers. Most live in rural areas. But others are in subdivisions near fast-growing metro regions or otherwise beyond the reach of public water pipes.

While many private wells provide safe water, the absence of regulation and treatment afforded by larger municipal systems may expose some users to health risks, from bacteria and viruses to chemicals and lead, studies have found.

Risks are elevated after flooding or heavy rainfall, when animal and human feces, dirt, nutrients such as nitrogen and other contaminants can seep into wells. And experts say the threat is growing as the warming climate fuels more intense rainstorms and stronger and wetter hurricanes.

“Areas that hadn’t been impacted are now. New areas are getting flooded,” said Kelsey Pieper, a Northeastern University professor of environmental engineering. “We know the environment is shifting and we’re playing catch-up, trying to increase awareness.”

Pieper is among scientists conducting well testing and education programs in storm-prone areas. After Hurricane Harvey caused widespread flooding along the Texas coast in 2017, sampling of more than 8,800 wells in 44 counties found average E. coli levels nearly three times higher than normal, she said.

Sampling of 108 wells in Mississippi following Hurricane Ida in 2021 produced a similar bump in E. coli readings. Other studies turned up higher levels in North Carolina after Hurricane Florence in 2018.

The following year, above-average snowfall and a March storm unleashed flooding in Nebraska. Levees and dams were breached. Fremont, a city of more than 25,000, turned into an island when the nearby Platte and Elkhorn rivers overflowed.

The municipal system continued to supply drinking water but some nearby private wells were damaged or contaminated. Julie Hindmarsh’s farm was flooded for three days, and it took months to make the well water drinkable again. At times, the cleanup crew wore protective suits.

“They didn’t know what was in that floodwater,” she said.

Groundwater is often a cleaner source than surface supplies because soil can provide a protective buffer, said Heather Murphy, an epidemiologist at the University of Guelph in Canada. But she said that can give well owners a false sense of security, leading them to forgo testing, maintenance and treatment.

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“There’s a big misconception that it’s underground, therefore it’s safe,” said Murphy, who estimates 1.3 million cases of acute gastrointestinal illness in the U.S. are caused annually by drinking untreated water from private wells.

Old, poorly maintained wells are especially vulnerable to floodwaters entering through openings at the top. “It just runs right in and it’s full of bacteria,” said Steven Wilson, a well expert at the University of Illinois.

It doesn’t always take a flood or hurricane to pollute wells. Industrial contamination can reach them by seeping into groundwater.

Around 1,000 residential wells in Michigan’s Kent County were tainted for decades with toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, in landfill sludge from footwear company Wolverine World Wide. The pollution, discovered in 2017, spurred lawsuits and a $69.5 million settlement with the state that extended city water lines to affected houses.

“We thought we were getting this pristine, straight-from-nature water and it would be much better for us,” said Sandy Wynn-Stelt, who has lived across from one of the dump sites since the early 1990s.

She said tests detected high levels of PFAS chemicals in her water and blood, leaving her fearful to drink or even brush her teeth with well water. In a suit later settled, she blamed the contamination for her husband’s 2016 death from liver cancer. She was diagnosed with thyroid cancer four years later.

While many well owners don’t have the option of hooking up to a public water system, others are happy with well water. They might favor the taste or want to avoid monthly bills and government regulation.

“What I hear from people is freedom,” said Jesse Campbell, private well coordinator for the Midwest Assistance Program Inc., which addresses rural water needs.

Private well owners are responsible for them. While public water systems must meet federal safety standards, those rules don’t apply to wells that have fewer than 15 connections or serve fewer than 25 people.

State and local standards usually involve only construction and design, although some states set tougher rules.

New Jersey requires water quality testing before sales of property with private wells. Rhode Island requires testing when new wells are built and when property with a well is sold.

But many states rely on public outreach and voluntary action to protect private well users.

“There’s an overall lack of education,” Campbell said. He meets with well owners from Montana to Missouri, providing free inspections and advice.

A lot of harm can be prevented if owners make sure the well’s top keeps out debris and that the pump is turned off before a storm to keep out floodwaters. Experts recommend testing after a flood and decontaminating wells with chlorine if a problem is found.

“People aren’t regularly testing,” said Riley Mulhern, an environmental engineer at the research group RTI International.

Indiana’s health department offers testing for bacteria, lead, copper, fluoride and other contaminants. Some land-grant universities and private labs provide similar services.

While many owners know how to maintain their wells, others ignore problems even if the water isn’t sanitary. Water that tastes fine can still be contaminated.

“I wish I had a nickel for everyone who’s walked into a workshop and said, ‘I’ve been drinking this water forever and it’s fine,”‘ said Jason Barrett, who directs a Mississippi State University program that educates well owners.

It provides free testing. But where such assistance isn’t available, costs can run to a few hundred dollars, according to experts. Some owners avoid testing because they are concerned it will reveal an expensive problem.

Johnson, the Illinois resident whose well was fouled by the 2013 downpour that killed four people and caused $465 million in flood damage, paid about $3,500 for repairs and upgrades.

“Luckily, none of us became ill,” she said.

Even ordinary rainstorms can carry diseases into groundwater, said Mark Borchardt, a microbiologist formerly with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“A lot of times people say, ‘Well, no one got sick,”‘ Borchardt said. “It’s hard to see when people get sick unless it is a huge outbreak.”

Bea and Neil Jobe live in Primm Springs, Tennessee, an hour’s drive from Nashville. Several times a year, when there is heavy rain and a nearby creek floods, their well water turns “dingy,” Bea Jobe said.

The discoloration disappears after a few days but Jobe takes precautions such as keeping bottled water available.

“I guess I’m used to it,” she said.

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Eight water ATMs installed in all the eight wards of the Pune Cantonment area in 2016-17 are lying defunct for the past three years. The ATMs were installed to provide rationed, clean and pure drinking water to the area residents.

The Pune Cantonment Board (PCB) had initiated the pilot project under the “Smart Cantonment” initiative at a cost of Rs.35 lakhs. And a Gujarat-based company had installed the ATMs.

Sandeep Gaikwad, a resident of RS Kedari road, said, “We had got the water ATM in the area in 2016, and it was clean and pure drinking water. But due to a lack of timely service and attention by the board, these ATMs have become defunct. We want the ATMs to be activated again in the larger interests of the people,” he said.

Manzoor Shaikh, former vice-president of PCB, said, “When the water ATMs were functional, worms were coming out of the machines after which complaints were made to the board. Currently, all the ATMs are shut across the cantonment area. People still need the water ATMs and if they are restarted, the cantonment residents can benefit from the noble initiative.”

Subrat Pal, chief executive officer (CEO), PCB, said, “The ATMs are shut since the Covid-19 pandemic started. We have received complaints from cantonment residents regarding the shut ATMs. Some components need to be changed otherwise it will affect the water quality. It will now be reactivated within a month.”

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The New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) fined El Paso Water $1.2 million Thursday for illegal sewage discharge into the Rio Grande in Sunland Park, New Mexico.

Between August 2021 and January 2022 El Paso Water dumped an estimated 1.1 billion gallons of raw sewage into the Rio Grande, at a rate of six to 10 million gallons a day. The sewage discharge took place in the Sunland Park area, along the Texas-New Mexico border, and also impacted water quality in Chihuahua, Mexico. El Paso Water recently completed cleanup of the sewage in the river and adjoining canals.

NMED also issued administrative compliance orders that require the utility to clean the impacted area and fix the problems that caused the diversion into the river.

“El Paso Water’s flagrant disregard for the health and welfare of New Mexicans in Sunland is astonishing,” said NMED secretary James Kenney. “We are holding this polluter accountable for their malfeasance and will not stop doing so until the damage is corrected and El Paso Water can assure the New Mexico Environment Department such a discharge will not happen again.”

In a statement responding to the fines, El Paso Water said the discharge did not adversely impact the environment or public health and that the utility coordinated with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and NMED and “made every effort to expedite the replacement of the 1.2 miles of pipeline and clean up the impacted area.”

TCEQ and EPA have not issued fines to the utility.

New Mexico acts on discharge that impacted three states, two countries

The Frontera Force wastewater lines, operated by El Paso Water, suffered breaks on Aug. 13, 2021, causing wastewater to enter homes and businesses in the Sunland Park, New Mexico area. El Paso Water diverted the sewage into the Rio Grande to avoid further human contact. NMED pinpoints the discharge point as just upstream of Corchesne Bridge at the Doniphan Outfall.

El Paso Water holds a Texas Pollution Discharge Elimination Permit from TCEQ authorizing the quality of the water that the utility can discharge to the Rio Grande. The utility reported the discharge to the TCEQ. But NMED said the New Mexico counterpart was not alerted, in violation of the Water Quality Act and Water Quality Control Commission regulations. El Paso Water has not responded to this allegation.

According to the NMED, the raw wastewater travelled along the New Mexico-Texas border for approximately 1.9 miles. The discharge continued until January 10, 2022.

In issuing the fine, NMED said untreated sewage contains pathogens that can cause diseases including cholera, giardia, and hepatitis A. 

“The discharge of untreated wastewater into a surface waterbody and groundwater can pose a significant hazard to public health and our economy if it impacts public water supplies, private homeowner drinking water wells, crop irrigation, livestock watering or outdoor recreational activities,” NMED stated.

“There was no adverse impact to the public health or the environment,” El Paso Water said in a statement. “We are currently reviewing the Administrative Compliance Orders issued by the New Mexico Environment Department and will take any necessary and appropriate actions.” 

In addition to the $1.2 million fine, NMED is requiring El Paso Water to submit plans to fix the problems that led to the illegal discharge and “corrective actions to assess potential future impacts to the health and environment.”

No fines so far from Texas and federal regulators

TCEQ is responsible for most Clean Water Act enforcement authorities in Texas, with the EPA playing an oversight role.

At a September 2021 Public Service Board meeting, El Paso Water representatives said TCEQ inspectors had already been on-site to address the illegal discharge. TCEQ said they were monitoring the discharge and would determine whether to fine El Paso Water once the discharge ended and cleanup was completed. 

In December 2021, EPA Region 6, which covers Texas, requested information from El Paso Water about the discharge.

Once the new wastewater main was connected in January 2022, the discharge ended. El Paso Water coordinated clean up efforts that concluded in May.

Neither the EPA nor TCEQ have issued financial penalties to El Paso Water. This story will be updated with any additional statements from TCEQ and EPA Region 6.

Staff writer Martha Pskowski may be reached at [email protected] and @psskow on Twitter.

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Curious if your tap water is safe to drink? For Treasure Valley residents, it’s a tricky question to answer.

Nonprofit Environmental Working Group can help fill in some of the blanks thanks to the group’s tap water database, which records pollutant data in drinking water throughout the U.S.

For zip code 83702, which encompasses much of downtown Boise, the North End and the Boise Foothills, there are several contaminants well above recommended levels. Focusing specifically on water provider Suez, which services approximately 228,790 people in the 83702 zip code, 12 contaminants that exceed EWG health guidelines have been detected.

Primarily, a type of haloacetic acid, HAA5, has been detected in Suez water 220 times above what’s recommended in EWG health guidelines, while another — HAA9 — 498 times. Haloacetic acids are byproducts formed when disinfectants like chlorine are added to tap water and interact with other chemicals or organic matter.

HAA5 is found at 22 parts per billion in Suez water, with EWG’s guideline recommending just 0.1 ppb. HAA9, which includes the five acids in HAA5 plus four others, is found at 29.9 ppb in Suez Water, with EWG’s guideline recommending 0.06 ppb.

“Even at very low concentrations over long periods of time, consuming water with disinfection byproducts can lead to health risks,” EWG science analyst Sydney Evans told the Idaho Statesman on Wednesday.

Long-term exposure to haloacetic acids can increase the risk of bladder cancer, Evans said, as well as pregnancy risks such as low birth weight or preterm birth.

But it’s not just a simple matter of getting rid of haloacetic acids in the water. Evans said water where pathogens may be present, and cause harm, must be disinfected.

“But it’s this balance between adding those disinfectants and destroying the pathogens, and also decreasing the amount of these byproducts that form as a result,” Evans said.

Another issue EWG faces is that the nonprofit recommends a limit that’s much lower than what’s legally required. The legal limit for HAA5 is 60 ppb, while HAA9 doesn’t even have a legal limit. Additionally, many of the limits haven’t been updated in a long time, Evans said, and since the last update, a lot has been learned about the damage these haloacetic acids cause.

Suez water for the downtown Boise area also contains 192 times the EWG recommendation of trihalomethanes, another byproduct of disinfection, and 720 times the recommendation of arsenic, a naturally occurring mineral in water that can cause cancer.

Evans said it is hard to talk about the risks of contaminants like haloacetic acids because the health effects occur over such a long period, and it is difficult to pin a health issue on drinking water.

“Because disinfection is a necessary and widespread practice for most community water sources, just about everybody has disinfection byproducts in their drinking water,” Evans said. “So when we’re talking about even a small increase in risk, … when you’re talking about that many people, that’s a huge number of potential illnesses or cancer cases that are preventable by reducing exposure.”

You can view the contaminants in your water by searching your zip code and clicking on your water provider on EWG’s tap water database.

What can you do to help?

In the 1940s, contaminants called PFAs, or forever chemicals, began being produced worldwide as part of nonstick cookware and other kitchen appliances. Through decades of use, PFAs have come to contaminate water, soil, and even human blood because the compound never broke down.

Pressure from the public in the early 2000s has led to several states banning PFAs in food containers and other appliances over the past two decades. Evans hopes similar public pressure can result in a change in drinking water.

“While sometimes it can feel like such a big issue to tackle with drinking water, and it doesn’t feel like one person can do a lot, if everybody just sits back and says, ‘Oh, I’m one person, one phone call to my local representative isn’t going to make a difference,’ we’re never gonna get anywhere,” Evans said.

“It definitely does make a difference,” she continued. “Sometimes some issues take longer, they take more voices, but we all have to put in our part and let local officials know, our state officials, that this does matter because that’s how we get change to happen.”

EWG also provides a list of different water filters at the bottom of the detected contaminants page that can help filter out harmful chemicals and compounds.

The three primary filters that EWG recommends are activated carbon filters, reverse osmosis filters and ion exchange filters. Faucet filters and filter pitchers are cheap examples of carbon filters, but Evans also acknowledges that many filter options are expensive and out of peoples’ price range.

“It shouldn’t be on an individual to make sure that their drinking water is safe,” Evans said. “These are community issues that are going to take community voices.”

Shaun Goodwin is a service journalism reporter at the Idaho Statesman. If you like stories like this, please consider supporting our work with a subscription to our newspaper.
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Before life appeared on land some 400 million years ago, all life on Earth including the mind evolved in the sea. Astronomers have recently conjectured that blue exoplanets with endless oceans may be orbiting many of the Milky Way’s one trillion stars. In 2016, for example, Kepler astronomers discovered planets that are unlike anything in our solar system –a “water world” planetary system orbiting the star Kepler-62. This five-planet system has two worlds in the habitable zone — their surfaces completely covered by an endless global ocean with no land or mountains in sight.

Three Criteria for Life

In essence there are three major things needed for life to thrive in ocean worlds– energy, nutrients and a source of organic matter that can be assembled into life-forms, geochemist Chris German at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution detailed in an email to The Daily Galaxy:

When you dive into the sea, you are diving into the origin of us all –Peter Godfrey-Smith

“Organic matter seems to be abundant throughout the universe, based on spectroscopy so that brings us back to the first two ingredients (we’re assuming an ocean world already had water). 

“Carbon, Hydrogen Oxygen, Phosphorus and Sulfur. For life, the core astrobiology maxim is that one also needs these essential elements: C, H, N, O, P, S.  If you have a source of organic matter then you already solved having enough Carbon and if you have an ocean then you have H and O as well = halfway there. In deciding on which are the most promising ocean worlds for life, therefore, one key issue is whether there is also enough N (nitrogen), P phosphorous) and S (sulfur).  For N and S, the problem is well on the way to being solved for our solar system’s ocean worlds – there are multiple sightings/determinations of ammonia and related compounds in bodies of the outer solar system and as for sulfur (S) there is the case of Io which has loads of it in its volcanic exhalations, some of which has already been transferred to Europa.  

“There has been debate about whether any given ocean world has enough phosphorous to sustain life but the amounts needed (based on life as we know it here on Earth) are very small compared to what anybody has yet designed a spacecraft to look for.  At both Europa and Enceladus, for example, the past missions (Galileo, Cassini) didn’t have an instrument sensitive enough to detect at the low levels required to establish habitability.  Conversely, most rocks we know on Earth (including those that fit well to predictions for other ocean worlds) have more than enough P that even a modest amount of weathering should be able to release reasonable amounts into the oceans.

You could add one mile of water to Earth’s moon tomorrow and subseafloor fluid flow would start up even though it has been geologically “dead” for aeons.

“Energy —The biggest issue for whether an ocean world is habitable is whether there is any energy.  A ball of pure water wouldn’t have what you need.  But an ocean with a rocky interior has the potential to host water-rock interactions if any of the water can pass through the rock.  Assuming the whole planet hasn’t reacted to equilibrium then pumping water through the rock and back out again will lead to chemical reactions when those ground-waters flow back out into the base of the ocean. There will be chemical energy released when those reactions take place and that, in Earth’s deep oceans, is what underpins habitable “chemosynthetic” ecosystems that are independent of sunlight for photosynthesis.  Imagining the same processes on any other body with water and rocks underneath that water (i.e densest stuff in the middle, less dense stuff round the outside) has capacity to be habitable.  Note that the rocky interior doesn’t HAVE to be geologically active (volcanoes, tectonics) for this to be true. If one has tidal forcing (e.g. multiple moons round a common planet) then that can drive pumping of water in and out of pore-spaces across the seafloor.  Also, just pre-existing topography will generate a pressure differential from one place to another across that planet’s seafloor so that water will flow into the rocks in one location and out in another – so you could add one mile of water to Earth’s moon tomorrow and subseafloor fluid flow would start up even though it has been geologically ‘dead’ for eons.”

The rocky bottom of Europa’s vast ocean is like a miniature Earth

Within our own solar system, Jupiter’s moon. Europa, harbors a massive salty ocean beneath its icy surface that scientists believe reaches a depth of 100 kilometers –a depth 10 times greater than Earth’s Marianas Trench.

The rocky bottom of Europa’s vast ocean, suggests Caltech’s Mike Brown, may be almost like a miniature Earth, with plate tectonics, continents, deep trenches, and active spreading centers. “Think about mid-ocean ridges on Earth,’ Brown writes on his blog, “with their black smokers belching scalding nutrient-rich waters into a sea floor teeaming with life that is surviving on these chemicals. It doesn’t take much of an imagination to picture the same sort of rich chemical soup in Europa’s ocean leading to the evolution of some sort of life, living off of the internal energy generated inside of Europa’s core. If you’re looking for Europa’s whales – which many of my friends and I often joke that we are – this is the world you want to look for them on.”

The chances that water worlds are a common feature of the Milky Way was heightened by research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Using computer simulations, Harvard University astronomer Li Zeng and his colleagues presented data showing that sub-Neptune-sized planets, that is, planets featuring radii about two to four times that of Earth, are likely to be water worlds, and not gas dwarfs surrounded by thick atmospheres as conventionally believed.

Utterly different worlds 

Some of these sub-Neptunian planets, Zeng said, have oceans deep enough to exert pressures equivalent to a million times our atmospheric surface pressure. Under those conditions, fluid water gets compressed into high-pressure phases of ice, such as Ice Seven or superionic ices. “These high-pressure ices are essentially like silicate-rocks within Earth’s deep mantle—they’re hot and hard,” he said. “These are utterly different worlds compared to our own Earth.”

In stark contrast, Earth has an obvious surface, with water compositions ranging between 25 to 50 percent of the planet’s total mass, these objects would be completely water-logged. They “may or may not have a well-defined surface,” said Li, and they “could be fluid all the way down—all the way down, to great depth.”

Could these ocean worlds support life? Perhaps even intelligent life? “There may be life there,” says Lisa Kaltenegger, Director of the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell. “But could it be technology-based like ours? Life on these worlds would be under water with no easy access to metals, to electricity, or fire for metallurgy. Maybe life’s inventiveness to get to a technology stage will surprise us.”

Could alien waters worlds at some point evolve life as we know it on Earth? “Purely ocean worlds (without land on the surface),” Avi Loeb, former chairman of Harvard’s astronomy department told dailygalaxy.com, “are not likely to develop the diversity of life as we know it because they will be depleted of essential nutrients for life, such as phosphorus and molybdenum.”

“We typically think having liquid water on a planet as a way to start life, since life, as we know it on Earth, is composed mostly of water and requires it to live,” explains astrophysicist Natalie Hinkel Senior Research Scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio and a Co-Investigator for the Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS) research network at Arizona State University. “However, a planet that is a water world, or one that doesn’t have any surface above the water, does not have the important geochemical or elemental cycles that are absolutely necessary for life.”

The chemistry of life is an aquatic chemistry. We can get by on land only by carrying a huge amount of salt water around with us. –Peter Godfrey-Smith

“I think it could be dangerous just thinking about everything in an Earth-mindset,” says Ramses Ramirez at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. “You might be missing out on other possibilities.”

The Alien Octopus Hypothesis

“I have a poster outside my office from a few years ago titled:  Exploring Ocean Worlds, Escaping Earthly Prejudice!”, Chris German at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution wrote in an email to The Daily Galaxy. “But Ramses’ statement may already be revealing too much prejudice – he implies that we even know what lives in our own oceans and we demonstrably do not: less than 5% of Earth’s ocean floor has been explored sufficiently to even characterize what is living there. So even within one habitable planet we continue to surprise ourselves – and expand our known range of both habitable environments on Earth and the diversity of species that live there.  But what is exciting about thinking about the search for life on ocean worlds is that the robotic methods we will use – to operate at high pressures in cold, dark salt-water environments – are exactly the same that would be transformative for studying our own oceans, too.”

I have a poster outside my office from a few years ago titled:  Exploring Ocean Worlds, Escaping Earthly Prejudice!”

New research suggests that about 35% of all known exoplanets which are bigger than Earth should be water-rich. The recently-launched TESS mission will find many more of them, with the help of ground-based spectroscopic follow-up. The next generation space telescope, the James Webb, will hopefully characterize their atmospheres with important implications for the search of life in the Milky Way.

Ocean’s Sentient Beings

The oceans of Earth itself became the conduit for evolution, says Peter Godfrey-Smith in Other Minds. Earth’s ocean-dwelling cephalopods – octopuses, squids and nautiluses, Godfrey-Smith writes – “are an island of mental complexity in the sea of invertebrate animals”, he writes, having developed on a different path from us, “an independent experiment in the evolution of large brains and complex behavior.”

Cephalopods are evolution’s only experiment in big brains outside of the vertebrates

“If we can make contact with cephalopods as sentient beings, it is not because of a shared history, not because of kinship, but because evolution built minds twice over,” says Godfrey-Smith. “This is probably the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien.”

The Last Word–Life on Water Worlds

“Whether life is possible on water worlds depends on the ability of essential chemicals to concentrate and initiate key reactions in the absence of plate tectonics,” Ramses Ramirez wrote in an email to The Daily Galaxy.  “Our idea,” he concluded, “was that rapidly-rotating planets with thick CO2 atmospheres could have effectively cycled CO2 through the interior and atmosphere and provide the necessary conditions for life to emerge.”

Avi Shporer, Research Scientist, formerly a NASA Sagan Fellow at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, with MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research via Ramses Ramirez, Chris German/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, New York Times, Caltech, Goldschmidt Conference, The Atlantic, and Scientific American

 

Avi Shporer, Research Scientist, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. A Google Scholar, Avi was formerly a NASA Sagan Fellow at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). His motto, not surprisingly, is a quote from Carl Sagan: “Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”

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BAY COUNTY — Bay County’s drinking water is about to get a lot cleaner. 

The Bay County North Bay Water Quality Improvement Program was approved for a $1 million grant from the state, aiding in its mission to bring the Deer Point Lake area from septic to sewer.

The Bay County Commission approved the grant for permitting and design of the program during their Tuesday meeting. The program is designed to provide sewer availability to approximately 800 existing homes, eventually leading to the removal of old and failing septic tanks and preventing future septic tanks from coming online in the Deer Point Lake Protection Zone. 

The design is almost complete, according to officials. Once it is finished, it will take 90 days to select a contractor and around a year to complete to project.

Related project:Panama City accepts $3 million grant to replace some septic systems with sewer lines

Environmental investigation:Did Lynn Haven cause fish kill by dumping 500K gallons of chlorine in bayou? DEP investigating

Bay County prepares for storms:Bay County ‘hardens’ infrastructure after Hurricane Michael to withstand future storms

During the end portion of the meeting, Commissioner Philip Griffitts discussed his support for the program and the possibility of getting up to 800 homes off septic tanks.

“The state would steal that water today if they could,” Griffitts said. “So, it’s great to see the (Department of Environment Protection) and us and everybody working together to try to protect that water source up there.”

Commissioner Doug Moore, whose district is housed in that area, said a lot of the homes that were built in that area were built back in the ’70s and ’80s before a lot of environmental laws were implemented.

“So, the septic systems that were there aren’t to the quality that they are built today and so this will allow us to go out and attack that problem right around where our drinking water is in the Deer Point Lake Preservation area,” Moore said.

Officials said this change will primarily benefit new developments, however, existing developments can hook up to the sewer system if they choose to. Depending on their distance from the available line, there will be a cost to do so, but officials said they are looking into grants to offset these costs. 

“Essentially, all new development will be built up there. We’re going to have the ability to draw the sewer lines at that point in time, these sewer lines will run by existing homes,” Moore said. “So, when the septic systems of these houses go out, then we will be able to assist the folks with being able to tap into the sewer system and they won’t have a new septic system going forward.”

This change will also result in reduced bacteria and nutrients entering Deer Point Reservoir and the downstream waters of North Bay, official said.

Moore also agreed this change would be beneficial to the environment and the water in that area. He added this will mean better and cleaner water for the entire community.

“(Septic systems) leak into Deer Point, they create a lot of basically unnecessary growth of plant life and different things along the shoreline and it chokes out Deer Point and it affects the water,” Moore said. “By doing this, it allows us to keep that from being able to leech into Deer Point and it’ll be going into our reuse system and remove it from the waterways.”

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HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Legislation criticized by opponents as a vehicle for-profit water companies to take over municipal water authorities in Pennsylvania by imposing expensive regulations on them passed the Republican-controlled state Senate on Tuesday.

Opponents also warned that the bill will precipitate ratepayer increases when water authorities must meet the new regulations or after they are forced to sell out to for-profit water companies.

The bill passed, 27-23, with the backing of Senate Republican leadership. Opposition crossed party lines. The sponsor, Sen. Pat Stefano, R-Fayette, said the bill will create “uniform safety, security and quality standards for all water and wastewater suppliers.”

The bill goes to the House.

Under it, water systems must submit asset management plans to state regulators for approval within a year-and-a-half. The plans are designed to determine when equipment must be upgraded and must include a cybersecurity program that is developed by an accredited professional.

During floor debate, one opponent, Sen. John Kean, D-Delaware, said the bill will make it easier for major water companies — Pennsylvania subsidiaries of Aqua America and American Water backed the bill — to take over municipal water companies, against the interests of rate payers.

The Pennsylvania Municipal Authorities Association wrote to senators in April, saying its members worry about a “significant increase in rates to the consumer.”

Because of the financial burden, “this could force low-income communities to sell their rights to clean and reasonably priced water to private industry,” the association wrote.

In a statement, Pennsylvania American Water said the bill requires water and wastewater systems to adopt standard industry practices that benefit customers and taxpayers. Aqua Pennsylvania said the legislation improves water quality and makes utilities more accountable to their customers.

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· EqualOcean

Jiuyang shares said on the interactive platform that the company received the development task of the space kitchen of the Chinese space station in 2013, mainly including the drinking water distributor, hot air heating device, intelligent app of the space kitchen, etc. On April 29, 2021, the Tianhe core module was successfully launched, and the space kitchen developed by Jiuyang was successfully stationed in the Chinese space station. It has successfully guaranteed the diet and drinking water for the Shenzhou 12 and Shenzhou 13 crew, and is providing diet and drinking water for the Shenzhou 14 crew. This year, the company also launched a series of space technology products.

This text is a result of machine translation.

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WEST CHESTER — Most people in Chester County don’t think twice to turn on the faucet to brush teeth or to fill up an ice cube tray and  have clean, pure drinking water come out of the tap.

A group of students and their teachers, and an art gallery owner want to see that everyone worldwide has access to potable drinking water.

Charlot Barker, managing partner of Ginkgo Arts, at 21 S. High St., started the nonprofit Wood for Water charity which designs wood products. The proceeds from sales are donated to help clean up drinking water.

Students lovingly work wood to clean up drinking water. (KELSEY KEBBEL – SUBMITTED PHOTO)

Barker started Wood for Water when she retired from the Chester County Intermediate Unit and after her daughter Mary suggested the idea.

The group partners with EOS International, which works with communities in Central America where 85 percent of the drinking water is contaminated. Last year, $5,000 was donated.

In 2020 and 2021, the Technical College High School Pickering Carpentry Program, with teacher Mike Bland made cutting boards.

Woodworkers for clean drinking water. Dave Purdy, left, Spike Carr, Vamouyen Kamara, Benjamin Mace and Charlot Barker. (KELSEY KEBBEL – SUBMITTED PHOTO)

Since then, teacher Spike Carr, at TCHS Brandywine, and his students designed and donated more expertly crafted cutting and charcuterie boards and trivets.

“The skills all the students learn in their programs are evident in their products,” Barker said.

Barker, former director of technology support, following a 24-year career at the intermediate unit, said that woodworking is one of the things that gives her purpose through her retirement.

“I’m incredibly grateful to know that we’ve helped people who we may never meet and know and that we’ve made their lives better,” she said. “Lack of access to clean water is particularly harmful to women and children because the women spend hours every day hauling water and their children can’t go to school.”

Barker and Jack Perme have developed a wonderful working relationship. The two met on a service trip to Haiti. Perme suggests ideas while serving as woodworking designer.

Perme uses a wheelchair and was diagnosed with a rare progressive condition cerebellar ataxia. Still, he keeps busy with a laser engraver affixing the Wood for Water tear drop logo on the wood products that are designed for sale.

“I don’t have many hobbies, and this gives me a purpose,” he said. “It’s something I used to enjoy doing and I’ve now found another way to still do it.”

Dave Purdy of the technical college high school said the work makes him feel proud of the students’ skill sets.

“They realize their skilled trade also has value,” Purdy said.

The woodworkers use materials donated by industry partners.

Student Vamouyen Kamara is pleased to work with several different tools.

“I look at it when it’s finished and how good it looks,” he said.

Fellow student Ben Mace enjoys helping others by building with wood.

For more information or to donate, go to www.woodforwater.org and visit the gallery at Ginkgo Arts.

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WOTUS is in the spotlight once again. Cattle producers representing several states voiced their concerns with the Environmental Protection Agency’s and Army Corps of Engineers’ ongoing Waters of the U.S. rulemaking attempt at a roundtable organized by the Kansas Livestock Association.

“Very important to our members are clarity with jurisdictional rules. We supported the navigable waters protection rule in particular because they gave some guidelines for producers to decide ‘do I need to talk to EPA or do I need to talk to the state regulatory agency,” said Aaron Popelka, Vice President of Legal & Government Affairs with the KLA. “I think we have some concerns about how broad things can grow.”

One issue he talked about was ephemeral water bodies – or those that appear temporarily after precipitation. WOTUS classifies those as a body of water that would be regulated.

“If the agency tried to regulate all ephemerals you’d really be chasing your tail for very little environmental impact. Definitely, you can see that in the scientific advisory board’s 2014 letters when they talk about connectivity having a grading approach. When you look at that, you are perennials and even some intermittents are going to have an impact. Ephemerals have little,” he said. “I was just looking at the drought monitor and there are portions of the southwest (Kansas) that haven’t had measurable rainfall in a year. Agricultural activity is there and if you get rain it’s going to take a while for that soil to absorb that. So we look at framing rules by how far is the reach versus the actual impact on water quality and what can the agencies handle.”

This roundtable was one of 10 accepted by the EPA and Army Corps. About a year ago, the EPA announced that rather than facilitate public engagement—which is the typical course of action for major rulemakings—the agency would instead ask private organizations to entirely plan and propose a roundtable with representatives from agriculture, conservation groups, developers, water and wastewater managers, and other groups.

Planning for more roundtables is underway.

Sabrina Halvorson
National Correspondent / AgNet Media, Inc.

Sabrina Halvorson is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster, and public speaker who specializes in agriculture. She is a native of California’s agriculture-rich Central Valley.

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