Taylor Made Water Systems

Nestle is raising salmon in municipal well water to determine if tapping 100 million gallons of local spring water in a small Oregon town is feasible.  Faced with decreasing revenue in its massive bottled water empire, Nestle is getting creative in trying to thwart environmentalists’ objections to its acquisition of source water from rural springs in small towns.  Many of these towns are economically depressed and the potential new revenue and job source is very tempting.  Personally, I prefer purified municipal water, so I’m happy leaving rural springs pristine.  Of course, I’m not Nestle. 

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704414504575243921712969144.html?KEYWORDS=nestle

MAY 25, 2010

Bottled Water Pits Nestlé vs. Greens

By DEBORAH BALL

CASCADE LOCKS, Oregon—In this idyllic town on the north slope of Mount Hood, an autopsy on three dead rainbow trout may play a role in Nestlé SA’s efforts to reverse a deep slide in its bottled-water business.

Bottled water, which for years delivered double-digit growth for Nestlé, is under fire from environmentalists. They decry the energy used to transport it and the use of billions of plastic bottles, and oppose efforts to use new springs, citing concerns about water scarcity.

In Cascade Locks, Nestlé is trying to tap 100 million gallons of water annually for its Arrowhead water brand from a new spring—and keep the environmentalists happy, too. A key is proving that water drawn from the spring—which supplies a hatchery that raises Idaho Sockeye, an endangered species—can be replaced with municipal well water, with no harm to the fish.

Nestlé is running a one-year test here to raise 700 rainbow trout in a tank filled with well water. Worried that activists might sabotage the test, Nestlé put the 1,700-gallon tank under lock and added security cameras. Officials from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife monitor the fish’s progress and are now autopsying the three that have died so far.

"We are accused of mining water, which would suggest we are depleting a resource," says Kim Jeffrey, chief executive of Nestlé’s North American water business. "But instead, we take water in a sustainable way. The notion that we just take what we want is simply not factual."

The project is testament to Nestlé’s determination to fix its bottled-water business. Its North American water sales fell to 4.4 billion Swiss francs, or $4.2 billion, in 2009, down 13% from 2007.

"Water is a category that gave us so many years of joy," Nestlé Chief Executive Paul Bulcke said in an interview. "And all of a sudden, it changes. That is what hurts."

Until 2007, bottled water was a dream business for Nestlé, whose brands include Pure Life, Poland Springs and Perrier. Per-capita consumption of bottled water in the U.S. soared to 29 gallons in 2007 from 16 gallons in 2000. A bottle of Nestlé’s San Pellegrino water became a trendy statement of health consciousness.

Annual growth rates of Nestlé’s U.S. water business topped 15% in the mid-2000s. By last year, it had 38% of the $10 billion U.S. bottled-water market, more than rivals Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc. combined.

But the gusher has slowed the past two years as environmentalists have tried making bottled water a new cause. Some tony restaurants in Los Angeles and New York have conspicuously stopped offering bottled water. A slate of documentaries claims that water producers mislead the public about the virtues of bottled water compared to tap.

Nestlé’s water sales have been hit badly by the economic downturn, as shoppers began seeing bottled water as an unnecessary luxury, turning to cheaper tap water instead. Moreover, consumers who still wanted bottled water began buying some of the slew of cheaper new private-label brands that supermarkets have launched over the last couple of years. In response, Nestlé has been pushing Pure Life, a lower-priced water that comes from purified municipal sources.

Bottlers say bottled water represents a small share of water use and is typically tapped in a sustainable way, a view backed by independent hydrologists. But the attacks hurt.

In 2007, one group launched a campaign called "Lying in Advertising." One poster read: "Bottled Water Causes Blindness in Puppies," with a tagline reading, "If bottled-water companies can lie, we can too." And now, a Congressional bill that would slap a 4% tax on bottled water to pay for upgrades of municipal water systems is gaining fresh attention, after a rupture in a water main left two million Boston residents without drinkable water in May.

Nestlé has been a favorite target of activists since the 1970s, when it encountered tough criticism of how it marketed baby formula to poor mothers in underdeveloped countries. Its role as leader of the U.S. bottled-water market and the fact that it taps springs in often-pristine rural areas has exposed it to particular criticism from opponents of bottled water.

Some 80% of Nestlé’s bottled water is from springs, while the rest is purified municipal water. Coke and Pepsi’s bottled water brands largely come from purified municipal sources.

Last fall, Nestlé threw in the towel on plans to tap one glacier-fed spring in Northern California after a six-year battle. Nestlé waged a six-year court case to carry on using a spring in Michigan, reaching a settlement last summer. In October, it gained approval to tap a Colorado source, after agreeing to 44 conditions.

Now, in Cascade Locks, Nestlé is fighting environmentalists’ opposition to its plan to draw water from a spring in this 1,100-person town.

Finding the right spring for bottled water is no easy task.

Water is costly to transport, so a spring must be relatively close to large markets, yet far enough to protect it from urban pollutants. It must have enough spare capacity to make it worth building a bottling plant nearby, and the water needs the right balance of minerals to taste right.

The job has gotten tougher as Nestlé tries to cut costs and carbon emissions by decreasing the distances its trucks travel; it has cut the average miles each delivery requires by about 15% since 2007. Nine out of 10 candidate springs turn out to be unsuitable, says Dave Palais, a Nestlé resource manager.

Cascade Locks is a rare fit. Mr. Palais has been searching for a spring to supply water to Northwest markets since 2007. The company currently trucks water from California or British Columbia.

Cascade Locks, which gets about 80 inches of rain a year and sits right off Interstate 84, is home to Oxbow Springs. When Nestlé came calling in 2008, Cascade Locks’ town fathers were thrilled. Since the decline of the timber industry in the 1970s, Cascade Locks has struggled. With 18% unemployment, the town has seen an exodus of residents. Last year, the high school closed due to a drop in enrollment. The number of businesses has dwindled from about 90 three decades ago to about a dozen.

To bottle Oxbow Springs’ water, Nestlé has proposed a plan that includes looking out for Idaho Sockeye, which are among the fish raised in a 100-year-old hatchery managed by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Nestlé would pipe water from the spring to a proposed new $50 million bottling plant that would employ 53 workers. In turn, it would pump Cascade Locks’ municipal well water to the hatchery to replace all the water taken from the spring—buying 300 gallons a minute from the town for the switch, or about a sixth the total municipal capacity.

Town officials say Nestlé would pay about $360,000 a year for the water under current industrial rates, but say they could strike a deal for special pricing for such a large customer.

The project would boost Cascade Locks’ beleaguered finances by doubling the city’s property taxes. City Administrator Bernard Seeger envisions sprucing up the town’s dilapidated main street and expanding police service from three days to five.

"When Nestlé came, we said, ‘Wow, this would be amazing,"’ says Mr. Seeger. "We’re sitting on a massive amount of water here."

The Fish and Wildlife Department, which had looked for a way to bring more water to the hatchery several years ago but found it too expensive, could use the new pumps and pipes that Nestlé would install to expand the operation, says Douglas Bochsler, the agency official in charge of the project.

Nestlé has held two town hall meetings to explain the project and hear residents’ concerns. It has rented a store front on Cascade Locks’ main street where Mr. Palais spends several days a month to answer questions and set up a toll-free number, although it says few calls have come in so far.

Environmentalists have been just as quick off the mark. Washington D.C.-based Food and Water Watch, a dogged opponent of Nestlé, has created a coalition of 16 environmental and religious groups dubbed "Keep Nestlé Out of the Gorge." In March, it delivered a 10-gallon water bottle holding 3,700 signatures of opponents to Oregon’s Department of Fish and Wildlife. Protesters waved placards reading "Protect Oregon’s Water."

Julia DeGraw, the Food and Water Watch activist leading the campaign, argues that a resource as precious as water should never fall into corporate hands, saying it discourages cities from investing in water infrastructure and increases the risk corporate interests may prevail over public ones in case of a drought. She raises environmental concerns, including the effect on fish. Ms. DeGraw also accuses Nestlé of targeting towns that are economically depressed, an allegation Nestlé denies. She says Nestlé has paid on average one-fifth of one cent a gallon to buy spring water, while selling it to consumers for $5.30.

"A lot of Oregonians don’t want to see the state’s resources extracted by a multinational that would make a massive profit off it," says Ms. DeGraw, a native Oregonian. "It’s all or nothing for us."

Nestlé says it offers towns fair conditions to tap springs and fully informs citizens of its plans. Nestlé says the difference between its purchase price and the retail sales price is due to the cost of filtering, bottling and distributing its water; it says its lowest retail price for a gallon of spring water is about $1.20.

The Oregon Water Resources Department plans to hold a public comment period before deciding, while the Department of Fish and Wildlife says it would include a clause to break any contract with Nestlé in case of adverse environmental impacts.

Nestlé says it’s conducting studies to address some environmental concerns. Only after studies are done, and the year-long test to see that the fish survive in municipal water, will Nestlé file its application with state authorities.

"If Food and Water Watch wants to be responsible, they should wait to see what the [tests] say and not make spurious arguments," says Nestlé’s Mr. Jeffrey.

In April, at a screening of a new anti-bottled-water documentary, "Tapped," Mr. Jeffrey challenged Jim Walsh, a Food and Water Watch leader also in attendance. "Do you want to come in and talk to me about the issues, or do you just want to see us out of business?" Mr. Jeffrey says he asked Mr. Walsh.

"The latter," responded Mr. Walsh, according to Mr. Jeffrey’s recollection.

Mr. Walsh says he doesn’t recall saying he wanted to see Nestlé go out of business, but says his group is "fundamentally opposed to the process of bottling water."

Mr. Jeffrey, a 32-year veteran of the bottled-water business, says state authorities monitor Nestlé’s spring withdrawals too closely for it to deplete water. A Nestlé plant draws about the same amount of water in a year as a single ski area or a large farm, he says, and would have to abide by restrictions during droughts.

Hydrologists say bottled water is a tiny fraction of what industry, farms and homes use and don’t generally view it as a threat to aquifers. "Bottled water use is a drop in the bucket," says Thomas Harter, expert in water management at the University of California at Davis.

The Cascade Locks efforts are part of a push by the company to cast its water in a friendlier light. Nestlé is launching a lighter bottle with nine grams of plastic, a quarter of that found in some sports-drinks packaging. Nestlé truck drivers must now turn off engines instead of idling and the company is introducing hydrogen-fuel-cell forklifts.

Environmentalists say it is impossible for a company that churns out 20 billion plastic bottles a year to become environmentally friendly and dismiss the efforts as "bluewashing."

In Cascade Locks, some resent seeing a rare business opportunity possibly lost. "This is becoming the Battle of the Middle Gorge," says Mayor Brad Lorang. "Stopping Nestlé won’t save the planet, but getting Nestlé to come here could save the town."

Write to Deborah Ball at deborah.ball@wsj.com

Based on 15 years of data, a new report shows that over 2 million Californians have had harmful levels of nitrates in their water.  Nitrate sources include fertilizer, animal manure, and wastewater treatment.  According to the report, Nitrates are linked to “blue baby syndrome” and other health issues.  Public water systems are required to remove nitrates. 

 

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/05/16/MNLC1DCRMF.DTL

State’s nitrates problem grows unchecked

Julia Scott, California Watch

Monday, May 17, 2010

The water supply of more than 2 million Californians has been exposed to harmful levels of nitrates over the past 15 years, a period marked by lax regulatory efforts to contain the colorless and odorless contaminant, a California Watch investigation has found.

Nitrates are the most common groundwater contaminant in California and across the nation. A byproduct of nitrogen-based farm fertilizer, animal manure, wastewater treatment plants and leaky septic tanks, nitrates seep into the ground and can be expensive to extract.

The problem affects rural Californians and wealthier big-city water systems. State law requires public water systems to remove nitrates. But many rural communities don’t have access to the type of treatment systems available in metropolitan areas.

Nitrates have been linked to "blue baby syndrome," in which an infant’s oxygen supply is cut off.

Statewide, the number of wells that exceeded the health limit for nitrates jumped from nine in 1980 to 648 by 2007. Scientists anticipate a growing wave of nitrate problems in some parts of the state if remedial steps aren’t taken.

And yet the state’s patchwork regulatory efforts remain riddled with gaps that have allowed nitrate contamination to spread virtually unchecked. Consider:

– The leading source of nitrate pollution in many regions of the state – nitrogen fertilizer – is not regulated. Lettuce farmers can apply as much fertilizer as they want, within feet of a water supply well. Officials aren’t equipped to determine the sources of contamination to hold anyone accountable.

– Sixty-five percent of domestic wells at Central Valley dairies test over the public health limit for nitrates, putting residents at risk of potential exposure. Yet, according to records obtained from the state water board, none of the dairies was fined for a nitrate problem identified by the state.

– When polluters are found responsible for nitrate contamination, the state rarely does anything to correct it. California has issued 248 enforcement actions against 44 polluters for nitrate contamination in the past six years. But only once has the state ordered a polluter to clean up contaminated groundwater.

Families in rural communities typically pay more for tainted water than ratepayers hooked up to clean water systems. Residents in the tiny town of Seville in eastern Tulare County, for example, pay a monthly fee of $60 for nitrate-laden water that the county’s health department has warned them not to drink.

By comparison, the average water bill is $26.50 a month for San Francisco residents, who consume water from the pristine Hetch Hetchy water system.

"The people who are polluting the water, they don’t pay for that cleanup – the ratepayer does," said Debbie Davis, a legislative analyst with the Oakland-based Environmental Justice Coalition for Water, a network of groups advocating for clean water. "If California is going to meet the water challenges of the future, we have to figure out how to deal with nitrates."

Darrin Polhemus, deputy director of the State Water Resources Control Board’s division of water quality, said his agency has chosen to spend more time and resources dealing with chemicals such as perchlorate and dry cleaning solvents, which cause more acute health effects when leached into groundwater.

Contaminated wells

It’s not clear how often nitrate exposure leads to serious health problems, including acute "blue baby syndrome," because state officials do not keep records and doctors are not required to report such cases. Bottle-fed infants whose formula was prepared using water are at greatest risk if the water exceeds public health limits for nitrates.

Many of the state’s fastest-growing regions overlie vast stores of nitrate-polluted groundwater. In the eastern San Joaquin Valley, 1 in 3 domestic wells has nitrate levels that exceed public health limits.

One of those wells is on property owned by Camelia and Manuel Lopez in East Orosi, a small town in Tulare County.

The Lopez family volunteered to have their private well tested by the state last winter. The water contained nearly three times the federal health limit for nitrates, which is the equivalent of half a teaspoon in a swimming pool. Follow-up testing of the family’s tap water by California Watch confirmed those results.

"You would never imagine in this country that someone would have this problem," said Camelia Lopez, who emigrated from Mexico as a young woman and moved to the countryside from the Bay Area.

Now the family buys bottled water for drinking and cooking at a cost of $60 a month – a hardship because Manuel Lopez, a contractor, is unemployed.

Camelia Lopez has taught their three boys – ages 6, 16 and 18 – to brush their teeth with bottled water and keep their mouths closed when they’re in the shower. Putting filters on all the taps in the house would cost at least $750.

School water tainted

On the other side of Tulare County, nitrate problems have been one long, expensive headache for Norm Brown, principal of Citrus South Tule Elementary School in Porterville.

Several years ago, Brown applied for a state grant to dig a $100,000 well on school property to alleviate the school’s chronic nitrate problem, only to learn that the school’s groundwater basin was loaded with nitrates.

"I was really going to make a difference on that," Brown recalled. "But if they’re digging a well, they’re not going to find clean water. It’s a waste of money."

The school, which has 53 students, is one of 12 schools in the state with nitrate contamination in their well water, according to public health records.

Bottled water is the only affordable remedy for Citrus South, which pays more than $2,000 each year to stock its water coolers and distribute plastic cups. Brown is required to test the well water every month, at a cost of $2,500 last year, before sending the results to the county.

Officials say nitrates are so common and mobile that they are difficult to track once they get into the groundwater, making the contaminant hard to monitor.

"It is much more difficult to go out and identify a single cause of a nitrate problem in the area, and it can be also very difficult to identify responsible parties and figure out what corrective action needs to be taken," said Ken Landau, assistant executive officer of the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board.

Little enforcement

Farmers and companies are urged not to degrade groundwater but are mostly left to employ voluntary strategies to comply. Fruit and vegetable farmers are exempt from enforcement oversight of groundwater, according to a review of agricultural policies across the state.

The wells at Monterey Mushrooms Inc. in Watsonville, the nation’s largest marketer of fresh mushrooms, have exceeded nitrate limits 17 times, according to records reviewed by California Watch.

In 2006, the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board cited the company for four of the violations. "Nitrate out of control!" one staff member scrawled on a lab report obtained by California Watch. But the facility has not been fined.

General Manager Wayne Bautista said the high nitrate readings are from a well closer to other fields on a ridge above the mushroom plant. He said the company has reduced the wastewater it applies to land.

Camelia Lopez feels helpless about her family’s nitrates problem, which testing has traced to animal manure, possibly from nearby cattle ranches, or a leaky septic system.

"Please care a little bit about this community," she says. "Just like I’m worried about this, there are other mothers with a lot of kids who are worried about this issue, too. If it were you and your kids in this community, what would you think? What would you do?"

California Watch is a project of the Center for Investigative Reporting with offices in the Bay Area and Sacramento. Read more about nitrate contamination on its Web site at www.californiawatch.org.

Water research

The State Water Resources Control Board has funded a series of studies by the U.S. Geological Survey to measure nitrates in groundwater across the state. Much of that information can be found in a searchable mapping database called GeoTracker:geotrackerbeta.ecointeractive.com/gama

The Battelle Study, initiated by the Water Quality Research Foundation, found that water softeners save a good deal of energy and money.  In fact, softeners were found to be one of “the best” energy savers available to households, especially with water heaters and other water using appliances.  The Water Quality Association is trying to get more publicity for the green benefits of water softeners when so much negative attention is focusing on the issue of salt discharge.  The Battelle study shows that the negative environmental impact of salt discharge is outweighed by reduced energy and chemical (soaps, detergents, etc.) usage.

http://wqa.org/pdf/pressreleases/battelleresults.pdf

 

Released: April 14, 2010

LISLE, Illinois — Water softeners can save significant amounts of money and energy in the home, a major new study by the independent Battelle Institute revealed.

Softeners help preserve the efficiency of water heaters and major appliances and keep showers and faucets unclogged, the report found. The study was commissioned by the Water Quality Research Foundation (WQRF) in 2009. Battelle Memorial Institute is a renowned independent testing and research facility dedicated to applied science and technology development.

Among some of the key findings of the study:

Gas water heaters:

Gas storage tank household water heaters operated on softened water maintained the original factory efficiency rating over a 15-year lifetime.

On the other hand, hard water can lead to as much as a 48% loss of efficiency in water heaters.

Each five grains per gallon of water hardness causes a 4% loss in efficiency and 4% increase in cost for gas storage tank water heaters when using 50 gallons of hot water per day. (On 30 gpg hard water, that’s 24% less efficient than with softened water.)

Each five grains per gallon of hardness causes an 8% loss in efficiency and 8% increase in cost when using 100 gallons of hot water per day in a gas storage tank water heater. (On 30 gpg hard water, that’s 48% less efficient than with softened water.)

Electric water heaters:

Up to 30 pounds of calcium carbonate rocklike scale can accumulate in these heaters over time, according to the study. The life of the heating element will be shortened due to scale buildup because of increased operating temperature of the heating element.

Also each five gpg of water hardness causes 0.4 pounds of scale accumulation each year in electric storage tank household water heaters. Such scale adversely affects the water heater’s performance. Battelle says in the electric storage water heaters operating on unsoftened water “the life of the heating element can be expected to shorten due to scale buildup increasing the operating temperature of the element.”

Independent study: Softeners among ‘very best’ household energy savers
Devices offer green benefits to water heaters, appliances, showerheads

Tankless heaters:

Indoor instantaneous gas water heaters (tankless heaters) operated on softened water maintained the original factory efficiency rating over a 15-year lifetime.

The study found that tankless water heaters completely failed to function because of scale plugging in the downstream plumbing after only 1.6 years of equivalent hot water use on 26 gpg hard water. Softened water saves 34% of costs compared to operating on 20 gpg and saves 47% compared to operation on 30 gpg hard water.

Showerheads and faucets:

Showerheads on soft water maintained a brilliant luster and full flow. Faucets on softened water performed well throughout the study; nearly as well as the day they were installed. Showerheads on hard water lost 75% of the flow rate in less than 18 months. Faucets on hard water could not maintain the specified 1.25 gallons per minute flow rate because of scale collection of the strainers. The strainers on the faucets using unsoftened water were almost completely plugged after 19 equivalent days of testing.

Appliances:

In the study, dishwashers and washing machines were operated for 30 days and 240 completed wash cycles on soft and hard water sources. The units using soft water were almost completely free of any water scale buildup. As the report states, they appeared as if they could be cleaned up to look like new with just a quick wipe down. the appearance of the inside of units using hard water showed the need for deliming and cleaning due to the buildup of scale and deposits.

WQA is a not-for-profit association that provides public information about water treatment issues and also trains and certifies professionals to better serve consumers. WQA has more than 2,500 members internationally.

Corporate Accountability International, a nonprofit group, reported the bottled water spending of 5 states – Maryland, Minnesota, Colorado, New Mexico, and Oregon.  Spending ranged from $78,000 to $475,000.  Citing the irony of the government itself choosing bottled water over tap water (regulated and declared “safe” by our government), the group called on the states to stop spending money on bottled water. 

 

State spends $200,000 on bottled water

According to a new report released today, the state of Maryland spent at least $200,000 on bottled water last year.

The report, called Getting States Off the Bottle, was released by Corporate Accountability International, a membership nonprofit that calls out corporations on their "irresponsible and dangerous" actions.

The group says water bottling companies scare the public into drinking only bottle water that fouls the environment and burdens the budget. But in about 44 percent of cases, bottle water is tap water. At the same time state and local governments are buying into the companies’ PR campaign that local tap water is unsafe, the governments are failing to invest in proper upkeep of water infrastructure, the report says.

The report authors have taken a look at state bottled water expenditures — though a real look is tough because a lot of the water purchases are hard to track. This is the second installment of the report and includes five states. Maryland is one. The others are Minnesota, Colorado, New Mexico and Oregon. The range of spending was between $78,000 and $475,000 during fiscal ‘09.

“Plastic water bottles are a major contributor to waste in our stream, rivers, and bay.” said Mary Roby, executive director of Herring Run Watershed Association, in a statement. She participated in an event to draw attention to the bottled water today in Druid Hill Park. She and others called on Gov. O’Malley to cancel state spending on bottled water.

Supporters say more than 100 cities and three states (Illinois, Virginia and New York) already have cut spending on bottled water or upped their contribution to public water.

Corporate Accountability International says officials in Gov. O’Malley’s office have said they will  work on reducing spending on bottled water and continue to invest in public water. Already the state has funneled $119 million in stimulus money to water quality and drinking water projects in the state. The group says public water systems across the country need about $22 billion in investment.

The group also wants other public workers — and the public — to cut bottled water use in non-emergency situations. Officials there say surveys show a third of people who had switched to bottled water have recently switched back.

Are you one of them?

On World Water Day, the UN released a report stating that polluted water creates illnesses that fill more than half of the world’s hospital beds.  They estimate that 3.7 percent of all deaths are related to polluted water, which is more than die from all forms of violence.

They also confirmed that the bottled water used in the U.S. alone requires 17 million barrels of oil to produce.

Those are two good reasons to filter your own water!   

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100322/ap_on_re_af/un_un_clean_water

UN: Polluted water killing, sickening millions

 

AP – An Indian village boy runs through a parched field on World Water Day in Berhampur, Orissa state, India, …

By RONALD BERA, Associated Press Writer – Mon Mar 22, 12:30 pm ET

NAIROBI, Kenya – More people die from polluted water every year than from all forms of violence, including war, the U.N. said in a report Monday that highlights the need for clean drinking water.

The report, launched Monday to coincide with World Water Day, said an estimated 2 billion tons of waste water — including fertilizer run-off, sewage and industrial waste — is being discharged daily. That waste fuels the spread of disease and damages ecosystems.

"Sick Water" — the report from the U.N. Environment Program — said that 3.7 percent of all deaths are attributed to water-related diseases, translating into millions of deaths. More than half of the world’s hospital beds are filled by people suffering from water-related illnesses, it said.

"If we are not able to manage our waste, then that means more people dying from waterborne diseases," said Achim Steiner, the U.N. Undersecretary General and executive director of UNEP.

The report says that it takes 3 liters of water to produce one liter of bottled water, and that bottled water in the U.S. requires the consumption of some 17 million barrels of oil yearly.

Improved wastewater management in Europe has resulted in significant environmental improvements there, the UNEP said, but that dead zones in oceans are still spreading worldwide. Dead zones are oxygen-deprived areas caused by pollution.

"If the world is to thrive, let alone to survive on a planet of 6 billion people heading to over 9 billion by 2050, we need to get collectively smarter and more intelligent about how we manage waste, including wastewaters," Steiner said.

The New York Times is taking a deep look at tap water through a series of articles examining various aspects of tap water, pollution, and related issues.  The following article looks at the 35 year old Safe Drinking Water Act, which regulates 91 contaminates in our tap water.  The basic premise of the article is that with over 60,000 chemicals in use in the U.S., the number of regulated contaminants is inadequate and leading to “legal” water that still presents serious health risks.

My two favorite lines from the article:

• Dr. Parekh has struggled to make his case. “People don’t understand that just because water is technically legal, it can still present health risks,” he said. (Yikes!)
• “They supposedly discovered these chemicals, and then they ruined the reservoir by putting black pimples all over it,” said Laurie Pepper, whose home overlooks the manmade lake (this line is funnier when read in the context of the article). 

So, what’s the solution?  Black balls on reservoirs to block sunlight, thereby preventing some contaminants from converting to “likely” cancer causing agents?  I cannot believe this was actually done.  Thrown around in a brainstorming session?  Sure.  Drawn up on a cocktail napkin?  Absolutely?  But, workers actually dumped a bunch of balls into a real live reservoir. Wow.   I am not saying that it cannot work.  It may even be the best solution.  I just can’t believe it was actually done.

As for the solution, you cannot regulate and test for 60,000 chemicals. Plus, many of those chemicals are likely not harmful.  But, as the article states there are many harmful chemicals that are not regulated.  And some of the maximum “legal” limits for certain chemicals still allow a harmful level of contaminants in our drinking water.  Eliminating all of these chemicals entirely would be cost prohibitive and unnecessary.  As I’ve mentioned many times, the great majority of tap water is not used for drinking water, but for irrigation, toilets, showers, laundry, etc.  To me, calling tap water “drinking water” is misleading as it presumes all tap water will be consumed when that is clearly not the case.  In my mind, the municipalities should deliver us good, safe “tap water” and those of us who want a higher standard for the relatively tiny percentage that is consumed as “drinking water” should treat it ourselves.  If a technology comes along to purify all tap water to drinking water standards that is not cost prohibitive, that would be great.  But, until then, a small investment in a quality reverse osmosis unit is a pretty good bet. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/17/us/17water.html?_r=1&sudsredirect=true

That Tap Water Is Legal but May Be Unhealthy

Irfan Khan/The Los Angeles Times, via Associated Press

This Los Angeles reservoir contained chemicals that sunlight converted to compounds associated with cancer. The city used plastic balls to block the sun, but nearby homeowners asked why, if the water didn’t violate the law.

By CHARLES DUHIGG

Published: December 16, 2009

The 35-year-old federal law regulating tap water is so out of date that the water Americans drink can pose what scientists say are serious health risks — and still be legal.

Toxic Waters

Outdated Laws

Articles in this series are examining the worsening pollution in American waters, and regulators’ response.

What’s in Your Water

The data was collected by an advocacy organization, the Environmental Working Group, who shared it with The Times.  Only 91 contaminants are regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act, yet more than 60,000 chemicals are used within the United States, according to Environmental Protection Agency estimates. Government and independent scientists have scrutinized thousands of those chemicals in recent decades, and identified hundreds associated with a risk of cancer and other diseases at small concentrations in drinking water, according to an analysis of government records by The New York Times.

But not one chemical has been added to the list of those regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act since 2000.

Other recent studies have found that even some chemicals regulated by that law pose risks at much smaller concentrations than previously known. However, many of the act’s standards for those chemicals have not been updated since the 1980s, and some remain essentially unchanged since the law was passed in 1974.

All told, more than 62 million Americans have been exposed since 2004 to drinking water that did not meet at least one commonly used government health guideline intended to help protect people from cancer or serious disease, according to an analysis by The Times of more than 19 million drinking-water test results from the District of Columbia and the 45 states that made data available.

In some cases, people have been exposed for years to water that did not meet those guidelines.

But because such guidelines were never incorporated into the Safe Drinking Water Act, the vast majority of that water never violated the law.

Some officials overseeing local water systems have tried to go above and beyond what is legally required. But they have encountered resistance, sometimes from the very residents they are trying to protect, who say that if their water is legal it must be safe.

Dr. Pankaj Parekh, director of the water quality division for the City of Los Angeles, has faced such criticism. The water in some city reservoirs has contained contaminants that become likely cancer-causing compounds when exposed to sunlight.

To stop the carcinogens from forming, the city covered the surface of reservoirs, including one in the upscale neighborhood of Silver Lake, with a blanket of black plastic balls that blocked the sun.

Then complaints started from owners of expensive houses around the reservoir. “They supposedly discovered these chemicals, and then they ruined the reservoir by putting black pimples all over it,” said Laurie Pepper, whose home overlooks the manmade lake. “If the water is so dangerous, why can’t they tell us what laws it’s violated?”

Dr. Parekh has struggled to make his case. “People don’t understand that just because water is technically legal, it can still present health risks,” he said. “And so we encounter opposition that can become very personal.”

Some federal regulators have tried to help officials like Dr. Parekh by pushing to tighten drinking water standards for chemicals like industrial solvents, as well as a rocket fuel additive that has polluted drinking water sources in Southern California and elsewhere. But those efforts have often been blocked by industry lobbying.

Drinking water that does not meet a federal health guideline will not necessarily make someone ill. Many contaminants are hazardous only if consumed for years. And some researchers argue that even toxic chemicals, when consumed at extremely low doses over long periods, pose few risks. Others argue that the cost of removing minute concentrations of chemicals from drinking water does not equal the benefits.

Moreover, many of the thousands of chemicals that have not been analyzed may be harmless. And researchers caution that such science is complicated, often based on extrapolations from animal studies, and sometimes hard to apply nationwide, particularly given that more than 57,400 water systems in this country each deliver, essentially, a different glass of water every day.

Government scientists now generally agree, however, that many chemicals commonly found in drinking water pose serious risks at low concentrations.

And independent studies in such journals as Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology; Environmental Health Perspectives; American Journal of Public Health; and Archives of Environmental and Occupational Health, as well as reports published by the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that millions of Americans become sick each year from drinking contaminated water, with maladies from upset stomachs to cancer and birth defects.

More…

 

Okay, so that is pretty alarming.  Twenty percent is a significant figure.  According to the New York Times, this figure includes only significant violations, not paperwork or minor problems.  One in five of our water treatment systems have violated our own Drinking Water standards for “Safe” water.  Yikes!

Here are some highlights of what they found in water data since 2004:

• Over 3 million Americans were exposed to illegal levels of arsenic and radioactive contaminants through their tap water
• Arsenic Standards:  “A system could deliver tap water that puts residents at a 1-in-600 risk of developing bladder cancer from arsenic, and still comply with the law.”  Double Yikes!
• In NY, over 200 water systems delivered illegal levels of bacteria in their tap water.
• Up to “19 million Americans may become ill each year due to just the parasites, viruses and bacteria in drinking water” 

The politicians will continue to point fingers to deflect blame and while they do, very little will change.  The US does need to address its water issues and a serious effort will be required to solve the many issues.  Providing safe drinking water to everyone in the US is no easy task and we realistically cannot expect perfection.  In the meantime, however, I would still suggest taking matters into your own hands and providing your own level of protection with a quality reverse osmosis system.  Yes, self promotion once again, but the New York Times brought it up, not me!

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34323634/ns/us_news-the_new_york_times/page/2/

Millions in U.S. drink dirty water, records show

Only 6 percent of systems that broke law since ’04 were fined, punished

By Charles Duhigg

updated 4:48 a.m. PT, Tues., Dec . 8, 2009

More than 20 percent of the nation’s water treatment systems have violated key provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act over the last five years, according to a New York Times analysis of federal data.

That law requires communities to deliver safe tap water to local residents. But since 2004, the water provided to more than 49 million people has contained illegal concentrations of chemicals like arsenic or radioactive substances like uranium, as well as dangerous bacteria often found in sewage.

Regulators were informed of each of those violations as they occurred. But regulatory records show that fewer than 6 percent of the water systems that broke the law were ever fined or punished by state or federal officials, including those at the Environmental Protection Agency, which has ultimate responsibility for enforcing standards.

Studies indicate that drinking water contaminants are linked to millions of instances of illness within the United States each year.

In some instances, drinking water violations were one-time events, and probably posed little risk. But for hundreds of other systems, illegal contamination persisted for years, records show.

‘Top priority’
On Tuesday, the Senate Environment and Public Works committee will question a high-ranking E.P.A. official about the agency’s enforcement of drinking-water safety laws. The E.P.A. is expected to announce a new policy for how it polices the nation’s 54,700 water systems.

“This administration has made it clear that clean water is a top priority,” said an E.P.A. spokeswoman, Adora Andy, in response to questions regarding the agency’s drinking water enforcement. The E.P.A. administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, this year announced a wide-ranging overhaul of enforcement of the Clean Water Act, which regulates pollution into waterways.

“The previous eight years provide a perfect example of what happens when political leadership fails to act to protect our health and the environment,” Ms. Andy added.

Water pollution has become a growing concern for some lawmakers as government oversight of polluters has waned. Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, in 2007 asked the E.P.A. for data on Americans’ exposure to some contaminants in drinking water.

The New York Times has compiled and analyzed millions of records from water systems and regulators around the nation, as part of a series of articles about worsening pollution in American waters, and regulators’ response.

Carcinogens
An analysis of E.P.A. data shows that Safe Drinking Water Act violations have occurred in parts of every state. In the prosperous town of Ramsey, N.J., for instance, drinking water tests since 2004 have detected illegal concentrations of arsenic, a carcinogen, and the dry cleaning solvent tetrachloroethylene, which has also been linked to cancer.

In New York state, 205 water systems have broken the law by delivering tap water that contained illegal amounts of bacteria since 2004.

However, almost none of those systems were ever punished. Ramsey was not fined for its water violations, for example, though a Ramsey official said that filtration systems have been installed since then. In New York, only three water systems were penalized for bacteria violations, according to federal data.

The problem, say current and former government officials, is that enforcing the Safe Drinking Water Act has not been a federal priority.

“There is significant reluctance within the E.P.A. and Justice Department to bring actions against municipalities, because there’s a view that they are often cash-strapped, and fines would ultimately be paid by local taxpayers,” said David Uhlmann, who headed the environmental crimes division at the Justice Department until 2007.

“But some systems won’t come into compliance unless they are forced to,” added Mr. Uhlmann, who now teaches at the University of Michigan law school. “And sometimes a court order is the only way to get local governments to spend what is needed.”

A half-dozen current and former E.P.A. officials said in interviews that they tried to prod the agency to enforce the drinking-water law, but found little support.

“I proposed drinking water cases, but they got shut down so fast that I’ve pretty much stopped even looking at the violations,” said one longtime E.P.A. enforcement official who, like others, requested anonymity for fear of reprisals. “The top people want big headlines and million-dollar settlements. That’s not drinking-water cases.”

The majority of drinking water violations since 2004 have occurred at water systems serving fewer than 20,000 residents, where resources and managerial expertise are often in short supply.

It is unclear precisely how many American illnesses are linked to contaminated drinking water. Many of the most dangerous contaminants regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act have been tied to diseases like cancer that can take years to develop.

But scientific research indicates that as many as 19 million Americans may become ill each year due to just the parasites, viruses and bacteria in drinking water. Certain types of cancer — such as breast and prostate cancer — have risen over the past 30 years, and research indicates they are likely tied to pollutants like those found in drinking water.

Informal methods
The violations counted by the Times analysis include only situations where residents were exposed to dangerous contaminants, and exclude violations that involved paperwork or other minor problems.

In response to inquiries submitted by Senator Boxer, the E.P.A. has reported that more than three million Americans have been exposed since 2005 to drinking water with illegal concentrations of arsenic and radioactive elements, both of which have been linked to cancer at small doses.

In some areas, the amount of radium detected in drinking water was 2,000 percent higher than the legal limit, according to E.P.A. data.

But federal regulators fined or punished fewer than 8 percent of water systems that violated the arsenic and radioactive standards. The E.P.A., in a statement, said that in a majority of situations, state regulators used informal methods — like providing technical assistance — to help systems that had violated the rules.

But many systems remained out of compliance, even after aid was offered, according to E.P.A. data. And for over a quarter of systems that violated the arsenic or radioactivity standards, there is no record that they were ever contacted by a regulator, even after they sent in paperwork revealing their violations.

Those figures are particularly worrisome, say researchers, because the Safe Drinking Water Act’s limits on arsenic are so weak to begin with. A system could deliver tap water that puts residents at a 1-in-600 risk of developing bladder cancer from arsenic, and still comply with the law.

Despite the expected announcement of reforms, some mid-level E.P.A. regulators say they are skeptical that any change will occur.

“The same people who told us to ignore Safe Drinking Water Act violations are still running the divisions,” said one mid-level E.P.A. official. “There’s no accountability, and so nothing’s going to change.”

---

 

Governor Schwarzennegger signed a $11.14 billion bond bill to help fix California’s aging water infrastructure.  As I’ve mentioned a few times, our State (and National) water infrastructure is in serious danger after decades of neglect, so some attention is good.   It remains to be seen if this bill is the answer, but something definitely needs to be done to fix aging water mains and delivery systems throughout the State.  According to Bloomberg, the bill is part of a $40 billion effort also using federal and local funds. 

http://www.watertechonline.com/news.asp?N_ID=72924

CA guv signs $11.14B water bond bill

 

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

SACRAMENTO, CA — California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on November 9 signed a $11.14 billion water bond bill, which is part of California’s historic multi-bill package designed to overhaul the state’s stressed water system.

The bill is designed to give Californians more reliable water sources and restore the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which supplies water to two-thirds of the state’s 36.7 million residents.

The referendum calls for voters to decide in November 2010 whether the state should invest $11.14 billion to finance the water system’s overhaul. The bond measure would be combined with federal and local monies for a total of $40 billion for water infrastructure projects, Bloomberg reported November 9.

During the bill-signing at Friant Dam, north of Fresno, Schwarzenegger said, according to Bloomberg, “This is long overdue. This is the linchpin of the water package. Today we are setting forth a bold vision of the future. I hope the people are going to be with us in passing these bonds.”

According to the Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA), the “Safe, Clean, and Reliable Drinking Water Supply Act of 2010” provides $455 million for drought relief; $1.4 billion for regional water supply projects; $2.25 billion for Delta restoration and sustainability; $3 billion for water storage projects; $1.79 billion for watershed conservation; $1 billion for groundwater cleanup and protection projects; and $1.25 billion for water recycling and conservation projects.

The governor this week is scheduled to sign other bills that are part of the water reform package, including conservation and Delta policy bills.

Last week, Schwarzenegger signed bills on groundwater monitoring and water rights enforcement that were also part of the legislative package.

 

A Colorado report found bacteria in showerheads, especially when the showerhead is first started, including bacteria linked to pulmonary disease and biofilms.  They believe the pathogens are most dangerous for those with compromised immune systems, so there is no need to panic and start a bath only regiment.  The bacteria load is also highest when the shower is first turned on, so letting a little water run before you put your face in the water is a good idea.

http://www.colorado.edu/news/r/50fe20a5a5376631bbad2024f89b02c0.html 

 

Daily Bathroom Showers May Deliver Face Full of Pathogens, Says CU-Boulder Study

September 14, 2009

While daily bathroom showers provide invigorating relief and a good cleansing for millions of Americans, they also can deliver a face full of potentially pathogenic bacteria, according to a surprising new University of Colorado at Boulder study.

The researchers used high-tech instruments and lab methods to analyze roughly 50 showerheads from nine cities in seven states that included New York City, Chicago and Denver. They concluded about 30 percent of the devices harbored significant levels of Mycobacterium avium, a pathogen linked to pulmonary disease that most often infects people with compromised immune systems but which can occasionally infect healthy people, said CU-Boulder Distinguished Professor Norman Pace, lead study author.

It’s not surprising to find pathogens in municipal waters, said Pace. But the CU-Boulder researchers found that some M. avium and related pathogens were clumped together in slimy "biofilms" that clung to the inside of showerheads at more than 100 times the "background" levels of municipal water. "If you are getting a face full of water when you first turn your shower on, that means you are probably getting a particularly high load of Mycobacterium avium, which may not be too healthy," he said.

The study appeared in the Sept. 14 online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Co-authors of the study included CU-Boulder researchers Leah Feazel, Laura Baumgartner, Kristen Peterson and Daniel Frank and University Colorado Denver pediatrics department Associate Professor Kirk Harris. The study is part of a larger effort by Pace and his colleagues to assess the microbiology of indoor environments and was supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Research at National Jewish Hospital in Denver indicates that increases in pulmonary infections in the United States in recent decades from so-called "non-tuberculosis" mycobacteria species like M. avium may be linked to people taking more showers and fewer baths, said Pace. Water spurting from showerheads can distribute pathogen-filled droplets that suspend themselves in the air and can easily be inhaled into the deepest parts of the lungs, he said.

Symptoms of pulmonary disease caused by M. avium can include tiredness, a persistent, dry cough, shortness of breath, weakness and "generally feeling bad," said Pace. Immune-compromised people like pregnant women, the elderly and those who are fighting off other diseases are more prone to experience such symptoms, said Pace, a professor in the molecular, cellular and developmental biology department.

The CU-Boulder researchers sampled showerheads in homes, apartment buildings and public places in New York, Illinois, Colorado, Tennessee and North Dakota.

Although scientists have tried cell culturing to test for showerhead pathogens, the technique is unable to detect 99.9 percent of bacteria species present in any given environment, said Pace. A molecular genetics technique developed by Pace in the 1990s allowed researchers to swab samples directly from the showerheads, isolate DNA, amplify it using the polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, and determine the sequences of genes present in order to pinpoint particular pathogen types.

"There have been some precedents for concern regarding pathogens and showerheads," said Pace. "But until this study we did not know just how much concern."

During the early stages of the study, the CU team tested showerheads from smaller towns and cities, many of which were using well water rather than municipal water. "We were starting to conclude that pathogen levels we detected in the showerheads were pretty boring," said Feazel, first author on the study. "Then we worked up the New York data and saw a lot of M. avium. It completely reinvigorated the study."

In addition to the showerhead swabbing technique, Feazel took several individual showerheads, broke them into tiny pieces, coated them with gold, used a fluorescent dye to stain the surfaces and used a scanning electron microscope to look at the surfaces in detail. "Once we started analyzing the big metropolitan data, it suddenly became a huge story to us," said Feazel, who began working in Pace’s lab as an undergraduate.

In Denver, one showerhead in the study with high loads of the pathogen Mycobacterium gordonae was cleaned with a bleach solution in an attempt to eradicate it, said Pace. Tests on the showerhead several months later showed the bleach treatment ironically caused a three-fold increase in M. gordonae, indicating a general resistance of mycobacteria species to chlorine.

Previous studies by Pace and his group found massive enrichments of M. avium in "soap scum" commonly found on vinyl shower curtains and floating above the water surface of warm therapy pools. A 2006 therapy pool study led by Pace and CU-Boulder Professor Mark Hernandez showed high levels of M. avium in the indoor pool environment were linked to a pneumonia-like pulmonary condition in pool attendants known as "lifeguard lung," leading the CU team into the showerhead study, said Pace.

Additional studies under way by Pace’s team include analyses of air in New York subways, hospital waiting rooms, office buildings and homeless shelters. Indoor air typically has about 1 million bacteria per cubic meter and municipal tap water has rough 10 million bacteria per cubic meter, said Pace.

So is it dangerous to take showers? "Probably not, if your immune system is not compromised in some way," said Pace. "But it’s like anything else — there is a risk associated with it." Pace said since plastic showerheads appear to "load up" with more pathogen-enriched biofilms, metal showerheads may be a good alternative.

"There are lessons to be learned here in terms of how we handle and monitor water," said Pace. "Water monitoring in this country is frankly archaic. The tools now exist to monitor it far more accurately and far less expensively that what is routinely being done today."

In 2001 the National Academy of Sciences awarded Pace the Selman Waxman Award — considered the nation’s highest award in microbiology — for pioneering the molecular genetic techniques he now uses to rapidly detect, identify and classify microbe species using nucleic acid technology without the need for lab cultivation. That same year he was awarded a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" for his work.

A video news release on the showerhead and pathogen study is available at www.colorado.edu/news.

 

According to a new report by the New York Times, 1 in 10 Americans have been exposed to dangerous chemicals in their tap water.  Even though I have seen some of this before, this is a pretty scary article (it’s worth reading the entire 7 pages).  In a community only 17 miles from a State Capitol, residents apply lotion after showering to relieve the burning sensation caused by tap water?  Really?  And teeth are capped because the tap water destroyed a child’s enamel.  Yikes!  The video is even worse.  The kids’ bath time is awful?  Bath time with my kids was a blast (albeit a messy one) and that is how it is supposed to be. 

And yes, this is happening right here in the United States in 2009.  Municipalities cannot control everything that goes into our drinking water supplies.  Nor can they test for every possible contaminant.  So, this kind of contamination will happen.  Not everywhere, of course.  And eventually, it will be discovered and remedied.  But, the problem is that by then it will be too late.  So, protect yourself – get a reverse osmosis unit.  No link this time – I’m starting to feel guilty about the blatant self promotion. 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/us/13water.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

TOXIC WATERS

Clean Water Laws Are Neglected, at a Cost in Suffering

Damon Winter/The New York Times

Ryan Massey, 7, shows his caps. Dentists near Charleston, W.Va., say pollutants in drinking water have damaged residents’ teeth. Nationwide, polluters have violated the Clean Water Act more than 500,000 times.

Jennifer Hall-Massey knows not to drink the tap water in her home near Charleston, W.Va.

 

The New York Times surveyed violations of the Clean Water Act in every state, and the response by state regulators.

 

How Safe Is Your Water? (September 13, 2009)

Toxic Waters

Unchecked Pollution

Articles in this series are examining the worsening pollution in American waters, and regulators’ response.

Damon Winter/The New York Times

Jennifer Hall-Massey relies on drinking water that is brought in by truck and stored in barrels on her porch near Charleston, W.Va.

 

In fact, her entire family tries to avoid any contact with the water. Her youngest son has scabs on his arms, legs and chest where the bathwater — polluted with lead, nickel and other heavy metals — caused painful rashes. Many of his brother’s teeth were capped to replace enamel that was eaten away.

Neighbors apply special lotions after showering because their skin burns. Tests show that their tap water contains arsenic, barium, lead, manganese and other chemicals at concentrations federal regulators say could contribute to cancer and damage the kidneys and nervous system.

“How can we get digital cable and Internet in our homes, but not clean water?” said Mrs. Hall-Massey, a senior accountant at one of the state’s largest banks.

She and her husband, Charles, do not live in some remote corner of Appalachia. Charleston, the state capital, is less than 17 miles from her home.

“How is this still happening today?” she asked.

When Mrs. Hall-Massey and 264 neighbors sued nine nearby coal companies, accusing them of putting dangerous waste into local water supplies, their lawyer did not have to look far for evidence. As required by state law, some of the companies had disclosed in reports to regulators that they were pumping into the ground illegal concentrations of chemicals — the same pollutants that flowed from residents’ taps.

But state regulators never fined or punished those companies for breaking those pollution laws.

This pattern is not limited to West Virginia. Almost four decades ago, Congress passed the Clean Water Act to force polluters to disclose the toxins they dump into waterways and to give regulators the power to fine or jail offenders. States have passed pollution statutes of their own. But in recent years, violations of the Clean Water Act have risen steadily across the nation, an extensive review of water pollution records by The New York Times found.

In the last five years alone, chemical factories, manufacturing plants and other workplaces have violated water pollution laws more than half a million times. The violations range from failing to report emissions to dumping toxins at concentrations regulators say might contribute to cancer, birth defects and other illnesses.

However, the vast majority of those polluters have escaped punishment. State officials have repeatedly ignored obvious illegal dumping, and the Environmental Protection Agency, which can prosecute polluters when states fail to act, has often declined to intervene.

Because it is difficult to determine what causes diseases like cancer, it is impossible to know how many illnesses are the result of water pollution, or contaminants’ role in the health problems of specific individuals.

But concerns over these toxins are great enough that Congress and the E.P.A. regulate more than 100 pollutants through the Clean Water Act and strictly limit 91 chemicals or contaminants in tap water through the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Regulators themselves acknowledge lapses. The new E.P.A. administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, said in an interview that despite many successes since the Clean Water Act was passed in 1972, today the nation’s water does not meet public health goals, and enforcement of water pollution laws is unacceptably low. She added that strengthening water protections is among her top priorities. State regulators say they are doing their best with insufficient resources.

The Times obtained hundreds of thousands of water pollution records through Freedom of Information Act requests to every state and the E.P.A., and compiled a national database of water pollution violations that is more comprehensive than those maintained by states or the E.P.A. (For an interactive version, which can show violations in any community, visit www.nytimes.com/toxicwaters.)

In addition, The Times interviewed more than 250 state and federal regulators, water-system managers, environmental advocates and scientists.

That research shows that an estimated one in 10 Americans have been exposed to drinking water that contains dangerous chemicals or fails to meet a federal health benchmark in other ways.

Those exposures include carcinogens in the tap water of major American cities and unsafe chemicals in drinking-water wells. Wells, which are not typically regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act, are more likely to contain contaminants than municipal water systems.

Because most of today’s water pollution has no scent or taste, many people who consume dangerous chemicals do not realize it, even after they become sick, researchers say.

But an estimated 19.5 million Americans fall ill each year from drinking water contaminated with parasites, bacteria or viruses, according to a study published last year in the scientific journal Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. That figure does not include illnesses caused by other chemicals and toxins.

Enlarge This Image

Damon Winter/The New York Times

A water sample collected from a water heater by Patty Sebok, a neighbor of Jennifer Hall-Massey. Residents say such water is typical and has destroyed toilets, dishwashers and washing machines.

U.S.

Toxic Waters: Coal in the Water

Jennifer Hall-Massey of Prenter, W.Va., explains how water pollution, which she believes is caused by nearby coal companies, has impacted her family and community.

Clay Massey, 6, waits for his mother to put prescription ointment on painful scabs and rashes that she said were caused by polluted bath water.

In the nation’s largest dairy states, like Wisconsin and California, farmers have sprayed liquefied animal feces onto fields, where it has seeped into wells, causing severe infections. Tap water in parts of the Farm Belt, including cities in Illinois, Kansas, Missouri and Indiana, has contained pesticides at concentrations that some scientists have linked to birth defects and fertility problems.

In parts of New York, Rhode Island, Ohio, California and other states where sewer systems cannot accommodate heavy rains, untreated human waste has flowed into rivers and washed onto beaches. Drinking water in parts of New Jersey, New York, Arizona and Massachusetts shows some of the highest concentrations of tetrachloroethylene, a dry cleaning solvent that has been linked to kidney damage and cancer. (Specific types of water pollution across the United States will be examined in future Times articles.)

The Times’s research also shows that last year, 40 percent of the nation’s community water systems violated the Safe Drinking Water Act at least once, according to an analysis of E.P.A. data. Those violations ranged from failing to maintain proper paperwork to allowing carcinogens into tap water. More than 23 million people received drinking water from municipal systems that violated a health-based standard.

In some cases, people got sick right away. In other situations, pollutants like chemicals, inorganic toxins and heavy metals can accumulate in the body for years or decades before they cause problems. Some of the most frequently detected contaminants have been linked to cancer, birth defects and neurological disorders.

Records analyzed by The Times indicate that the Clean Water Act has been violated more than 506,000 times since 2004, by more than 23,000 companies and other facilities, according to reports submitted by polluters themselves. Companies sometimes test what they are dumping only once a quarter, so the actual number of days when they broke the law is often far higher. And some companies illegally avoid reporting their emissions, say officials, so infractions go unrecorded.

Environmental groups say the number of Clean Water Act violations has increased significantly in the last decade. Comprehensive data go back only five years but show that the number of facilities violating the Clean Water Act grew more than 16 percent from 2004 to 2007, the most recent year with complete data.

Polluters include small companies, like gas stations, dry cleaners, shopping malls and the Friendly Acres Mobile Home Park in Laporte, Ind., which acknowledged to regulators that it had dumped human waste into a nearby river for three years.

They also include large operations, like chemical factories, power plants, sewage treatment centers and one of the biggest zinc smelters, the Horsehead Corporation of Pennsylvania, which has dumped illegal concentrations of copper, lead, zinc, chlorine and selenium into the Ohio River. Those chemicals can contribute to mental retardation and cancer.

Some violations are relatively minor. But about 60 percent of the polluters were deemed in “significant noncompliance” — meaning their violations were the most serious kind, like dumping cancer-causing chemicals or failing to measure or report when they pollute.

Finally, the Times’s research shows that fewer than 3 percent of Clean Water Act violations resulted in fines or other significant punishments by state officials. And the E.P.A. has often declined to prosecute polluters or force states to strengthen their enforcement by threatening to withhold federal money or take away powers the agency has delegated to state officials.

next page…