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Tennessee sludge contains elevated levels of arsenic The drinking water in the area of last month's coal-sludge spill in eastern Tennessee is safe, but elevated levels of arsenic have been found in the sludge, authorities said. Preliminary results from water samples taken in the spill area show no unsafe levels of toxins, said Leslie Sims, on-scene coordinator for the Environmental Protection Agency. The testing includes municipal supplies and private wells, he said. However, samples of the fly ash scooped up along roadsides and river banks show elevated levels of arsenic that normally would trigger an EPA response, Sims said. "These are levels that we consider harmful to humans," he said. But the EPA is not responding because the Tennessee Valley Authority is taking action to fix the problem, he added. CNN_ 1/2/09 Milliken, Colorado loses water supply to mystery outage Milliken officials are still working to identify the source of a water outage that left 6,000 people without water for much of Sunday. Mike Woodruff, public works director for the town, said town public works employees have isolated the outage that caused the loss of 750,000 to 1 million gallons of water Saturday and Sunday to an industrial area in the eastern part of town. Water service was restored to all residential customers by 5:30 p.m. Sunday, he said. The city’s own public works facility is without water in the meantime, as are two adjacent businesses, including an automotive dealer. People there are being offered bottled water Milliken is providing. Woodruff said Sunday that Milliken’s water is completely safe to drink. Greeley Tribune_ 12/30/08
Around the U.S. Broken water pump causes problems in Altheimer, Arkansas Altheimer Mayor Donald Robinson distributed bottled water to residents on New Year’s Eve following a malfunction of the city’s water system. Some residents of the town have stated the water has become discolored. Robinson stated the city has ordered a new pump through Jones Hydraulics of Stuttgart, but Jones had not yet received the device due possibly to holiday delays in shipping and order processing. Dennis Taylor of the state Department of Health said Friday the department had not issued a boil order for the town and he was not aware of a water problem at Altheimer. Robinson said a boil order was not necessary and the health department had been made aware of the situation. The Pine Bluff Commercial_ 1/2/09 Ice blocking water supply from Navajo village in Utah An icy road has prevented water trucks since Thursday from reaching a Navajo community whose only water source has been severed. If tractor-trailers can't reach Navajo Mountain in southeast Utah by Saturday, evacuations may be necessary, said Bruce Adams, San Juan County Commission chairman. Census data says about 380 people live in Navajo Mountain. But Adams said community leaders have told him as many as 1,200 people may live there. Navajo Mountain receives its water from one mountain side spring, but wildfires have damaged the watershed, creating mud slides. Adams said the officials believe one of those slides disabled the water line recently and severed the community's water. Salt Lake Tribune_ 12/27/08 Bottled Water Crystal Springs bottled water company acquires Blue Ridge Mountain Water Crystal Springs has acquired substantially all of the assets of Blue Ridge Mountain Water, Inc. and its affiliates, according to a news release. Combining these resources with its own, Crystal Springs will expand its home and office bottled water delivery service further into the greater Atlanta area and additional Georgia communities, including a new branch in Calhoun, GA, the release said. No financial details were provided. For more than 80 years, Crystal Springs has delivered the water to homes and offices across the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic. The source of Crystal Springs can be found in the Chattahoochee National Forest, within the woodlands west of Ocala, Florida, or from deep in the earth near Lancaster, Pennsylvania. News Release/PRWEB_ 12/22/08 Business Aqua America Texas subsidiary acquires two water systems Aqua America, Inc.’s (NYSE:WTR) Texas subsidiary announced today that it has completed the acquisition of two water companies in Hays County. Aqua Texas, Inc. purchased the assets of the Cardinal Valley Water Company and the Mountain Crest Water Company, which collectively service approximately 400 people. Aqua Texas has operated the Cardinal Valley water system since beginning its Texas operations in 2003. Both systems are in an area surrounded by other water and wastewater systems owned by Aqua Texas and will be operated out of the company’s Wimberley office near Austin. Aqua America is a publicly traded water and wastewater utility holding company with operating subsidiaries serving approximately three million people in Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, North Carolina, Illinois, Texas, Florida, New Jersey, Indiana, Virginia, Maine, Missouri and South Carolina. News Release/Welt Online_ 12/30/08 Colorado River Energy vs. water in Rocky Mountain power struggle A titanic battle between the West's two traditional power brokers -- Big Oil and Big Water -- has begun. At stake is one of the largest oil reserves in the world, a vast cache trapped beneath the Rocky Mountains containing an estimated 800 billion barrels -- about three times the reserves of Saudi Arabia. Extracting oil from rocky seams of underground shale is not only expensive, but also requires massive amounts of water, a precious resource crucial to continued development in the nation's fastest-growing region. That water-to-oil equation has inflamed officials in the upper Rockies, who are raising the alarm about the cumulative effect of energy projects on the region's water supplies, which ultimately feed Southern California reservoirs via the Colorado River. "There are estimates that oil shale could use all of the remaining water in upper Colorado River Basin," said Susan Daggett, a commissioner on the Denver Water Board. "That essentially pits oil shale against people's needs." Los Angeles Times_ 12/28/08 Construction Boston uses technology to detect leaks Every day, Boston residents use nearly 70 million gallons of water, which swishes through more than 1,000 miles of underground pipes. Over the past decade, as erosion and widespread construction have weakened aging pipes, city officials have poured $335 million into replacing and repairing the system. Part of the money has paid for the work of a crack squad of hole-digging, sound-detecting technicians such, who spend their shifts scouring the city for leaks and patching them to prevent breaks. With the aid of technology - sophisticated sensors and computers have mostly replaced the old stethoscope-like devices that listened for leaks from the street - Boston has kept the number of water main breaks to significantly lower levels than similarly sized cities and helped conserve water. Boston Globe_ 12/20/08 Desalination In Saudi Arabia, Alfaisal University signs research agreement with desalination agency The Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) and Alfaisal University yesterday signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate in research and training in the application of desalination technology. The agreement was inked by Prince Bandar bin Saud, chairman of the Executive Committee of Alfaisal University, and SWCC Governor Fehied F. Alshareef at the headquarters of King Faisal Foundation. Alan G. Goodridge, acting president of the university, was present during the function. Prince Bandar pointed out that production and supply of desalinated water was the top priority in the Kingdom. He added that with this cooperation agreement, the university would produce expertise that could fulfil technical needs of the country. Arab News_ 12/30/08 Fluoride In Australia, Queenslanders rush to filter fluoride from water Queenslanders concerned about the introduction of fluoridated drinking water are rushing to purchase the latest filtering systems. Almost 80 per cent of southeast Queensland households are now drinking fluoridated water. But the State Government has conceded it has received two petitions against water fluoridation totalling almost 6000 signatures in the past month. The Queensland Health website advises people concerned about fluoride will have to choose other drinking water sources, such as bottled or filtered water. Water filter sales are rocketing in Queensland. Courier-Mail_ 12/30/08 International News World fears grow over Gaza 'humanitarian crisis' World leaders expressed mounting concern about the impact on civilians of the fighting in the Gaza Strip Monday, as Israel rejected diplomatic efforts to bring an end to the conflict. Aid groups have said Israel's offensive has aggravated a humanitarian crisis for Gaza's population, who have no electricity, no water and now face dire food shortages. AFP_ 1/5/09 Dead Sea to receive water from Red Sea to save it from drying up The Dead Sea could be saved from drying up under a groundbreaking plan to flood millions of gallons of seawater in from the Red Sea more than 110 miles away. Funding has been secured for a feasibility study into the ambitious and controversial scheme to reverse falling water levels. The scheme involves a 110-mile long canal, dubbed 'Red To Dead', that would channel roughly five million tonnes of seawater each day into the Dead Sea. The new water is needed to avoid the complete disappearance of the Dead Sea, an event the World Bank warns would represent "an environmental calamity". Overuse by farmers of water from the Jordan River, the only major influx into the Dead Sea, and climate change mean the level of the Dead Sea plunges by about three feet every year. One key aspect of the study is how the arrival of seawater will impact on the unique ecosystem of the Dead Sea. The Telegraph_ 12/25/08 Myanmar cyclone survivors still need water wells and other aid With tents still serving as homes and schools seven months after Cyclone Nargis lashed Myanmar, survivors say they are struggling to rebuild their lives as international aid trickles in. In a small sign of progress this week, a ceremony was held in Kungyangon to mark a 500,000-dollar donation from a Taiwan-based Buddhist monk, through the Taiwan Red Cross, to build two primary schools and water wells. AFP_ 12/25/08 China helps 109 million in rural areas get safe drinking water: Minister China said on Wednesday that it has spent nearly 24 billion yuan (about U.S. $3.5 billion) in the past two years to give more than 8 percent of its 1.3 billion people safe drinking water. Environmental Protection Minister Zhou Shengxian said in a report to a plenary session of the National People's Congress Standing Committee that more than 109 million rural people benefited from the water investment since 2006. Overall water quality last year was almost the same as in 2006, he said, adding that greater efforts were made to curb pollution in major streams. Xinhua_ 12/24/08 Iraq Water France's Degremont wins $201 million Baghdad water contract Rates Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay Commission seeks 11.68% sewer-rate hike The Narragansett Bay Commission is seeking an 11.68-percent rate increase for sewer users, effective July 1, according to the utility’s proposed budget for fiscal 2009. The rate hike, which requires the approval of the R.I. Public Utilities Commission (PUC), is needed to cover increases in operating expenses and debt-service costs related to the financing of ongoing capital improvements, the Bay Commission said. Contributing to the rise in operating costs, among other factors, are bio-solids disposal expenses, which will rise 3.5 percent on Jan 1; and electricity and natural gas usage, which will rise when the Bay Commission’s new combined sewage overflow (CSO) facilities at Field’s Point come on line in October. Providence Business News_ 12/26/08 Research and Technology Laser experiment aimed at saving farm water Seventy-six years after the invention of the modern sprinkler helped revolutionize farming, a professor of environmental engineering is pointing a laser beam across an alfalfa crop in Southern California's bone-dry Imperial Valley, looking for a better way to conserve the millions of gallons of water sprayed each year on thirsty crops. Jan Kleissl and a handful of his students at the University of California, San Diego, have rigged up a telescope-looking contraption called a large aperture scintillometer to study exactly how much water crops lose to evaporation and the peak times that water disappears. AP/San Francisco Chronicle_ 12/29/08 Wastewater Hanoi to be cleaner with two wastewater plants on the horizon Hanoi authorities and Japanese consultants are working on a project to construct two plants to treat waste water in a bid to further improve the environment in the capital city in the 2010-2020 period. According to the joint consultant teams comprising experts from Nippon Koei of Japan and the Vietnam Water and Environment Joint Stock Company (VIWASE), the Yen Xa village plant in Hanoi ’s outlying Thanh Tri district will be capable of treating around 270,000 cu. m a day. Meanwhile, the Phu Do village plant in the outlying district of Tu Liem will be able to process 84,000 cu. m of waste water a day. The proposed construction, which is estimated to cost 10 trillion VND in total, should be carried out in two phases with the first phase scheduled to be completed in 2015 before operating in full in 2020. Once completed, those plants are expected to improve water quality in Hanoi ’s rivers, particularly the To Lich. Voice of the Army and the People_ 12/26/08 Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, launches US$266 million wastewater treatment plant A wastewater treatment plant built with official development assistance (ODA) loans from the Japanese government was officially put into operation in Ho Chi Minh City on December 26. The Wastewater Treatment Plant is an essential component of the Water Environment Improvement Project, which received 23,99 billion yen (roughly US$266 million) from the Japanese government’s ODA. The funds were channeled through Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) under two loan agreements signed in 2001 and 2003. Repayment period of the loan is 30 years. Voice of the Armed Forces_ 12/26/08 Septic upgrades help protect waterways In recent years, water quality in both the Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bays has deteriorated. Three major sources -- agricultural runoff, urban runoff and wastewater effluent -- have contributed to this decline by introducing large quantities of phosphorus and nitrogen into the waterways. While the average individual using public sewer is responsible for adding approximately two pounds of nitrogen to the environment annually, the typical person using septic contributes nine pounds during that same period. Wastewater mixes with the groundwater that flows into streams and rivers and that groundwater accounts for more than half of the water in both the Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bays. Homeowners who upgrade their systems to reduce the amount of nitrogen entering groundwater can play a significant role in decreasing these environmental pollutants. DelMarvaNow.com_ 12/25/08 And Finally Water, in all its forms, tops Canada's 2008 weather news Whether it was frozen, flooding or falling, water and its incarnations were at the heart of Canadian weather woes in 2008, according to Environment Canada's annual roundup. The year's No. 1 weather issue hearkens back to the summer, when the season of sun was anything but for eastern Canada. Rays of sunshine were replaced with reams of rain as provinces from Ontario to Newfoundland and Labrador endured the wettest summer on record. Running second on the list of the year's top climate stories is Arctic ice loss, a sequel to last year's No. 1 most notable weather story and an issue that has attracted attention beyond Canada's borders. The navigable routes of the Northwest Passage and the Northeast Passage (over the top of Russia) were simultaneously free of ice for the first time in recorded history, while the summer of 2008 marked the third consecutive year ships could navigate the Northwest Passage without confronting sea ice. Permanent or thick multi-year ice now comprises just 11 per cent of Canadian Arctic waters, compared with 16 per cent last year. CBC News_ 12/30/08
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