In a stark visual reminder of the threat to public health from dangerous lead water pipes, NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) today released a map based on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data revealing the specific communities and water systems most impacted by the estimated 9.2 million lead water pipes delivering drinking water to homes. There is no safe level of lead exposure.

The data confirm that lead pipes are found in all 50 states, with Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Florida having the most. Chicago and Cleveland are the cities with the most reported lead pipes, but the problem is also widespread across the nation with cities like Cocoa, Florida, and Atlanta, Georgia also having major problems. Millions more people are drinking water from pipes that could be lead because their local utilities have labeled their composition as “unknown.”

“Each lead pipe on this map connects an entire family to an urgent drinking water threat in their home,” said Valerie Baron, National Policy Director and Senior Attorney at NRDC’s Safe Water Initiative. “Children today are drinking water that traveled through the same dangerous pipe that was installed before their parents were even born. It is long past time for utilities and governments to take responsibilities for these hazards, and the first step is knowing where they are.”

This new data underscores the importance of EPA’s Lead and Copper Rule Improvements, which the agency promised will be finalized by October 16, one month from today. It is expected to represent the most significant step in a generation towards tackling the nationwide problem of lead in drinking water. For the first time, it will become federal policy to replace 100 percent of lead water pipes within 10 years, among other improvements.

“No one I’ve ever met wants to drink water from a lead straw, so the EPA’s final lead rule must finally fix the historic wrong of transporting drinking water through toxic lead pipes,” said Erik D. Olson, senior strategic director for health at NRDC. “Community leaders from Flint, Michigan to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Newark, New Jersey, and Chicago, Illinois have been fighting to clean up our tap water, and the government is right to recognize the urgent need to do more to protect the right to safe drinking water.”

$15B in federal funding is available to states but allocations are determined by a lead pipe inventory. Despite this financial incentive, EPA’s data exposes many water systems have failed to identify whether they have lead pipes, and some have characterized the material makeup of many or all of their water pipes as made of “unknown material.” But a comprehensive national requirement for water systems to complete an inventory identifying the location of their lead pipes becomes effective one month from today, October 16. The data from those inventories will not be immediately publicly available.

NRDC’s map is based upon EPA’s survey data recently publicly released after NRDC submitted a Freedom of Information Act request. Some highlights about the geographic location where pipes are located include:

• Lead pipes occur in all 50 states, but some states have a disproportionate problem. These include Illinois, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida, which are especially heavy hit. Other states, including North Carolina, Michigan, Georgia, Indiana, and Louisiana, also are among the states with the most reported lead pipes.
• A handful of cities report massive numbers of pipes known to have lead, including of course Chicago (387k), as well as Cleveland (235k), New York City (112k), Detroit MI (80k), Milwaukee WI (74k), Denver CO (64k), St. Louis, MO (63k). Indianapolis IN (55k), Minneapolis, MN (49k), Buffalo, NY (40k), Cocoa FL (37k), Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission in MD (36k), Pittsburgh PA (29k), Philadelphia PA (25k), and Atlanta (31k). Some of these cities (like NYC) have large numbers of service lines of unknown material (“unknowns”) that may be lead, and other cities (like Chicago) have found additional lead pipes since these data were reported to EPA, so these are likely underestimates for many cities. The number of unknowns is listed for each city, where reported.
• Some cities not previously widely recognized as having a lead problem have surprisingly high numbers of lead pipes. These include Cocoa, Florida (37k), Northern Kentucky Water District (28k), Conway, AR (27k), Pasco County Utilities – Pasco County Regional Water System FL (24k) (listed as “PCUD-Pasco County Regional PWS”). There are many other surprises including Fort Lauderdale, FL (23k), Memphis, TN (20k), and Winston-Salem, NC (13k).
• The top 30 cities with the most reported service lines containing lead are listed here. However, these numbers will change as more lead lines are discovered in these and many other cities.

Some highlights about water pipe inventories reported by Public Water Systems (water utilities) include:

• 20 percent of water utilities in the United States are thought to have some lead pipe in their service lines. These utilities serve more than 82 million people.
• Many water utilities have failed to identify their lead pipes—43 percent of water utilities serving 123 million people report that many or all their water lines are made from an “unknown” material.
• 23 percent of water utilities serving 30 million people in Texas, Louisiana, and California secured the ignominious distinction of having the highest percentages of non-reporting systems.

Additional Resources:

• Finding Lead Water Pipes: New NRDC Map Shows the Hot Spots in Every State
• Let’s Finish the Job and Get Lead Out of Our Drinking Water
• Report: Getting the Lead Out Costs Less Than You May Think
• Causes and Effects of Lead in Water
• How to Find Out if Your Home Has Lead Service Lines
• What’s Great and What Needs Fixing in the EPA’s Proposed Lead Rule

About NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council)
NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 3 million members and online activists. Established in 1970, NRDC uses science, policy, law and people power to confront the climate crisis, protect public health and safeguard nature. NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Beijing and Delhi (an office of NRDC India Pvt. Ltd).

Source: NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council)

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Federal Court Rules That Fluoridation Chemicals Pose An “Unreasonable Risk” To Health

Introductory Note: Fluoride Action Network, a group that has for many years opposed the fluoridation of drinking water, recently won a case in a US district court which found that fluoridation presents an “unreasonable risk” to the health of children. The case has been in court for seven years.  As a result, the US EPA will now be required to regulate fluoridation as a health risk to children.  The paragraph below is an excerpt from the introduction to the ruling.

“The issue before this Court is whether the Plaintiffs have established by a preponderance of the evidence that the fluoridation of drinking water at levels typical in the United States poses an unreasonable risk of injury to health of the public within the meaning of Amended TSCA. For the reasons set forth below, the Court so finds. Specifically, the Court finds that fluoridation of water at 0.7 milligrams per liter (“mg/L”) – the level presently considered “optimal” in the United States – poses an unreasonable risk of reduced IQ in children… The Court finds there is an unreasonable risk of such injury, a risk sufficient to require the EPA to engage with a regulatory response…One thing the EPA cannot do, however, in the face of this Court’s finding, is to ignore that risk.”

It’s the first time a federal judge has made a determination about the neurodevelopmental risks to children of the recommended U.S. water fluoride level, said Ashley Malin, a University of Florida researcher who has studied the effect of higher fluoride levels in pregnant women.

She called it “the most historic ruling in the U.S. fluoridation debate that we’ve ever seen.”  (Associated Press)

Don’t expect anything to happen quickly on this issue. Fluoride in water has been a controversial issue for decades, and the knowledge that children’s IQ can be lowered by ingestion of fluoride by mothers and babies alike is not new.  (See “Fluoride and IQ in Children” in the Pure Water Gazette.) The wheels of change turn slowly. Expect legal appeals and more legal appeals and probably studies and more studies. This court ruling, however, represents a significant victory in the fight to outlaw the fluoridation of public drinking water.

Source:  National Public Radio. Kera.

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Water News for August 2024

The Largest Dam Removal Project in U.S. History Is Almost Finished

The dismantling of four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River, which began in June 2023 and has involved hundreds of workers, is the largest dam removal effort in U.S. history. Full story. LA Times.

PFAS in River Fish

Scientists tested nine fish species from four northern Illinois rivers for contamination with per- or polyfluoroalkyl substances, synthetic chemicals found in numerous industrial and commercial products and known to be harmful to human health. They found fish contaminated with PFAS in every one of their 15 test sites. Elevated levels of PFOS, one type of PFAS compound, were found in nearly all fish tested. Technology Networks.

Climate Change and Wastewater Systems

The Pacific Institute, Livelihoods Knowledge Exchange Network (LiKEN), and Rural Community Assistance Partnership Incorporated (RCAP) released new research outlining how climate change impacts are leading to devastating consequences for water and wastewater systems in rural communities across the United States. Water Online. 

Record Number of Heat Records Broken

A record 15 national heat records have been broken in 2024, as weather extremes grow more frequent and climate breakdown intensifies. The geographic range of all-time national records is staggering. Mexico tied its peak of 52C (125.6F) at Tepache on 20 June. On the other side of the world, the Australian territory of Cocos Islands tied its all-time high with 32.8C (91F) on 7 April for the third time this year. The Guardian.

Violence over Water On the Rise

Violence over water resources increased dramatically in 2023, continuing a steep growth trend of such incidents over the past decade. These events include attacks on water systems, unrest and disputes over the control of and access to water, and the use of water as a weapon of war. The number of events has risen rapidly in recent years, with 150% as many incidents in 2023 as those recorded in 2022 (347 events versus 231). In the year 2000, there were only 22 such incidents recorded.

“The significant upswing in violence over water resources reflects continuing disputes over control and access to scarce water resources, the importance of water for modern society, growing pressures on water due to population growth and extreme climate change, and ongoing attacks on water systems where war and violence are widespread, especially in the Middle East and Ukraine,” said Dr. Peter Gleick, Senior Fellow and co-founder of the Pacific Institute. Wateronline.

Amistad Struggling

Amistad reservoir in Texas reached record-low levels this summer, with images from space capturing the staggering scale of its decline. The Amistad reservoir, straddling the Texas-Mexico border on the Rio Grande, dropped to less than a quarter full in July this year, hitting a record low of 1,047.15 feet above sea level on July 17. The previous record low was seen in August 2022, when the reservoir hit 1,052.48 feet. This year, the reservoir has been below 1,052 feet since February. The Amistad was created with the construction of the Amistad Dam in 1969 and is a joint venture between the U.S. and Mexico to provide water and hydroelectric power to both countries. MSN.com.

AI and Water Consumption

AI is thirsty for water. ChatGPT gulps roughly a 16-ounce bottle in as few as 10 queries, according to calculations by Shaolei Ren, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at UC Riverside, and his colleagues.

AI Doesn’t Just Consume Tons of Energy. It’s a Water Hog as Well

“The growing carbon footprint of artificial intelligence (AI) models, especially large ones such as GPT-3, has been undergoing public scrutiny. Unfortunately, however, the equally important and enormous water (withdrawal and consumption) footprint of AI models has remained under the radar. For example, training GPT-3 in Microsoft’s state-of-the-art U.S. data centers can directly evaporate 700,000 liters of clean freshwater, but such information has been kept a secret. More critically, the global AI demand may be accountable for 4.2 — 6.6 billion cubic meters of water withdrawal in 2027, which is more than the total annual water withdrawal of 4 to 6 Denmark-sized countries or half of the United Kingdom. This is very concerning, as freshwater scarcity has become one of the most pressing challenges shared by all of us in the wake of the rapidly growing population, depleting water resources, and aging water infrastructures. To respond to the global water challenges, AI models can, and also must, take social responsibility and lead by example by addressing their own water footprint.”    LA TIMES. 

Microplastics in Human Organs

Microplastics are infiltrating brain tissue, studies show. Twenty-four brain samples collected in early 2024 measured on average about 0.5% plastic by weight. A growing body of scientific evidence shows that microplastics are accumulating in critical human organs, including the brain. Studies have detected tiny shards and specks of plastics in human lungs, placentas, reproductive organs, livers, kidneys, knee and elbow joints, blood vessels and bone marrow.Given the research findings, “It is now imperative to declare a global emergency” to deal with plastic pollution, said Sedat Gündoğdu, who studies microplastics at Cukurova University in Turkey. Humans are exposed to microplastics – defined as fragments smaller than 5mm in diameter – and the chemicals used to make plastics from widespread plastic pollution in air, water and even food. Full article from The Guardian.

Dead Chickens in South Carolina River

A South Carolina riverkeeper reported finding hundreds of dead chickens floating in the water of Edisto River. Throwing animal bodies into a river is a crime and a threat to public health.

Federal Funds for Lead Removal in Schools

The schools and daycare centers in Georgia were awarded $1.5 million in additional federal funds to get lead out of water. This is one of several federal grants for water protection for schools announced this month.

A federal judge has slapped the son of Republican West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice with a contempt of court citation for repeatedly failing to respond to a Clean Water Act lawsuit against a family-owned coal products firm.

Chinese scientists claim to have invented a way to extract water from the moon’s soil – a potentially vital step towards building a lunar research base.

A recent study from Utrecht University in the Netherlands warns that climate change and socio-economic transformations will exacerbate water scarcity, disproportionately affecting populations in South Asian countries. Countercurrents.org.

Startup Instructions for your Pure Water Products SXT Water Softener

How Coal Mining Degrades Water Quality

Excerpted from an article by Ellen Montgomery of Environment America

Beyond headwater stream loss, mountaintop removal has severe impacts on water quality that can persist for decades post-mining. According to a report by the EPA, water quality degradation from mountaintop mines and valley fills can reach levels fatally toxic to wildlife. Valley fills drastically increase salinity and metal concentrations downstream, endangering sensitive organisms such as salamanders and certain fish species.

Of all the watershed degradation issues in coal mining areas, acid mine drainage is one of the most serious. Acid mine drainage (AMD) occurs when water reacts with sulfur-bearing minerals in rocks, resulting in highly acidic water that contains toxic heavy metals. It poses a severe threat to wildlife and renders affected waterways unusable for drinking and recreation. In some areas, the water flowing from coal mines can burn your skin because it is so acidic.

AMD can also turn the water an alarming orange or red color — a widespread problem in central Appalachia, where many streams are tainted with orange, acidic water. Acid mine drainage is a significant water quality issue in the US, where it degrades approximately 12,400 miles of rivers and streams, posing health risks to ecosystems and nearby communities.

Environment America

Pure Water Gazette Fair Use Statement

Gazette Introductory Note: Clearly, the idea that fluoride lowers children’s IQ isn’t new. The significance of this report is that it “marks the first time a federal agency has determined there is a link” between fluoride consumption and lower IQ in children.  

“Since fluoride is such an important topic to the public and to public health officials, it was imperative that we made every effort to get the science right,” Rick Woychik, director of the National Toxicology Program, told the AP in explaining the length of time it took to complete the report.

Source: US News and World Report

See also “Study Links Fluoridated Water to Lower IQs in Babies” from a 2019 Gazette report.

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Groundwater Could Be Too Hot to Drink for 75 Million People by 2100

Gazette Note: The short Newsweek article below addresses a seldom-mentioned aspect of rising temperatures: its effect on water quality. 

Access to groundwater is crucial to life on Earth, but rising temperatures could render it undrinkable for 75 million people within the next 76 years.

In a new study, researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) based their projections on two climate scenarios, SSP 2–4.5 and SSP 5–8.5, which represent different socioeconomic pathways and greenhouse gas concentrations. SSP 2–4.5 falls in the midrange of future greenhouse gas trends, while SSP 5–8.5 represents the upper extreme.The study indicates that by 2100, groundwater temperatures will rise by 3.8 degrees Fahrenheit in one scenario and 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit in the other.

“Our results show how important it is to take action to protect groundwater and find lasting solutions to counteract the negative impact of climate change on groundwater,” study author Dr. Susanne Benz, from the Institute of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing at KIT, said in a statement.

“Depending on the scenario, as many as several hundred million people could be affected by 2100. There are already about 30 million people living in regions where the groundwater is warmer than stipulated in the strictest drinking water guidelines,” Benz said.

“That means it may not be safe to drink the water there without treatment. It may need to be boiled first, for example. The drinking water also gets warmed up in water pipes by heat in the ground.”

The research suggests that by 2100, due to varying climate changes and population trends, anywhere from 77 to 188 million people could be affected by SSP 2–4.5 and 59 to 588 million under SSP 5–8.5.

The temperature of groundwater plays a crucial role in water quality by influencing chemical, biological, and physical processes. Warmer groundwater also affects groundwater-dependent ecosystems, aquatic biogeochemical processes, geothermal energy potential, and river thermal regimes. Moreover, it poses challenges to biodiversity and risks to carbon and nutrient cycles.

“Under certain conditions, rising groundwater temperatures can lead to increasing concentrations of harmful substances like arsenic or manganese. These higher concentrations can have a negative impact on human health, especially when groundwater is used as drinking water,” Benz said.

Earth’s climate is warming as greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere, limiting its release. Oceans absorb much of this heat, yet soil and groundwater also serve as significant reservoirs for thermal energy.

Source: Newsweek. 

Pure Water Gazette Fair Use Statement

Using Water: What It Means

Water use is unique as an environmental issue because recycling is built into the system.  With water, we recycle whether we want to or not. Someone said that unless water leaves the planet, it is never wasted. That’s why saying that a reverse osmosis unit “wastes water” makes no sense. More correctly, a reverse osmosis unit uses water, much in the same way that a dishwasher or a lawn sprinkler uses water.  A reverse osmosis unit doesn’t send the water to Mars; it uses it to rinse away impurities, then sends it down the drain to be eventually reused. Maybe next week, maybe after a thousand years. That’s what your clothes washer does, but we seldom hear people denounce washing machines for “wasting” water.

With water, the issue is often more about saving energy than saving water, since using water usually also involves using energy. A Pacific Institute study on the environmental consequences of the bottled water consumption concluded that “bottled water is up to 2000 times more energy-intensive than tap water. Similarly, bottled water that requires long-distance transport is far more energy-intensive than bottled water produced and distributed locally.”  And we aren’t talking about small amounts of energy.  The Pacific study estimated that between 32 and 54 million barrels of oil were used in bottled water production, packaging and delivery in 2007 in the U.S. alone.

We now have 333,000,000 Americans sharing essentially the same amount of fresh water that was once shared by 4,000,000 Americans.  Although we aren’t sending any water to Mars, we’re overusing it to the point that we are disrupting natural cycles.  For example, we’re extracting ground water much faster than the natural process can replenish it and, as our generation has done with all our natural resources, we are stealing water from the future.  It’s no small thing when the Nestle Corp. pumps the groundwater supply of a small community dry in order to truck the water to remote points for sale at a markup of hundreds of times what they paid for it.  It will take generations for the natural hydrological cycle to restore the groundwater.  The short-sighted city council that sells water rights to meet its current expenses has stolen from the future.

Adapted from the Pure Water Occasional, July 20, 2009.

PWO 0824

Water News for July 2024

A large number of lawsuits in courts around the world are holding governments and corporations to account for their treatment of the seas and those who rely on them. There have been more than 2,500 lawsuits relating to the climate crisis around the world – and many relate to the ocean. The Guardian.

A new study ranks Lake Louise in Florida as the cleanest lake in the U.S. The prize for the dirtiest goes to Utah Lake, Utah’s largest freshwater lake. Find out who the other winners and losers are on the Gazette’s website.

The city council of Girard, OH passed an ordinance requiring fencing around Koi ponds, not to keep the fish in but to keep children out. The law was occasioned by the near drowning of a toddler in a Koi pond.

July 21 was the hottest day ever recorded on Earth. It broke the previous record established on July 20, one day earlier. Full article in The Guardian.

Inflation Reduction Act

On July 25, 2024, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced more than $325 million in funding for 21 selected applications to help disadvantaged communities tackle environmental and climate justice challenges through projects that reduce pollution, increase community climate resilience and build community capacity. Much of this goes directly to projects that improve water quality. Made possible by President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, the Community Change Grants Program is the single largest investment in environmental and climate justice in history. The funding announcement today is the first tranche of nearly $2 billion from the program that was designed based on community input to award grants on a rolling basis.

Gazette’s Comment: In an age of political overstatement and exaggeration, it’s easy to overlook something really significant. The Inflation Reduction Act is a big deal. It will have a positive impact on the lives of Americans and on the health of our environment for decades to come. If you would like to read the EPA’s recent bulletin, it’s on the Gazette’s website.

PFAS and Pesticides

A peer-reviewed study published in late July in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives has found that per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, known as “forever chemicals,” are increasingly being added to U.S. pesticide products, contaminating waterways and posing potential threats to human health.

The study, “Forever Pesticides: A Growing Source of PFAS Contamination in the Environment,” is the first-ever comprehensive review of the many ways PFAS are introduced into U.S. pesticide products. Pesticides containing PFAS are used throughout the country on staple foods such as corn, wheat, kale, spinach, apples and strawberries. They are widely used in residences in flea treatments for pets and insect-killing sprays.

Researchers at the Center for Biological Diversity, or CBD, Environmental Working Group and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, or PEER, compiled data on sources of PFAS in pesticide products. Those sources range from specific ingredients intentionally added to pesticides, to contamination via leaching from fluorinated storage containers. Full report from Water Online.

Water in the Seine.  The Olympics.

Water quality in the Seine has been touch and go during the Olympics, largely because of above-average rainfall. The E. coli test required by European standards was passed on most days but not all.  (Swimming in the Seine has been banned for over a century. Since 2015, Olympics organizers have invested $1.5 billion to prepare the Seine for the Olympics and to ensure Parisians have a cleaner river after the Games. The plan included constructing a giant underground water storage basin in central Paris, renovating sewer infrastructure and upgrading wastewater treatment plants.)

Greening the Desert Isn’t Always a Good Idea

Shortly after Egypt’s president Abdel Fatah al-Sisi came to power in a military coup in 2014, he announced an ambitious – and controversial – project to transform 6,487 sq miles of desert into farmland before 2027. But with a huge water deficit, critics doubt the project, which is rapidly depleting water from Egypt’s groundwater reserves, is viable. Water under the Western desert is being depleted twice as fast since Sisi took office in Egypt.  More.

More Than Half of Contiguous U.S. River Water Comes from Ephemeral Streams

New research published in Science underlines the importance of regulating “ephemeral streams,” which supply half the water for our rivers.  A very questionable 2023 Supreme Court decision favored polluters by taking away the EPA’s ability to regulate the part-time streams.  Details in this excellent article from the Gazette’s website.