A new report warns growing more corn for ethanol production carries some risks
for clean water. Chuck Quirmbach has details:
Transcript
A new report warns growing more corn for ethanol production carries some risks
for clean water. Chuck Quirmbach has details:
A lot more corn is going toward making ethanol, but a study by the National Research
Council says in areas with limited water supplies, adding acres of corn, or
launching water-using ethanol production plants is a major concern. The report also says increased use of fertilizers and pesticides on corn fields
could trigger more water pollution.
Study committee chairman Jerald Schnoor urges more research to help
extract energy from lower-impact perennial crops such as grasses:
“There needs to be a technology breakthrough so that enzymes and organisms
can break down the cellulose, the hemi-cellulose and lignin from plants like
switchgrass, woody biomass plants like poplar and willow.”
Schnoor says more research dollars could come from reducing federal subsidies
for corn-based ethanol.
The Environmental Protection Agency says DuPont hid information about the dangers of a chemical used to manufacture Teflon. The allegations prompted an investigation by the EPA, and now, the company will pay 16.5 million dollars to settle the complaint. The EPA says it’s the largest administrative penalty it has ever won. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Fred Kight has the story:
Transcript
The Environmental Protection Agency says DuPont hid information about the dangers of a
chemical used to manufacture Teflon. The allegations prompted an investigation by the EPA, and
now, the company will pay 16-point five million dollars to settle the complaint. The EPA says
it’s the largest administrative penalty it’s ever won. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Fred
Kight has the story:
Teflon is made using C-8, and the EPA alleged that for more than 20 years, DuPont withheld
information about the chemical’s health effects. The government also said DuPont didn’t tell what
it knew about the pollution of water supplies near one of its plants.
Tim Kropp is with the Environmental Working Group in Washington, D.C. He says what’s really
needed is for DuPont to quit making a product that’s been labeled a likely human carcinogen.
“DuPont has a pattern of supression and cover-up. They do not want to give public health
officials the information they need to answer these questions, and to solve these problems.”
DuPont says its interpretation of reporting requirements is different than the EPA’s and the
settlement closes the matter without any admission of wrongdoing.
Scientists have developed a new material that they say will remove a common pollutant from water supplies. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:
Transcript
Scientists have developed a new material that will remove a common pollutant
from water supplies. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl
reports:
Atrazine is a herbicide widely used in the Midwest. The chemical makes its
way into waterways and kills plants and animals. It also makes water unsafe to
drink. Scientists at the University of Illinois have found a new way to
remove Atrazine from water supplies. They say a new chemical coating
applied to carbon fibers attracts the herbicide so well that it will make
the water safe to drink. Researcher Jim Economy says the new process is
also much cheaper:
“The original activated carbon fibers that we developed thirty years ago
cost a hundred dollars a pound. These should be, as you scale up, should
be down around several dollars a pound, if not less.”
Economy says the technology still needs to be tested on a large scale, but
he says he expects it to be in wide use in the next two years.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.
Since the terrorist attacks on 9/11, things we used to take for granted as being safe are now being questioned. Resources essential to life can be used as vehicles for terrorists’ attacks. Even drinking water is among those things now considered vulnerable. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Since the terrorist attacks on 9/11, things we used to take for granted as
being safe are now being questioned. Resources essential to life can be
used as vehicles for terrorists’ attacks. Even drinking water is among
those things now considered vulnerable. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
In Afghanistan, as U.S. intelligence agencies began sifting through the
material left behind by cells of the Al Qaeda network, the United States
government became more concerned. It looked as though the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon were just the beginning of targets in
America.
When President Bush gave his State of the Union address at the
beginning of this year, he told the public about some of the disturbing
evidence the members of Al Qaeda were holding.
“And the depth of their hatred is equaled by the madness of the
destruction they design. We have found diagrams of American nuclear
power plants and public water facilities.”
While the President revealed that water systems were a possible target,
the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency was
assuring groups that the nation’s water supplies were safe. Christie
Todd Whitman told a group of environmental journalists that with
everybody on heightened alert, it was unlikely a terrorist would be able
to contaminate a water source with chemicals or biological agents.
“It would be extremely difficult for someone to perform
this kind of act, taking a truckload – and that’s what it would be, a
tanker truckload – up to a reservoir and dumping it in, given the
heightened security we have today.”
But an expert on the risk of attacks on water supplies says it wouldn’t
have to take a tanker truck… or anything close to that given the nasty
nature of some of the contaminants available to terrorists.
Jim Snyder was a member of a presidential commission assigned to
look at infrastructure and its vulnerability to terrorist attacks.
“If you put a backpack or a couple of backpacks of that
material in a ten-million gallon reservoir, which would be a medium
sized above ground tank, you would kill half the people who drank one
cup.”
And Snyder says it wouldn’t even take that much to cause
wide-spread panic… to raise the so-called ‘fear factor.’
“You don’t have to put enough stuff in the water to kill people.
You have to put enough stuff in the water so that people can’t
drink or use the water. If somebody says they put something in your
water, you’re not going to drink the water.”
Still, the government tries to assure the public there’s not much to fear.
Again, EPA Administrator Whitman…
“The vast majority of contaminants about which we’re worried, we know
how to treat. We know what steps to take. And those where we’re not sure
of what we need to do, we’re working with the CDC to develop a protocol to
respond.”
But the tests conducted daily at a water purification plant don’t look
for the kinds of contaminants that a terrorist would likely use. Jim
Snyder says the first clue that anything was wrong with the water would
likely be sick or dying people.
While the EPA continues to reassure the public, the agency knows of
the shortcomings of security at the thousands of water systems across
the nation. But treating contaminated water would not be the
government’s first choice. It would rather try to prevent an attack.
That’s why it’s offering the water systems grants to figure out the best
way to make their systems less likely to be targeted by terrorists. Again,
Jim Snyder…
“So, right now, you’ve got water systems all over the country
performing or getting ready to perform fairly sophisticated
vulnerability analyses which lead to recommendations on which
components need to be secured and how they should be secured and
what kind of risk reduction one could expect from adding levels of
security.”
Some things are easy, such as locking access gates, and patrolling
lakes and reservoirs. Others are more expensive and challenging. They
might include changes in how the water plants operate, using less
volatile chemicals in the purification process. Jim Snyder says
probably it will take years to beef up security… but even then a
determined terrorist could still strike.
Another terrorism prevention expert, Peter Beering with the City of
Indianapolis, says people should not be too alarmed about the
possibility that their water source could be poisoned. He says of all the
things to attack, water is probably low on the list.
“The good news is that these are comparatively uninteresting targets to
an aggressor. And, as we learned, unfortunately, in New York
and in Washington, that certainly there are much higher profile targets
that are of much greater interest to people who are upset with the
United States.”
But, Beering notes that water systems across the nation still should
take prudent measures to protect the public’s water supplies… just in
case.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
In the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks, Americans are getting mixed signals from officials about just how safe their drinking water is. The federal government is trying to calm fears that terrorists might poison public water supplies. But at the same time the government and water utilities are asking the public to help keep an eye on reservoirs and storage tanks. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
In the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks, Americans are getting mixed signals from officials about just how safe their drinking water is. The federal government is trying to calm fears that terrorists might poison public water supplies. But, at the same time the government and water utilities are asking the public to help keep an eye on reservoirs and storage tanks. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports.
Since the attacks, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Christie Whitman, has been traveling the country, assuring groups that water supplies are safe from terrorism. Speaking recently to a group of journalists, Whitman explained that security at water utilities has been increased and that water is now tested more frequently. And she said that given the size of most reservoirs, it would take a very large amount of any chemical or biological contaminant before any such attack would have an effect.
“It would be extremely difficult for someone to perform this kind of act, taking a truckload –and that’s what it would be, a tanker truckload– up to a reservoir and dumping it in, given the heightened security we have today. And that’s a security that’s not just being provided by the water companies, which it is, but it’s also citizen heightened security, believe me. People are calling in all the time when they see things that they think they shouldn’t be seeing near water supply systems.”
But, Whitman’s view is not shared by a number of experts in the field of terrorism prevention. Jim Snyder is a professor at the University of Michigan. He was a member of a team of experts that worked with the Defense Department to determine possible threats against public water supplies.
“There are a number of contaminants, several bio-toxins and a large number of chemicals that are more or less readily available that could be put into, let’s say, a ten-million gallon reservoir which could in amounts something between a backpack and a pickup truck could achieve a lethal dose of 50-percent. That is, 50-percent of the people who drank one cup would die.”
And Snyder adds, water contamination wouldn’t have to be lethal, just contaminated enough that it caused panic and made the water unusable. Snyder also points out that the tests that production chemists run on water would not detect the kind of contaminants terrorists would use. The first clue something was wrong would be sick or dead people.
EPA Administrator Whitman concedes that there are some contaminants that would not be filtered out or killed by disinfectants used in water treatment. but she says water systems across the U-S are prepared for most kinds of attacks.
“The vast majority of contaminants about which we’re worried, we know how to treat. We know what steps to take. And those where we’re not sure of what we need to do, we’re working with the CDC to develop a protocol to respond. And we’re sharing that information as we get it with the water companies to make sure even those small ones know what to look for and how to treat it if they find it.”
Besides the Center for Disease Control, the EPA is working with the FBI and the water utilities to prepare for the worst, while telling the public that there’s little to worry about. The EPA could have helped those water systems prepare earlier. The terrorism prevention team Jim Snyder sat on drafted a manual for water system operators, outlining security measures that could be taken. The EPA buried that manual in part because the agency didn’t want to unnecessarily alarm the public.
The water utility industry is working with the EPA to try to calm any fears the consumers might have. The American Water Works Association has held joint news conferences with Administrator Whitman, echoing the statement that poisons would be diluted or that it would take a tanker of contaminants to cause a problem. Pam Krider is a spokesperson for the American Water Works Association.
“When you get into a specific discussion about types of chemicals or quantities of chemicals, whether it’s a backpack or whether it’s a tanker, I mean, those are not as useful as discussing what are the processes that a utility has in place for monitoring what is and is not in its water, ensuring that they can provide safe, clean drinking water to the consumers within their city.”
So, the American Water Works Association is encouraging water utilities to step up testing water and quietly meet with emergency planners to prepare for the worst..
“What we have been discussing is the need for every utility to work very closely with local officials, to have a crisis preparedness and response plan in place, to have back-up systems in place, and most important, to engage their local community in keeping an eye out on the different reservoirs, storage tanks and treatment facilities and reporting any kind of suspicious activity that they might see both to the utility as well as to the police department.”
Water terrorism prevention expert Jim Snyder says simple things such as locking gates and posting security guards go a long way to discourage would-be terrorists from attacking a water treatment plant, storage tanks, wells or a reservoir. However, he notes. there’s little that can be done to stop a determined terrorist from contaminating a public water supply. And it seems that’s a message the EPA and the water utilities don’t want to talk about because it might worry the public.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.