Getting Chemicals Out of Drinking Water

  • Chemicals used as industrial solvents can seep into drinking water from contaminated groundwater or surface water. (Photo courtesy of Mr. McGladdery CC-2.0)

Some chemicals are getting into drinking water, and it’s not so easy to get them out. The Environmental Protection Agency says it’s working on the problem. Lester Graham reports on the agency’s plans:

Transcript

The Environmental Protection Agency is outlining a plan to reduce the amount of chemicals getting into drinking water. Lester Graham reports.

The EPA’s administrator, Lisa Jackson told members of the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies about the new plan. She said it would work to improve technology to clean up water, get tougher with polluters, coordinate efforts with the states, and deal with contaminating chemicals in groups rather than individual chemicals.

James McDaniels is President of the water agencies group. He says that last idea might speed up the process of getting some contaminants out of water.

“Focusing too much on one contaminant and not looking at it holistically and not really seeing what the other ones are. We all have limited reso urces and as utility managers, looking at these things more holistically makes a lot of sense to us.”

Pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and other chemicals make cleaning up drinking water a real challenge for the water agencies.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Congress Considering Chemical Law

  • There are 80,000 chemicals on the market. But the Environmental Protection Agency has only tested 200 of them for safety to humans - and banned only 5. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

Congress might make our federal
chemical laws tougher. Rebecca
Williams has more:

Transcript

Congress might make our federal
chemical laws tougher. Rebecca
Williams has more:

There are 80,000 chemicals on the market. But the Environmental Protection Agency has only tested 200 of them for safety to humans – and banned only 5 of the toxic chemicals.

Senator Frank Lautenberg is a Democrat from New Jersey. During a recent hearing, he said the EPA is doing what it can. But its power is limited by the nation’s outdated chemical laws.

“They cannot protect our children with one hand tied behind their back. That’s why I’ll soon introduce a bill that will overhaul our nation’s chemical laws.”

The bill will likely require companies to prove a chemical is safe before manufacturing it or using it. Right now, it’s up to the government to prove a chemical is harming people or the environment before it’s banned.

Some Conservatives in Congress are opposed to this idea. They say this kind of bill would kill industry innovation.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Drilling for Radioactive Gas?

  • The Rulison device at insertion, 1969 (Photo courtesy of the US Department of Energy Digital Photo Archive)

There are proposals to drill for oil
and gas very close to the site of a
nuclear explosion. The device was
exploded underground in western Colorado
40 years ago this month. Natural gas
from wells near the site could be
distributed throughout the U.S. Some
experts are concerned the natural gas
could be radioactive. Conrad Wilson
reports regulators could allow drilling
closer to the blast site in the next
couple of years:

Transcript

There are proposals to drill for oil
and gas very close to the site of a
nuclear explosion. The device was
exploded underground in western Colorado
40 years ago this month. Natural gas
from wells near the site could be
distributed throughout the U.S. Some
experts are concerned the natural gas
could be radioactive. Conrad Wilson
reports regulators could allow drilling
closer to the blast site in the next
couple of years:

On September 10, 1969 the Atomic Energy Commission detonated a 40-kiloton
nuclear bomb a mile and a half under ground. It was called Project Rulison. The
bomb was three times the size of the one dropped on Hiroshima.

The idea was to find peaceful uses for nuclear weapons. The federal government
hoped that nukes could be used to free up pockets of gas trapped below.

(sound of video)

The nuke did free up gas.

The government tested the gas by flaring it – burning it in the open – over the next
year. They discovered the natural gas was radioactive.

Marian Wells is a long time resident of Rulison. Her parent’s home was close to
the detonation site and the gas flares. Both of her parents died of cancer. So did
many of her neighbors.

She spoke before the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

“My parents were given no notice that you were flaring contaminated gas. And
yet both my parents died of cancer. Cancer is prevalent in this area. And yes, no
one has studied those cause and effect. You don’t really care about us.”

There’s been no government studies connecting cancer and the Rulison blast,
but the community remains fearful and suspicious.

Gas drilling is allowed as close as three miles of the blast site. That natural gas
is piped around the country.

Now some companies say they want to drill for natural gas within a half mile of
ground zero.

The Department of Energy maintains that, for the most part, the gas near the
blast site is safe, but there’s some uncertainly.

Jack Craig heads up the Rulison site for the Department of Energy. Craig says
drilling closer to the nuclear blast site should move forward slowly.

“What we’re saying is do it in a sequential manor. So that you come in slowly
testing the wells as you go in for contaminants – specifically tritium – and, if you
don’t find anything, move in closer.”

Tritium is a radioactive substance produced by the blast. Breathing tritium can
cause cancer.

Chris Canfield works on environmental protection for the state oil and gas
commission. He heads up an annual audit on the Rulison site.

Canfield: “Simply put, everything that’s coming out of the ground is being
sampled, being analyzed.”

Wilson: “If someone were to come to you and say they want to drill within the
half mile of the Rulison blast site, would you say that’s safe?”

Canfield: “I wouldn’t really know at this time.”

Canfield says that the state would require a special hearing before it would
approve any drilling permits any closer.

Oil and gas commissioner Jim Martin says there are still too many unanswered
questions to allow drilling that close to the blast site.

“There are significant information gaps and that makes is very difficult to really
understand the risks either to the workers or to the public who live within some
distance of the drill site.”

Martin says he understands why people are skeptical. He says the United States
has made a lot of mistakes with radioactive materials. Navajo uranium miners
got cancer because of radio exposure. People downwind of above ground
detonations suffered. Martin says skepticism is warranted.

“So it’s not unreasonable to ask some pretty tough questions of the federal
government before we go further into that half mile perimeter and produce more
gas.”

Gas that could be burned to heat homes across the U.S.

For The Environment Report, I’m Conrad Wilson.

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Energy Star Falling Short?

  • The Energy Star Program is "a joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy helping us all save money and protect the environment through energy efficient products and practices" (Photo courtesy of Energy Star)

The federal government’s Energy
Star program is supposed to highlight
products that save you energy and money.
Rebecca Williams reports some independent
testers found Energy Star might be falling
a bit short:

Transcript

The federal government’s Energy
Star program is supposed to highlight
products that save you energy and money.
Rebecca Williams reports some independent
testers found Energy Star might be falling
a bit short:

The magazine Consumer Reports tests all kinds of products to see how they
stack up. They were testing refrigerators when they stumbled on something
odd.

Steven Saltzman is a Deputy Editor with Consumer Reports. He says the
Energy Star program relies on government standards that are outdated in some
cases. For example, one standard is to test a refrigerator’s energy use with the
icemaker off.

“But we found that when you turn the icemaker on – the refrigerator actually
used twice as much energy as it would with the icemaker off.”

Saltzman is not saying you can’t trust the Energy Star label. But he says the
tests need updating. And there’s a dark Energy Star secret, manufacturers get
to do their own testing in most cases – so there’s not a whole lot of third party
checking going on.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Many Household Chemicals Not Tested

Two government agencies are agreeing to work together to test chemicals in products we use. But Lester Graham reports… there are still lots of hurdles and years of delays before products already on the shelves can be tested for safety:

Transcript

Two government agencies are agreeing to work together to test chemicals in products we use. But Lester Graham reports… there are still lots of hurdles and years of delays before products already on the shelves can be tested for safety:


Three years ago, a government report showed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency could not assess the health risks of 85% of the chemicals in the products you probably have in your bathroom or out in the garage.

The Government Accountability Office found part of the reason then, and now, was because laws protect corporations’ secrets—over public knowledge about health risks.


On top of that other reports found the EPA was years behind in testing chemicals at all.


Now the EPA and the National Institutes of Health are going to be working together to test chemicals faster and without using lab animals.


The agencies will be testing the safety of chemicals ranging from pesticides to household cleaners to see if they harm human health.


The one problem… it will take, quote, “many years” to validate the new testing methods before the testing program can be fully implemented.

For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

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Plunging Into Low-Flow Toilets

Low-flow toilets left some people flushed with anger when the products
debuted in the 1990’s. But the Environmental Protection Agency is
pushing ahead with a voluntary program to create toilets that use even
less water. Chuck Quirmbach reports some toilet manufacturers say they
want to join the new water-saving market and hope consumers are ready
to buy:

Transcript

Low-flow toilets left some people flushed with anger when the products
debuted in the 1990’s. But the Environmental Protection Agency is
pushing ahead with a voluntary program to create toilets that use even
less water. Chuck Quirmbach reports some toilet manufacturers say they
want to join the new water-saving market and hope consumers are ready
to buy:


Rob Zimmerman admits there are plenty of jokes about toilets, but the
water engineer for the Kohler Corporation takes the bathroom commode
very seriously.


“I’ve heard people say that the toilet is kind of the foundation of
modern civilization… that modern sanitation allowed for the growth of
cities and allowed for the decline of infectious diseases.”


And now Zimmerman has a handle on a new role for toilets: saving water.
Studies have shown that toilets can account for up to 30% of
a household’s water use. Water prices are going up and in some fast-
growing communities water supplies are growing more scarce.


So, the EPA created a voluntary program it calls Water Sense. It aims
to get toilets to use 20% less water than the newer toilets you’ve
probably seen that were mandated back in the 1990’s. This new
generation of toilets goes from 1.6 gallons per flush to about 1.3
gallons, and still meets performance guidelines for producing a clean
bowl.


(Sound of flushing)


Kohler and other toilet makers are trying various ways to get to 1.3
gallons. After looking at a 1.6 gallon model, Rob Zimmerman lifts the
tank lid on a 1.3:


“What you see that’s different here… is remember the other one had
that red flapper? This canister here, that lifts straight up when you flush
it, so all the water can move from all different directions and go down
down the valve. It’s a bigger rush and so the actual time that this
flushes is a little bit shorter than the other one.”


Zimmerman says other higher efficiency models use what’s called a dual-
flush system that sends away one amount of water for liquid waste and
another for solids, with an average of 1.3 gallons.


Another type is the so-called pressure assist, a louder system that
compresses air to force the smaller volume of water out quickly.
Under its new Water Sense Certification program, the EPA has put out
final specifications for the 1.3 models.


Kohler is getting ready to submit six toilet models for certification,
which the EPA compares to its Energy Star program for things like
computers. EPA Water Administrator Benjamin Grumbles says the public
can be confident about a third party certification system the EPA has
created:


“The agency working with the scientific community and with independent
testing organizations want to make sure that consumers, when they see that
Water Sense label, they will be able to have confidence that the
product will perform well, and it will lead to increased savings. Not
just in terms of water, but also reduce the water bill and reduce the
energy bill as well.”


But it may take a while to build that confidence. At a home remodeling
show, bathroom fixtures store owner Rich Libbey said he’s seen low-flow
toilets elsewhere that have not worked properly.


“Some of the Carribean Islands that are desert islands flush on a
European quart of water, but they don’t clean the bowl. So, later on in
the evenings, for example at a bar or resort, the toilet gets kind of
gamey.”


But Libbey says he’s willing to give companies like Kohler the benefit
of the doubt of reliably getting to 1.3 gallons per flush. Like most
high-efficiency energy-saving systems, the up-front costs are a little
higher.


The Kohler Corporation says its new high-efficiency toilets might cost
an extra fifty dollars to buy, but estimates the financial payback of
using less water could come in just a couple years.


For the Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach

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Mpg Window Stickers to Change in 2008

There’s going to be a change to the sticker that tells you the estimated gas mileage on a new vehicle. Dustin Dwyer reports that the US Environmental Protection Agency is rolling out the change in an effort to make the estimates more accurate:

Transcript

There’s going to be a change to the sticker that tells you the estimated gas mileage on a new vehicle. Dustin Dwyer reports that the US Environmental Protection Agency is rolling out the change in an effort to make the estimates more accurate:


The US EPA has used the same standard to test for gas mileage since 1984.


Bill Warem is with the Agency. He says the tests were only done at room temperature, they didn’t include using the air conditioner, and they didn’t include fast accelerations.


Warem says that hardly reflects real world driving conditions.


“Our concern with the methods that were previously used is they were not as accurate as they could be in estimating typical mileage that a consumer would expect to get from a new car that you purchase.”


Warem says the new way of testing for mileage will show up on stickers for 2008 vehicles.


He says the estimated miles-per-gallon for the average car is expected to drop by about 12%.


For the Environment Report, I’m Dustin Dwyer.

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Gao: Epa Lacks Info About Lead Contamination

A government watchdog office has found the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency can’t tell whether water systems have done what they can to eliminate lead contamination in drinking water. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

A government watchdog office has found the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency can’t tell whether water systems have done what they
can to eliminate lead contamination in drinking water. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports…


Since 1988, the Lead Contamination Control Act has required testing for
lead in the water. Lead contamination can cause mental retardation
among young children if they’re exposed to the contaminant at high enough
levels.


The Government Accountability Office found the EPA doesn’t know
whether the water is being tested. That’s because 70-percent of the
community water systems in the nation are not filing required reports.


Based on the limited data that have come in, it also appears that very few
schools and childcare facilities have tested their water for lead. The water
needs to be tested at the faucet because the plumbing in homes and schools might
be responsible for high lead levels.


The EPA acknowledges it needs to press the states to more rigorously
test for lead in drinking water and file the reports.


For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Bill Aims to Slow Spread of New Invasives

  • A new bill aims to prevent new invasive species from entering our country. (Photo courtesy of USGS)

Many states are asking the federal government to take a new approach in fighting aquatic invasive species. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has more:

Transcript

Many states are asking the federal government to take a new approach in fighting aquatic invasive species. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has more.


Currently, federal agencies try to control invasive species after they start disrupting ecosystems in U.S. waterways.


But now the U.S. Senate is considering a measure that calls for testing species for potential harm before they’re allowed into the country. Allegra Cangelosi is with the Northeast Midwest Institute, a regional advocacy group.


“Believe it or not, the door’s been wide open. So anybody in any state, unless the state has a law, can make a decision to bring a new organism to our waters, cultivate it, let it get loose and do whatever.”


If passed, the law would put new restrictions on the pet industry. Federal agencies would decide whether it’s too risky to import a specific fish or other aquativ species. The act would also beef up inspections of ships that might carry invasive pests.


For the GLRC, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Dow Chemical Exempted From Health Testing Costs

  • Much of the Tittabawassee River floodplain has been contaminated by dioxin from a Dow Chemical plant. (Photo courtesy of Michigan DOT)

A recent court ruling found that Dow Chemical Company does not have to pay to monitor the health of people living in a Michigan floodplain contaminated with dioxin. The dioxin is a by-product of the manufacturing process for chemicals made by Dow. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:

Transcript

A recent court ruling found that Dow Chemical Company does not have
to pay to monitor the health of people living in a Michigan floodplain
contaminated with dioxin. The dioxin is a byproduct of the
manufacturing process for chemicals made by Dow. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Tracy Samilton
reports:


Dioxin is implicated in liver problems and cancer. At least twenty-two miles of
the Tittabawassee River floodplain in central Michigan are contaminated
with dioxin from a Dow Chemical plant.


Homeowners said Dow should pay for
ongoing tests to monitor the amount of dioxin in their blood. Now that
the court has ruled against them, floodplain resident Kathy Henry says the
only thing people can do is try to keep more dioxin from getting into their
systems.


“I wear a dust mask when I mow, we don’t eat any of
neighbors’ produce that they offer us that’s grown in the floodplain, and after we mow the lawn or we’re working out in gardens or yard, we come in and throw our clothes in the
laundry right away and jump in the shower to wash it off of us.”


Dow Chemical has commissioned a one-time study to compare dioxin levels in
people who live in the floodplain with levels found among people in another
region.


For the GLRC, I’m Tracy Samilton.

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