Forgot Password?
Written by Lindsay Crowder   
Share |
Friday, 09 October 2009

Clean Water

Is our drinking water safe? Clean, fresh drinking water is something that we take for granted. Because it is necessary for human life, it should be considered a right, not a privilege. However, more and more studies show that many households in the U.S. are drinking water that is actually filled with contaminates, chemicals, and harmful waste. The water we drink is connected to an entire system of small streams, woodland vernal pools, rivers, lakes, and coastal waters that are subject to contamination from industry, agriculture, and irresponsible dumping. Our water systems are supposedly protected, but because they are subjected to unregulated pollution, households are paying the price for this by drinking unhealthy water.

The strongest water protection regulations in the United States include the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act. In the 1960s and early 1970s, our water systems were in dire need of protection. The Clean Water Act (CWA) was passed in 1972 to, "employ a variety of regulatory and nonregulatory tools to sharply reduce direct pollutant discharges into waterways, finance municipal wastewater treatment facilities, and manage polluted runoff."1 Along with the CWA, The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) was passed to further protect public health by regulating the nation's drinking water supply. The SWDA has been amended to "authorize the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) to set national health-based standards for drinking water to protect against both naturally-occurring and man-made contaminants that may be found in drinking water. US EPA, states, and water systems then work together to make sure that these standards are met."2 The SWDA sets a priority on contaminates including arsenic, lead, copper, radon, microbials & disinfection byproducts, MTBE, and radionuclides. Aside from these high-priority contaminates, the SWDA also regulates improperly disposed of chemicals, animal wastes, pesticides, human wastes, and wastes injected deep underground. Many of these contaminates are recognized through source water protection, operator training, funding for water system improvements, and public information.3 Unfortunately, progress for these protections has been hindered due to unregulated water violations and a misunderstanding of what waters qualify as protected.

The question remains: What is the actual state of our drinking water? The New York Times recently released a report called, "Toxic Waters: Clean Water Laws Are Neglected, at a Cost in Suffering," surveying over 250 state and federal regulators, water-system managers, environmental advocates and scientists on the toxicity of our drinking water.4 Some of their findings included:
• "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."
• "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."
• "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."
• "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."
The NY Times article also provides personal accounts of contamination, including a story in Charleston, West Virginia, where a family describes, "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."5 Sadly, these stories are not specific to Charleston, W.Va., and violations to water regulations are occurring in all 50 states across the country.

What is the future of our drinking water? The extreme violations to the SWDA could be a result of a variety of different things. Some would argue that it is the confusing language of the Clean Water Act, and the weakening of enforcement in the last 8 years. Some may say that it is a lack of funding, or that personnel lack proper training and ability to administer fines and deter major polluters. While others may argue that the CWA and the SWDA are just not strong enough. Regardless of the cause, it is important for every household to be aware of their water source and supplier and for every individual to encourage strong water protections in our country. Below are some resources to guide you:
• Find water polluters near you. Search by state, city or zip code: http://projects.nytimes.com/toxic-waters/polluters.
• Learn more about the safety of your drinking water.
          o Safe Drinking Water Hotline: 1-800-426-4791 or www.epa.gov/safewater.
• Learn more about the Clean Water Act: http://www.epa.gov/watertrain/cwa/.
• Learn more about the Safe Water Drinking Act: http://www.epa.gov/OGWDW/sdwa/.
To read more information about the state of our nation's waters, check out Greeniacs articles:
• Rivers in the United States: The State of our Waters: http://www.greeniacs.com/GreeniacsArticles/Rivers-in-the-United-States-The-State-of-Our-Waters.html.
• Lakes in the United States: The Status of our Waters: http://www.greeniacs.com/GreeniacsArticles/Lakes-in-the-United-States-The-Status-of-our-Waters.html.
Browse all Greeniacs Articles Browse all Greeniacs Guides        Browse all Greeniacs Articles
_______________________________________________________________________________

1http://www.epa.gov/watertrain/cwa/.
2http://www.epa.gov/OGWDW/sdwa/basicinformation.html.
3Id.
4http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/us/13water.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&sq=water%20laws&st=cse&adxnnl=1&scp=
1&adxnnlx=1253206872-Mfd5A6PcwlwZsBa45zGMCQ.




Add your comment
RSS comments

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.

Click here to Register.  Click here to login.
Last Updated ( Monday, 07 February 2011 )

SEARCH GREENIACS.COM

Green Facts

  • In California homes, about 10% of energy usage is related to TVs, DVRs, cable and satellite boxes, and DVD players.

  • A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.

  • Rainforests are being cut down at the rate of 100 acres per minute.

  • Current sea ice levels are at least 47% lower than they were in 1979.

  • American workers spend an average of 47 hours per year commuting through rush hour traffic. This adds up to 23 billion gallons of gas wasted in traffic each year.

  • Recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy used to make the material from scratch.

  • Less than 1% of electricity in the United States is generated from solar power.

  • Glass can be recycled over and over again without ever wearing down.

  • Recycling for one year at Stanford University saved the equivalent of 33,913 trees and the need for 636 tons of iron ore, coal, and limestone.

  • Shaving 10 miles off of your weekly driving pattern can eliminate about 500 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year.

  • A steel mill using recycled scrap reduces related water pollution, air pollution, and mining wastes by about 70%.

  • One recycled aluminum can will save enough energy to run a 100-watt bulb for 20 hours, a computer for 3 hours, or a TV for 2 hours.

  • A laptop consumes five times less electricity than a desktop computer.

  • You will save 300 pounds of carbon dioxide for every 10,000 miles you drive if you always keep your car’s tires fully inflated.

  • Every week about 20 species of plants and animals become extinct.

  • States with bottle deposit laws have 35-40% less litter by volume.

  • For every 38,000 bills consumers pay online instead of by mail, 5,058 pounds of greenhouse gases are avoided and two tons of trees are preserved.

  • Due to tiger poaching, habitat destruction, and other human-tiger conflicts, tigers now number around 3,200—a decrease in population by about 70% from 100 years ago.

  • A tree that provides a home with shade from the sun can reduce the energy required to run the air conditioner and save an additional 200 to 2,000 pounds of carbon over its lifetime.

  • The World Health Organization estimates that 2 million people die prematurely worldwide every year due to air pollution.

  • You’ll save two pounds of carbon for every 20 glass bottles that you recycle.

  • 82 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. come from burning fossil fuels.

  • An aluminum can that is thrown away instead of recycled will still be a can 500 years from now!

  • Recycling 1 million laptop computers can save the amount of energy used by 3,657 homes in the U.S. over the course of a year.

  • Recycling 100 million cell phones can save enough energy to power 18,500 homes in the U.S. for a year.

  • You will save 100 pounds of carbon for each incandescent bulb that you replace with a compact fluorescent bulb (CFL), over the life of the bulb.

  • It takes 6,000,000 trees to make 1 year's worth of tissues for the world.

  • Nudge your thermostat up two degrees in the summer and down two degrees in the winter to prevent 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.

  • Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures every year.

  • Refrigerators built in 1975 used 4 times more energy than current models.

  • Bamboo absorbs 35% more carbon dioxide than equivalent stands of trees.

  • Americans use 100 million tin and steel cans every day.

  • Washing your clothes in cold or warm instead of hot water saves 500 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, and drying your clothes on a clothesline six months out of the year would save another 700 pounds.

  • If every U.S. household turned the thermostat down by 10 degrees for seven hours each night during the cold months, and seven hours each weekday, it would prevent nearly gas emissions.

  • Americans throw away more than 120 million cell phones each year, which contribute 60,000 tons of waste to landfills annually.

  • 77% of people who commute to work by car drive alone.

  • Turning off the tap when brushing your teeth can save as much as 10 gallons a day per person.

  • In the United States, automobiles produce over 20 percent of total carbon emissions. Walk or bike and you'll save one pound of carbon for every mile you travel.

  • Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial fleet of airplanes every 3 months