Category: Public health
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Chemicals that keep drinking water flowing may also cause fouling
The top image shows a thin and stiff biofilm formed from untreated water, and the bottom image shows a thick and soft biofilm that formed as a result of polyphosphate treatment. Credit: Helen Nguyen Many city drinking water systems add softening agents to keep plumbing free of pipe-clogging mineral buildup. According to new research, these…
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‘Fecal Soup’: Wisconsin Well Water Would Horrify You
Erika Balza does not drink the water out of her tap. Despite having a new well installed that came with a price tag of more than $13,000, she doesn’t trust it. “We’ve just written it off,” says Balza, a 47-year-old former paralegal and title insurance agent. “I did say after the new well was installed…
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‘A Civil Action’ Carcinogen Pollutes Tap Water Supplies for 14 Million Americans
Under Trump, EPA Retreats From Proposed Ban on Key Uses of TCE Drinking water supplies for 14 million Americans are contaminated with a cancer-causing industrial solvent made notorious by the book and film "A Civil Action," according to a new EWG analysis of tests from public utilities nationwide. The chemical is trichloroethylene, or TCE. Under…
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Michigan Faces Another Toxic Water Crisis
Now Its Governor Wants a Chemical Company to Pay Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has asked the state attorney general to sue chemical giant 3M, suggesting that the company must pay for making toxic chemicals that wound up in the drinking water. Towns across America are coming to grips with an alarming new source of water…
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Sinking land, poisoned water: the dark side of California’s mega farms
Farm fields along the path of the California aqueduct in the Central Valley, a region that produces a quarter of the nation’s food. Photograph: Lucy Nicholson/Reuters The floor of the Central Valley is slumping, and there is arsenic in the tap water. Now it seems the two problems are connected Isabel Solorio can see the…
