Pure Water Occasional, August 16, 2017
In this mid-August issue you'll read about lead, copper, chloramines, ammonia, PCPs, pharmaceuticals, and hexavalent chromium. Learn how farming pollutes water, where to get high performance air pumps, how fracking regulations are being weakened, and how the world keeps getting hotter.
 
And, as always, there is much, much more. 
 
The Pure Water Occasional is produced by Pure Water Products and the Pure Water Gazette. Please visit our websites.
 
Thanks for reading!

For article archives and links to top daily water news, please visit the Pure Water Gazette.
 
 
2016 Sets New Heat Record
 
by Kerry Sheridan

Washington (AFP) – The Earth set a series of dire records in 2016, including hottest year in modern times, highest sea level and most heat-trapping gases ever emitted, a global climate report said Thursday.
 
A range of key climate and weather indicators show the planet is growing increasingly warm, a trend that shows no signs of slowing down, said the annual State of the Climate Report.
 
“Last year’s record heat resulted from the combined influence of long-term global warming and a strong El Niño early in the year,” said the report.
 
“The major indicators of climate change continued to reflect trends consistent with a warming planet,” it added, noting that several markers — such as land and ocean temperatures, sea level and greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere — broke records set just one year earlier.

The ominous news comes two months after President Donald Trump announced the United States would withdraw from the 2015 Paris accord on global warming, a decision that sparked widespread international criticism.
 
In the past billionaire Trump has called climate change “a hoax” invented by the Chinese, dismissing scientific evidence of human contributions to rising temperatures.
 
But as humanity continues to rely on fossil fuels for energy unprecedented levels of greenhouse gases are polluting the atmosphere, acting like a blanket to capture heat around the Earth, the report emphasized.
 
All the major greenhouse gases that drive warming, including carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide, rose to new heights, it said.
 
Atmospheric CO2 concentration reached 402.9 parts per million (ppm), surpassing 400 ppm for the first time in the modern record and in ice core records dating back as far as 800,000 years.
 
“Climate change is one of the most pressing issues facing humanity and life on Earth,” said the peer-reviewed publication, put together by nearly 500 scientists around the globe and released each year by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the American Meteorological Society.
 
Source: Yahoo News.
 
 
 

Chloramine Removal
 
by Gene Franks and Emily McBroom

Removing Chloramines and Ammonia from Residential Tap Water

Removing chloramines from city water is one of the hot topics in water treatment. Driven by internet discussion and advertising, there are lots of theories, lots of controversy, and a whole lot of myths.

When people look for a chloramine reduction product one of the first questions they ask is, “How much does it remove?” The expected answer is a neat percentage. What they usually get from us, though, is a truthful but vague answer that goes something like, “Well, chloramine reduction can depend on a lot of variables, like the rate of flow through the filter (residence time), physical factors like turbidity and temperature, pH, mineral content of the water, pre-treatment, etc. In other words, it can vary a lot.” A truthful answer, but not very satisfying.

So, to put some numbers into the equation, we decided to do some testing of our own on the actual products we sell and on our own tap water. Our testing is not offered as a guarantee of performance in all situations–just a snapshot of what we found when we tested various products being fed our local  chloramine-treated tap water. For the purpose we bought a Hach Pocket Colorimeter that tests only chloramine and ammonia.  We tested actual consumer products, some brand new, some well used, at varying flow rates, using our local tap water for the tests.

In every case, we tested both chloramine and ammonia. When chloramine is reduced by filtration, according to the standard explanation of the process, chlorine is separated from the ammonia and converted to chloride. The ammonia is left behind as an undesired by-product.  More about ammonia later.

According to the city of Denton’s most recent water quality report, the average chloramine level in our tap water is 3.41 milligrams per liter (mg/L).  Before each sequence of tests, we did a “base line” test from the tap and made the assumption that the product we were testing was being challenged with that amount of chloramine and ammonia. In most cases, we found the actual at faucet chloramine content to be a little less than the city’s average. In all we did over a dozen tap water tests, which showed chloramine levels from 1.83 mg/L to 3.52 mg/L with an average of 2.6 mg/L. The readings were taken at several locations in the city, both at our business and at homes where we have equipment installed. In other words, these are “real life” tests using the water that comes through the pipes, not laboratory simulations.

Here are some items we tested:

The Chloramine Catcher

The Chloramine Catcher is our signature “whole house” chloramine product, a backwashing filter with catalytic carbon. We supply it with Centaur catalytic carbon and offer Jacobi Aquasorb coconut shell catalytic as an alternative. We call it the “Chloramine Catcher” because it is designed for chloramine reduction. In spite of its pretentious name, the filter has no magic properties or secret ingredients: it is a catalytic carbon backwashing filter built with a Vortech mineral tank and a tough Fleck 2510 control valve. We sell the same filter for hydrogen sulfide treatment for wells.

In our chloramine reductions tests,  the Chloramine Catcher lived up to its name, removing 98.2% of the chloramine the first day we tested it, 99.2% on the second test,  and 100% on the third. (“One hundred percent” means reduced to below the detection level of the test, 0.01 mg/L. Keep in mind that in water treatment, nothing removes all of anything.) This was one of three tests we made where chloramine was reduced to below the detection point of the test equipment. Our office version of the Chloramine Catcher, the one we tested, is a 10″ X 54″ tank with 1.5 cubic feet of Jacobi Coconut Shell Catalytic Carbon.  The carbon is about three years old, but it has had an easy life, filtering only for two bathrooms and a utility sink. Just broken in well.

We also tested a Chloramine Catcher with Centaur Catalytic Carbon installed in a Denton home.  Chloramine reduction was 100%.  The unit was over 10 years old, but the carbon had been replaced about two months previous.

Two Top Quality 2.5″ X 9.75″ Carbon Blocks

We tested a drinking water size cartridge that we use a lot in countertop filters, undersink filters, garden hose filters, and as a reverse osmosis postfilter. It’s a sub-micron standard coconut shell carbon block, the MatriKX CTO Plus,  that the manufacturer recommends for chlorine and VOC reduction but not for chloramine treatment. The CTO Plus is made with standard carbon, not catalytic. (Catalytic carbon is filter carbon that has been specially processed to enhance the properties that affect reduction of contaminants like iron, hydrogen sulfide, and chloramines.)  We tested the CTO Plus at different flow rates to check the effect of residence time on chloramine removal.

The result:

At 1 gpm flow rate – 66.9% chloramine reduction.  (In a subsequent test the cartridge removed 88%, leading us to believe that in our initial test the cartridge had not been sufficiently broken in.)
At 0.5 gpm flow rate – 99.6% chloramine reduction.

The lesson, of course, is that residence time matters. People who use this cartridge in an undersink or countertop drinking water filter get better performance than those who put it in a garden hose filter and spray water at 2 gpm on their turnip patch. Lesson number two: any good carbon filter will remove chloramine if you give it enough time.

By contrast, the Pentek ChlorPlus 10 in the 9.75″ x 2.5″ size, a filter designed specifically for chloramines, got 99% chloramine reduction at 0.5 gpm and the same 99%  at 1.0 gpm.  Two other tests of the cartridge at 0.5, prefiltering for an ammonia-removal test, got 100% and 99.5% reduction.

More Carbon Filters 

We tested a variety of carbon filters, from an inline refrigerator filter to a whole house carbon block–some made with standard carbon, some with catalytic. 

A standard GAC refrigerator filter with coconut shell GAC fared worst with 45.3% chloramine reduction at a moderate but unmeasured flow rate.

We tested a “whole house” MatriKX CTO (4.5″ X 20″) installed at a Denton home. This is a 5 micron standard coconut shell carbon cartridge. The cartridge, about a month old,  removed 95% of the chloramine at “shower speed,” 3 gpm, although the manufacturer makes no chloramine reduction claim. We tested the same filter after two more months’ use and it removed 97%.

We tested a 2.5″ X 9.5″ version of the MatriKX CTO (same filter as above, but drinking water size) that we use as an RO prefilter. We ran it at 350 milliliters per minute (the very slow feed flow rate of an undersink reverse osmosis unit) and it removed 99.6% of the 2.75 ppm chloramine in the tap water that day.

We tested  two 2.5″ X 10″ granular carbon filters, one with standard coconut shell GAC (97.8% chloramine reduction at 0.5 gpm) and one Centaur Catalytic Carbon (100% chloramine reduction at 0.5 GPM).

Black and White Undersink Reverse Osmosis

We did several tests on our house brand reverse osmosis units, some in our office, some in homes, and with different configurations and filter age. Chloramine reduction ranged from 100%–the most common–down to 97.6%. Most units were standard 3-stage systems with MatriKX CTO prefilter and MatriKX CTO Plus post filter. Some had 4th-stage post filters which we added to test ammonia reduction. In general, all RO units we tested removed almost all the chloramine.

Shower Filters

We tested a standard KDF-based Sprite shower filter, known to be an excellent chlorine reducer.  We tested twice with a shower water feed rate and it removed 20% and 21%.  We tested a Vitashower Vitamin-C shower filter (technically an ascorbic acid injector rather than a filter). On the first test–with only a 5 minute break-in rinse, in violation of the manufacturer’s instructions–it removed only 42%.  After a 10 minute break-in rinse, however, it removed a respectable 94.8%.

KDF Cartridges

KDF plays an essential role in chloramine reduction, according to internet lore.

We put 1.5 lbs. of KDF 55 into a cartridge, without carbon, and tested at 1 gpm.  Result: 18.2% chloramine reduction.

We put a MatriKX CTO Plus cartridge after the same KDF filter and the result was 97.7% reduction at 1 gpm.

We tested a 1.5 lb. KDF 85 cartridge at 1 gpm with the result of only 01.4% reduction–probably not quite as good as running the water through a paper towel.

RO Membrane

We tested a Pentek GRO membrane without pre- or post-filters.  As expected, chloramine reduction was an insignificant 9.8%.

The Ammonia Dilemma

After “how much chloramine does your filter remove?” the next question is usually, “does it also remove ammonia?”  The correct answer is, “No, it actually adds ammonia to the water.”

The standard explanation for chloramine reduction is that the catalytic action of the carbon breaks the bond between chlorine and ammonia then converts the chlorine to harmless chloride. The ammonia is left behind. In other words, after treatment you end up with more ammonia than you started with.

Virtually all of our tests supported this concept by showing an increased presence of ammonia after the chloramine was reduced by the filter.

The table below shows carbon filters removing chloramine. Note that in each case the liberated ammonia stays in the product water.

Carbon Filters Removing Chloramine. Ammonia Residual without Post Treatment

All values expressed in mg/L
Tap Water Before Treatment
Treatment Device
After Treatment
Chloramine: 2.24
Ammonia: 0.11
CTO Plus Carbon Block @ 0.5 gpm
Chloramine: 0.01
Ammonia: 0.55
Chloramine: 3.40
Ammonia: 0.08
GAC Inline (refrigerator) filter
Chloramine: 2.02
Ammonia: 0.27
Chloramine: 3.52
Ammonia: 0.13
Whole House CTO Carbon Block
Chloramine: 0.16
Ammonia: 0.54
Chloramine: 2.67
Ammonia: 0.17
Granular catalytic carbon (Centaur) cartridge, new but well broken in.
Chloramine: 0
Ammonia: 0.55
 
The theoretical removal of ammonia is a complicated issue, and literature reveals that removing ammonia after chloramine reduction doesn’t always follow expectations.

Frank DeSilva explains ammonia removal as follows:

Ammonia can be present in water in two forms, either ammonium hydroxide (NH3) or as the ammonium ion (NH4).
When the pH of the water is less than 7 the ammonia is present as the ammonium ion. As pH increases above 7, more of the ammonia is present as ammonium hydroxide.

The ammonium ion is readily removed by cation resin. Good removal capacity can be expected in waters low in hardness. Waters that are high in hardness will have decreased capacity due to the simultaneous affinity and removal of calcium, magnesium and the ammonium ion.

What this means in practical terms is that adding a cation (water softening) cartridge after an RO unit should remove the ammonia left behind when the RO’s carbon filters have removed the chloramine.  This is because the RO membrane removes the hardness and also reduces the pH, creating an ideal situation for ammonia removal by the cation cartridge. (Ion exchange with zeolite is often recommended as a reducer of ammonia under these conditions as well.)

The table below includes carbon filters and RO units followed by a post treatment device.

Ammonia Residual with Post Treatment

All values expressed in mg/L
Tap Water Before Treatment Treatment Device After Treatment
Chloramine: 1.83
Ammonia: 0.14
 Black and White Reverse Osmosis, 3 stage, with softening cartridge added.
Chloramine: 0.00
Ammonia: 0.01
Chloramine: 1.83
Ammonia: 0.14
 Black and White Reverse Osmosis, 3 stage, with zeolite cartridge added.
Chloramine: 0.00
Ammonia: 0.01
Chloramine: 3.52
Ammonia: 0.13
 Black and White Reverse Osmosis, 3 stage, with calcite cartridge added. Unit preceded by a standard carbon block whole house prefilter.
Chloramine: 0.00
Ammonia: 0.00
Chloramine: 2.11
Ammonia: 0.08
 Pentek ChlorPlus 10 (9.75″ x 2.5″) Chloramine Reduction Cartridge followed by a softening cartridge @ 0.5 gpm.
Chloramine: 0.02
Ammonia: 0.02
Chloramine: 2.11
Ammonia: 0.08
 Pentek ChlorPlus 10 (9.75″ x 2.5″) Chloramine Reduction Cartridge followed by a deionizing cartridge @ 0.5 gpm.
Chloramine: 0.01
Ammonia: 0.02
Chloramine: 2.75
Ammonia: 0.14
 Black and White 3 Stage Reverse Osmosis Unit without post treatment.
Chloramine: 0.00
Ammonia: 0.05
 
Conclusions

We found the expected, plus a couple of unexpected results.
In general terms, contrary to some some internet lore (we’ve been told more than once that “chloramine can’t be removed”), chloramine can be removed handily, although it’s considerably harder to remove than chlorine.

The same strategies that remove chlorine remove chloramine, although some devices work much better than others. Catalytic carbon is best, but standard carbon also removes chloramine well if you give it enough time. KDF, unless it is followed by carbon, is not an effective chloramine treatment.

Residential reverse osmosis units are particularly good at chloramine reduction because their carbon prefilter gets to handle the water at a very slow flow rate. While the RO membrane itself does not significantly affect chloramine, it may reduce ammonia.  (In our “membrane only” test, ammonia went down from 0.18 to 0.03 ppm.)

Vitamin C shower treatment is much more effective than KDF shower filters with chloramine.

Theoretically,  ammonia should be easily removed by cation exchange after an RO unit but not so easily after a carbon filter. Nevertheless, in the three tests where we used an ion exchange cartridge after a carbon block filter, ammonia was reduced to 0.02, 0.02, and 0.01. This was with feed water with a pH in the high 7’s and 7 grains of hardness. The result indicates that a water softener regenerated well before its hardness endpoint following a whole house catalytic carbon filter would probably do a credible job of ammonia reduction–not good enough, perhaps, for use in dialysis, but quite good for ordinary household use.
 
 
 
How Copper Gets Into the Water and How to Remove It
Native copper. As you would expect, it's copper colored. It's good to make wire with, but bad for your liver and kidneys if you ingest too much.
 
Copper is a reddish naturally occurring metal. In water it is typically dissolved as a divalent cation (Cu +2). There is lots of copper in the environment since it is  widely used to make copper pipe and tubing, and copper compounds are used as pesticides and herbicides.
The most common way for copper to get into drinking water is through corrosion from copper plumbing fixtures.

This  may cause high levels of copper in drinking water. The presence of copper corrosion is often indicated by blue-green staining of fixtures.

Health Effects of Copper

Copper is a necessary nutrient, but too much copper can cause nausea and vomiting, and long-term exposure can lead to liver damage and kidney problems.

Water Treatment for Copper

Copper can be controlled in whole house (POE) applications and plumbing fixtures protected by cation exchange (a water softener), pH control, and film-creating compounds such as polyphosphates. Water with low pH soaks up copper, and usually raising the the pH of the water cures the problem.
For point of use treatment, reverse osmosis removes copper handily—usually around 97%. Copper can also be removed by distillation and activated carbon adsorption.
 
 
 
Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products in Drinking Water: More Information

The presence of  PPCPs (Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products) in water supplies have been studied by US governmental agencies and also by the World Health Organization, but a considerable amount of research has been conducted as well by the Associated Press (AP). The AP did an extensive 5-month research project on PPCPs in 2008.

Here are the ten most common PPCPs in US drinking water, according to the AP.  Note that results are in tinier amounts than those possible with most conventional testing.  Results are reported in ppt (parts per trillion).
 
 
The report also went into some detail in its study of possible treatments.  It identified the best treatment strategies as
  • Activated carbon
  • Biologically activated carbon
  • Ozone/advanced oxidation processes
  • Ultraviolet (UV) treatments
  • Nanofiltration
  • Reverse osmosis.
Here are more specific observations about treatments for PPCPs:
  • Over 90 percent of steroids can be removed from drinking water using activated sludge, activated carbon, biologically activated carbon, ozone/advanced oxidation processes, UV treatments and reverse osmosis.
  • Over 90 percent of antibiotics, antidepressants and antimicrobials can be removed using activated carbon, biologically activated carbon, nanofiltration and reverse osmosis.
  • Over 90 percent of anti-inflammatories can be removed using activated carbon, biologically activated carbon, ozone/ advanced oxidation processes, UV treatments, nanofiltration and reverse osmosis.
  • Over 90 percent of lipid regulators can be removed using activated carbon, biologically activated carbon, ozone/advanced oxidation processes, nanofiltration and reverse osmosis.
  • Under 40 percent of listed PPCPs can be removed through the use of coagulation/flocculation and softening/metal oxides.
The Pure Water Gazette’s  observation:  Of common point of use treatments available to homeowners, activated carbon and reverse osmosis rank in the 90 percent reduction area in all categories.  The obvious conclusion is that a high quality carbon drinking water unit is excellent protection against PPCPs,  and a reverse osmosis unit (reverse osmosis units normally contain at least two high quality activated carbon filters in addition to the reverse osmosis element) is even better.

 
 
 
Slipping Backward on Environmental Progress
 
by Peter Gleick
 
As a scientist working for decades on national and global water and climate challenges, I must speak out against what I see as an assault on America’s water resources.
I grew up in New York in the 1960s hearing about massive Polychlorinated Biphenyl – a toxic chemical used as a coolant – contamination in the Hudson River and the threatened extinction of bald eagles and ospreys from eating contaminated fish.
I remember watching on television Ohio’s Cuyahoga River burning. I remember scientists warning about the death of the Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay from uncontrolled industrial pollution. I remember not being able to swim at beaches polluted with raw sewage.
And I remember the public debate and bipartisan enthusiasm for federal action to clean up our waters – enthusiasm that led to passage of one of the nation’s foundational environmental laws, the Clean Water Act, signed into law by Richard Nixon in 1972.
This law and the related federal regulations reduced water pollution and protected some of the nation’s rivers and lakes, but they are incomplete, only partially implemented, and increasingly outdated in the face of new threats from unregulated contaminants, worsening climatic changes, failing water infrastructure and direct political assault.
Donald Trump claimed he’d work to promote clean water. This claim has proven to be hollow. Since taking office, the president, administration officials, and the Republican-led Congress have moved aggressively to roll back decades of water-quality protections put in place by previous Republican and Democratic administrations.
These moves benefit industrial polluters rather than local communities, hinder progress toward cleaning up contaminated water and deteriorating ecosystems and worsen public health risks.
To address these problems, the Obama administration developed new rules to remove mercury from municipal sewage; impose limits on the amount of toxic and bioaccumulative water pollutants such as arsenic, lead, mercury, and cadmium that can be released from power plants; control previously unregulated pesticides; stop the dumping of coal wastes into streams and clarified authority for the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Army Corps of Engineers to extend protections to around 60% of the water bodies in the United States – the so-called Waters of the United States, or WOTUS, rule, also known as the Clean Water Rule.
The Trump administration and Congress have moved to rescind every one of these environmental protections.
Immediately after Trump’s inauguration, the EPA announced the agency’s intention to cancel the new regulation to cut mercury pollution in urban wastewater.
Mercury is a persistent neurotoxin affecting the brain and nervous system and scientists estimate that more than 75,000 infants in the US each year have an increased risk of learning disabilities associated with prenatal exposure to methylmercury. The largest single source of mercury contamination in urban wastewater comes from dental offices and the new rule required dental offices to install inexpensive and effective equipment to capture rather than dump mercury.
In April, EPA administrator Scott Pruitt proposed to postpone the compliance dates for meeting the new limits on toxic water pollutants from power plants. This rule would have reduced pollutant releases by 1.4bn pounds a year – including chemicals that lead to cancer and other illnesses in humans, lowered IQ in children, and deformities and reproductive damage in fish and wildlife.
The Clean Water Rule was published in June 2015 after years of scientific study, more than 400 public hearings, and literally a million public comments. It provides a critical tool for tackling persistent pollution problems from pesticides, fertilizers and industrial chemicals in water that previously lacked regulations.
Eliminating the Waters of the United States rule was an explicit objective of the Republican platform, and Trump signed an executive order in February 2017 asking the EPA and US Army Corps of Engineers to review and either rescind or revise it. In late June, the EPA announced it would move to completely replace it, removing protections from vast areas of the country.
Finally, Trump’s proposed budget imposes massive cuts to federal water-quality protections. The EPA office that develops standards for pollution in drinking water, already years behind in setting limits for unregulated pollutants, would have its budget cut in half.
The Superfund program, responsible for cleaning up severely polluted industrial sites, including many contaminating or threatening groundwater, would be cut 25% and enforcement would be cut 40%.
Programs that support environmental cleanup in Long Island Sound, Chesapeake Bay, the Great Lakes, San Francisco Bay, and other waterways would be cut to zero. The EPA’s office for scientific research and development would be cut in half.
Federal grants to states to identify and prevent leaks from underground storage tanks and programs to reduce lead exposure, like that seen recently in Flint, Michigan, would be eliminated. If we do nothing, undrinkable water could be one of Trump’s most poisonous legacies.
The good news is that Americans care enormously about clean water. The annual Gallup Poll on the environment ranks worries about water pollution above any other environmental issue, now higher than they’ve been since 2001. Scientists, public health officials, and environmental groups are also fighting back.
Lawsuits have been filed in federal court arguing that the Trump administration doesn’t have the legal authority to delay these protections, hasn’t given public notice or allowed public debate, is ignoring proven science and has acted to prioritize the interests of the coal and chemical industries over public health.
And there has been some success: in early June, in the face of a lawsuit by the Natural Resources Defense Council, the EPA agreed to let the mercury rule go forward. Some Republican members of Congress have publicly expressed concern over the severity of the proposed federal budget cuts to environmental protection.
We’ve come a long way from the era of unregulated dumping of chemicals in our streams, burning rivers, and dying ecosystems. I’m optimistic that the goal of clean, fishable, swimmable waters nationwide is achievable. But the Republican party is moving rapidly to become the party of dirty water. That’s not in their interest and it’s not in the interest of the nation. It’s time scientists and the public speak out.

 
 
 
New High Performance Air Pumps for AerMax Units

 
Pure Water Products now offers a high performance (CAP) air pump and installation kit for our AerMax units.
High capacity air pump for use with AerMax systems.
The high volume pump is a small but tough unit designed for iron and hydrogen sulfide treatment. It is for use with constant pressure well systems, high flow applications, and anywhere where higher pressure or higher air turnover is needed. Suggested uses include commercial applications, hotels, restaurants, multi-tap applications, irrigation systems, bottling plants,  large homes,  or wells that serve more than one home.
Prices for pumps and Installation Kit
Part Number Description Price (includes shipping)
AM100 115 V. Heavy Duty Air Pump $489.00
AM101 230 V. Heavy Duty Air Pump $489.00
AM102 Heavy Duty Installation Kit (works with both pumps above) $159.00
Also available are high flow aeration tank heads and over-sized aeration tanks. Please call for information and pricing.

Pure Water Products

940 382 3814

Installation Kit for High Capacity Air Pump includes 2 stainless steel check valves, heavy duty mounting shell, tube connectors, 200 psi pressure gauge, and pressure regulator.
 
 
Current Water News

Here are just a few of the many articles about water issues that are available every day from the Pure Water Gazette website. Visit the site regularly to keep up with the latest happenings in the fascinating world of water.
Duke Energy Denies Responsibility for hexavalent chromium contamination of wells.

North Carolina officials are debating how to respond to toxic-metal pollution found in wells near facilities run by Duke Energy, the nation’s largest electric company.
“Hundreds of homeowner wells near Duke’s plants, including two in Gaston and Rowan counties, were found with elevated levels of potentially toxic metals. The biggest concern was hexavalent chromium, which might cause cancer when found in drinking water,” The Charlotte Observer reported.
“Duke says the hexavalent chromium in the wells didn’t come from its stocks of coal ash stored at the plants. But state legislators last year ordered Duke to offer alternate water to its neighbors,” the report said.  Full Story.
Many of our schools are failing lead tests, and worse, many schools require no testing at all.
While schools often struggle with the aftermath of finding lead in their drinking water, education advocates and health professionals agree that there's an even costlier scenario: not knowing at all. Full story.
Troubled Water: Farming activity contaminates water despite best practices.
Farming communities had thousands of violations of nitrate contamination over the last 10 years. Farmers are trying to contain the issue, but a lack of regulation hinders progress. Full story.
Trump proposes scrapping Obama-era fracking rule on water pollution.
The Bureau of Land Management says it is moving to discard a 2015 regulation as it duplicates state rules and 'imposes unjustified costs' on oil and gas industry. Full story.
Follow daily water headlines and links to full articles from Environment Health News at the Pure Water Gazette.
 
 
Places to visit on our websites
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
Thanks for reading and be sure to check out the next Occasional!
Pure Water Products, LLC, 523A N. Elm St., Denton, TX, www.purewaterproducts.com
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