Wastewater Treatment Plants and Pig Farms  May Be as Dangerous as Hospitals

Although hospitals are the usual source of “superbugs,”  they aren’t the only place you can pick up a virtually incurable infection.  Researchers at the University of Maryland have identified methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, at sewage treatment plants in the mid-Atlantic and the Midwest.

MRSA is a well-known problem in hospitals, where patients have picked up potentially fatal bacterial infections that do not respond to antibiotic treatment.  But since the late 1990s, iMRSA also been showing up in  people outside of health-care facilities.

Outside hospitals, the source of  MRSA is unknown, but recent research, in Sweden and in the United States, indicates that sewage treatment plants may be implicated.  This is of special concern because of increasing reuse of waste water.

A very limited study carried out by the University of Nebraska indicated that 83 percent of the raw sewage tested contained MRSA, but it also found that after chlorination of the wastewater no bacteria were found.

In addition to sewage plants, according to a study conducted in the Netherlands, the risks of getting MRSA  are highest among people living in a region with high concentrations of cattle and pigs.

Hospitals are definitely the greatest danger, but sewage plants where the sewage is not treated with chlorine before release and livestock operations seem to also be sigificant risk areas for MRSA.

 

More from the Baltimore Sun.

President Obama Wins Second Term in Cake-Walk

 

The Pure Water Gazette, the first to call the 2012 presidential election, has declared President Obama the winner  with a relatively comfortable margin with 315 electoral votes.  The Gazette’s announcement comes at 1:38 PM central time, long before the polls close.

Details to follow.

Issue of PCE Plume Resolved by the EPA

The EPA along with the New Mexco Environment Department has completed a new system designed to address a plume of chemicals that were contaminating water at a site in Grants, NM.  Believed to have come from a dry-cleaning business, the chemicals — called “chlorinated solvents”–  had spread through a shallow aquifer and through soil.  The EPA had earlier designated the site for cleanup under the Superfund program.

The cleanup area  was extensive.  It included more than 570 wells placed throughout the plume. The wells are filled with emulsified vegetable oil, which stimulates the breakdown of the chlorinated solvents. The EPA also installed systems within 15 private residences that prevent vapors from contaminated soil from entering the homes. These structures complement earlier treatments that extracted about 1,000 pounds of contamination.

According to the EPA:

Prolonged exposure to the main contaminant, tetra chloroethene or PCE, can damage the nervous system and cause liver and kidney problems. The cleanup prevented contamination from spreading to the city’s drinking water wells, located two miles north of the plume, and to the San Andreas aquifer, the source of drinking water for Grants and nearby Milan, New Mexico.

The city water wells provide drinking water to approximately 14,000 residents in Grants, San Rafael and Milan. The primary contaminant of concern, tetra chloroethene (PCE) had been found at levels up to 51,000 parts per billion (ppb) in the ground water.

More information about the project at Grants.

More information about PCE.

Las Vegas and Clark County Duke It Out Over Storm Channel 

There is a city/county political fight going on in Las Vegas between the city and Clark County officials over who is going to pay for a five-mile pipeline to handle waste water from the Nellis Air Force Base.

Water is currently being allowed to discharge into a county storm channel, but odors and insect issues have rankled area homeowners.  The storm channel has become a breeding ground for chironomid midges and mayflies.

The pipeline is estimated to cost $15 million with North Las Vegas putting up $8 million upfront. The county, which would oversee construction, would cover the remaining $7 million.

The battle over payment has been going on for some time.

North Las Vegas sued the county in federal court, arguing it has a right to discharge the treated wastewater into the channel. But the county called the discharge a nuisance and sought to stop it in state court.

County officials have maintained that the dry channel is intended to handle storm runoff and that the city’s dumping was illegal.

More gory details from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Focus on Emergency Water Treatment After Sandy

Hurricane Sandy has focused attention on the need for provision of potable water for the home in times of emergency.

Our websites and newsletter have over the years addressed this subject in some detail. Here are some places you might want to look for emergency water treatment.

A Practical Guide to Emergency Water Filters.  A comprehensive and sensible look at how to provide water for emergencies using simple and inexpensive methods. Prepared by Pure Water Products.

Emergency Siphon Filters.  The page shows how to have state-of-the-art Doulton performance without having to buy a $400 metal can to make it work.   “The force of gravity still works during times of emergency.”

How Siphon Filters Work.  The Popular Pure Water Occasional series makes siphon filters simple.

Hurricane Sandy Has Placed a Heavy Burden on New Jersey’s Sewage System

Since the onslaught of Hurricane Sandy,  one of the biggest wastewater treatment facilities in the nation has been pumping around 300 million gallons of raw sewage into the Newark Bay.

The plant was disabled by the superstorm Sandy and environmental regulators were not sure when it would be able to resume operations.  Wastewater treatment plants in New Jersey were hit hard by the storm.  In general, plants lack the capacity to keep up with the extra demands put on the system.

The disabling of the plant is raising public health concerns, and questions as to whether the facility is adequately prepared to handle strong storms.

Environmentalists said climate change will make storms of the same caliber as Hurricane Sandy more frequent, and that government must invest seriously in its infrastructure to safeguard basic services and environmental quality.

Although service to residential users has been maintained, the sewage disposal systems have in  general been overwhelmed and much raw sewage has simply been released.

The plant is located in Newark across from Jersey City near the mouths of the  Hackensack and Passaic rivers.  During high tides on the rivers,  bay water is pulled northward toward Bergen and Passaic counties. The public should avoid fishing or coming in contact with the waters within a few miles of the plant until further notice,  officials warned.

 

More details.

Facts You Would Have Learned Had You Read October 2012’s Top Water Stories Articles in the Pure Water Gazette

Settlement awarded to a Colorado family because of a plumbing cross connection on a water softener — $1,000,000.

Approximate water saving achieved by Pure Water Products’ new clean city water backwashing filter — 50%.

Year Cheshire, CT’s water treatment plant was built –1971.

Estimated annual cost of 8 glasses per day of bottled water — $1,500.

Actual cost of a Pure Water Products Model 77 countertop filter–$77.

GPM flow needed by a family of 3 living in a 2 bathroom home (according to Pure Water Annie)–7 gpm.

Pure Water Products’ price of a Watts 8 gpm stainless steel ultraviolet purifier–$395.

Year in which Rock Hill, SC’s clay sewer pipes were installed — 1920.

Number of items to be monitored under the EPA’s latest CCL– 20 plus.

Amount of additional powdered activated carbon that will be needed in response to the EPA’s new flu gas emissions rule — 500 to 800 million tons.

Average daily water use by a US golf course–10,000 gallons.

Total annual water usage by all US golf courses — 50 billion gallons.

Percentage of caffeine reduction needed for coffee to be classified as decaf — 97% plus.

Hours of direct sunlight needed to purify water using the Sodis method–6.

Year in which the Clean Water Act was made law–1972.

Estimated cleanup cost of the EPA superfund site at East Fishkill, NY — $2.7 million.

Number of glasses of water a human should drink each day according to the baseless but endlessly repeated slogan — 8.

Number of Watersense-labelled products that are now on the market in the US — 5000.

Average per capita bottled water consumption of Mexicans — 61.8 gallons.

Length often attained by oarfish living in the deep ocean waters — 30 feet plus.

Amount of money you could save in a year by boiling your morning tea water in an electric kettle rather than a microwave — $4.

Percentage of steroids that can be removed from water by a reverse osmosis unit — 90% plus.

Number of companies that are awarded each year in the Artemis Top 50 competition– 50.

The expected shrinkage in overall size by fish living in tropical water because of global warming–20%.

Placement of the ReWa Blackwater Bruisers in this year’s world series of wastewater –#1.

Total water violations charged to PA mobile home park manager Frank Perano — 5000.

Percentage of the South Platte River downstream from Denver that is made up of wastewater — 85%.

Reprinted from the October 2012 issue of the Pure Water Occasional.

Bea B. Sharper is a regular contributor to the Pure Water Occasional.  More B. Bee Sharper on this site.

An AquaKleen Installation Resulted in Unsafe, Foul-Tasting Drinking Water

A family in Commerce City, Colorado was awarded nearly $1 in damages as the result of a lawsuit brought against AquaKleen,  a large water treatment company known for its high dollar product line and its aggressive marketing style.

The treatment system in question was a water softener.  The family had complained repeatedly of foul tasting water after the softener’s 2006 installation.  In each instance, SafetyKleen assured them that their water had been tested and that everything was fine.

The source of the bad tasting water was finally discovered by a plumber to be a direct connection of the softener’s  drain into a sewer pipe, allowing sewage to be sucked into the softener and from there to the family’s drinking water.

A short time after the installation, a member of the family was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, which, doctors said, resulted from drinking the contaminated water.

Subsequent inspection by safety officials found all 58 of SafetyKleen’s installations that were inspected  in the area were improperly installed, and 20 of these had cross connections with a sewer pipe.

More Details about the SafetyKleen in Colorado.

New Backwashing Filter Uses Half the Water of Conventional Filters

by Gene Franks

Pure Water Products’ new “Green” design backwashing filter for clean city water dechlorination  uses only half as much water as other backwashing filters in the same category.  The secret is in the use of an advanced tank design which requires less water for backwash plus a modified control valve which cuts standard backwash and rinse times in half.

Here’s the situation.  When manufacturers make products for a broad market, they have to accommodate the “worst case” user.  The Fleck 5600 filter control valve,  the most widely used filter valve made and a traditional favorite because of its low cost, reliable performance, and durability, is used for many filtration purposes.

The Fleck 5600 controls granular activated carbon “whole house”  dechlorination and chemical filters, iron filters for wells, acid neutralizing filters, sand and heavy sediment filters, filters for well-water odor control and more.  The 5600 is a “one size fits all” product and its reliable, simple design has no adjustment for backwash and rinse times.  The manufacturer, therefore, has to make the “default”  backwash time long enough to work effectively for the the most severe and demanding situations.  An iron filter, for example, needs a prolonged backwash and a lengthy rinse to remove iron that has built up in its media bed.  The manufacturer, therefore, provides a 15-minute backwash to keep iron filters clean,  plus an extended rinse to settle and reform the heavy filter bed. The long backwash and rinse cycles are necessary and appropriate for iron filters and dense multi-media sediment filters.  They are much longer than needed, however, for regeneration of a carbon filter running on clean city water.

The city water filter needs little backwash time to fluff the relatively light carbon bed and wash away the small amounts of particulate that might have collected.

With that in mind,  Pure Water Products has created standard 5600 backwashing filters that use a specially made “low water” version of the 5600 control that cuts the backwash and rinse times in half.  This “green” version of our filter is used only on standard carbon and Centaur carbon filters that are intended for use with clean city water.

In addition to the low water control valve, these units use the water saving “Vortech” mineral tank that eliminates the need for gravel underbedding and requires significantly less regeneration water.  The use of the advanced Vortech tank allows us to reduce the backwash stream by a full 20%,  which is in addition to the half-as-long backwash and rinse cycles.

This is a product that’s long overdue.  We’re proud to have it now, ready for immediate shipment, on our main website.  See products BW570 and BW571 on our 5600 backwashing filter page.

If the plant were to fail during the storm, “the result would be catastrophic.”

The huge storm coming into the east coast this week poses a major threat to aging wastewater treatment plants like the one in Cheshire, CT according to The Cheshire Citizen.

The plant is tucked behind athletic fields, but it is vitally important to the town as it treats waste from 120 miles of sewer mains.  The Cheshire plant was built in 1971 and received an upgrade in 1991.

The plant will have to process wastewater  from a large drainage area. Heavy rains may create a massive overload on the 40-year-old system, which is sorely in need of a major overhaul.

Rain from the heavy storms will bring in wastewater and runoff water that will need to be cleaned at the plant.  Dennis Dievert, plant supervisor, said the results “would be catastrophic. We can’t stop waste from coming in here.”

The situation in Cheshire is not unique.  As infrastructures age nationwide and “no new taxes” sentiment freezes funding that would let local governments make improvements,  public health and welfare are at risk. One of the ironies of our time is that Americans don’t blink at billions spent to bomb foreign cities to “make us safe,” but are very stingy when it comes to spending a few dollars on their own safety and well-being at home.

In the case of Cheshire, the situation is dire.

“If the plant (doesn’t) operate, we will have a major public health calamity,” said Town Manager Michael Milone.

Milone said if the plant fails, huge fines by the state would be secondary to “raw sewage flowing into the Quinnipiac River and backing up into sections of town.”

The city has a $31.15 million referendum for upgrade of the aging plant on the ballot for November 6.

Read the entire article in the  Cheshire Citizen.

Editor’s Note:  As feared, this facility and others in the area were indeed forced to dump millions of gallons of raw sewage because of the overload of wastewater from the hurricane.   Go here for details.