Water News for October 2024
Biden-Harris Administration Announces $3.6 Billion for Water Infrastructure Through Investing in America Agenda
On October 23, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced $3.6 billion in new funding under the Biden-Harris Administration’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to upgrade water infrastructure and keep communities safe. Combined with $2.6 billion announced earlier this month, this $6.2 billion in investments for Fiscal Year 2025 will help communities across the country upgrade water infrastructure that is essential to safely managing wastewater, protecting local freshwater resources, and delivering safe drinking water to homes, schools, and businesses. This funding is part of a five-year, $50 billion investment in water infrastructure through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law – the largest investment in water infrastructure in American history. To ensure investments reach communities that need them the most, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law mandates that a majority of the funding announced today must be provided to disadvantaged communities in the form of grants or loans that do not have to be repaid.
It Could Take Over 40 Years For PFAS To Leave Groundwater
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl chemicals, known commonly as PFAS, could take over 40 years to flush out of contaminated groundwater in North Carolina’s Cumberland and Bladen counties, according to a new study from North Carolina State University. The study used a novel combination of data on PFAS, groundwater age-dating tracers, and groundwater flux to forecast PFAS concentrations in groundwater discharging to tributaries of the Cape Fear River in North Carolina.
The researchers sampled groundwater in two different watersheds adjacent to the Fayetteville Works fluorochemical plant in Bladen County.
“There’s a huge area of PFAS contaminated groundwater – including residential and agricultural land – which impacts the population in two ways,” says David Genereux, professor of marine, earth and atmospheric sciences at NC State and leader of the study. “First, there are over 7,000 private wells whose users are directly affected by the contamination. Second, groundwater carrying PFAS discharges into tributaries of the Cape Fear River, which affects downstream users of river water in and near Wilmington.” Water Online.
Boil Water Alerts, and How to Sanitize Your RO Unit or Undersink Filter
Because of this month’s high number of flood water from storm events, we’ve had questions about how to sanitize a home RO unit after a “boil water” event. See the Pure Water Gazette website.
Temporary Change in NYC Water
New York City Has “the champagne of tap waters,” but that is about to change. New York’s water is delivered via the 85-mile-long Delaware Aqueduct, said to be the longest tunnel in the world, but the aqueduct is currently leaking, so for the next eight months, the aqueduct’s water output will be cut in half while crews fix it. As the city is supplied with water from alternate sources during the repair, quality is expected to drop. The Guardian.
Hurricane Helene Dumps 40 trillion gallons of Rain
The amount of rainfall is enough to fill Lake Tahoe – with its depth of 1,645ft and surface area of 191 sq miles – or 60m Olympic-sized swimming pools. It could also fill the Dallas Cowboys’ 80,000-seat stadium 51,000 times over.
“That’s an astronomical amount of precipitation,” said Ed Clark, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s water center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
But only about 2.6% of the 4.3 million properties across North Carolina — or around 115,000 properties — had flood insurance. Clark said the estimate of 40tn gallons was, if anything, conservative. Also, if that amount of water had fallen in the parched western states, it would have been enough to fill Lake Powell and Lake Mead twice over, he said. The Guardian.
The World’s Oldest River
The oldest river in the world is the subject of some debate, but is largely agreed to be the Finke River, which is also known as the Larapinta by Indigenous communities in Australia. The river flows only a few times a year after heavy rainfall and extends around 600-750 kilometers (372-466 miles) to its outlet at Lake Eyre. Thought to be around 350 to 400 million years old, the Finke river has its source in the MacDonnell Ranges in the Northern Territory of Australia. Indigenous legend tells the story that the river was formed when the Rainbow Serpent went north from Lake Eyre.
It is extremely difficult to work out the exact age of a river, especially over periods of extended geological time. Scientists and geologists can examine the surrounding ecological features, mountain ranges, and look at the riverbed sediment, as well as the “meanders” – features of the river course itself that have changed the landscape due to hundreds of million years of erosion. Even after considering all these features and more, it is not unusual to have wide-ranging estimates of age that span large time periods. Msn.com.
Dental Health Benefits of Fluoride in Water Have Declined
Recent research indicates that adding fluoride to water may have little benefit for dental health because fluoride is now added to everyday products like toothpaste. The Guardian
Dire Predictions for the Future Because of Human Mismanagement
“Hurricane Helene was fuelled by a record-hot Gulf of Mexico, and a new analysis has shown how that heat was 200 to 500 times more likely because of human-caused global heating. In addition to increasing rainfall by 10%, the climate emergency has made Helene’s wind about 13mph, or 11%, more intense. Scientists are now predicting that monster hurricanes like Helene are now twice as likely to happen due to global heating.” The Guardian.
Water as a destructive force during a hurricane. “As a hurricane approaches a coast, the churning winds force ocean water up on to land; atmospheric pressure from the storm also helps squeeze the water ashore. Water is heavy, and it can move fast in a surge, sweeping people to their deaths, throwing boats and vehicles, and pulverizing structures.” The Guardian.
More than half the world’s food production will be at risk of failure within the next 25 years as a rapidly accelerating water crisis grips the planet, unless urgent action is taken to conserve water resources and end the destruction of the ecosystems on which our fresh water depends, experts have warned in a landmark review. The Guardian
Half the world’s population already faces water scarcity, and that number is set to rise as the climate crisis worsens, according to a report from the Global Commission on the Economics of Water. Full story from The Guardian.
