EPA uses the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR) program to collect nationally representative data for contaminants suspected to be present in drinking water, but that do not have regulatory standards. UCMR 4 requires monitoring for 30 chemicals between 2018 and 2020.
A study just published in the journal ‘Lake and Reservoir Management’ is the first to report “airborne anatoxin-a (ATX) collected outside an aquatic ecosystem.” In addition to potential recreational exposure and in association with irrigation systems, this could theoretically have implications for drinking water treatment.
This guideline technical document outlines the evaluation of the available information on 4-chloro-2-methylphenoxyacetic acid (MCPA) with the intent of updating the guidelines for MCPA in drinking water. The purpose of this consultation is to solicit comments on the proposed guidelines, on the approach used for its development, and on the potential impacts of implementing it.
Briefly, it presents the current state of knowledge on cyanobacteria and cyanotoxins, and from a drinking water treatment perspective it provides guidance for monitoring and controlling risks in source water and at intakes.
There are changes from the 1998 guideline, which it replaces, and from the August 30 2019 proposed values when it was posted for comment. The new “maximum acceptable concentration (MAC) for total aluminum in drinking water is 2.9 mg/L (2,900 µg/L) based on a locational running annual average of a minimum of quarterly samples taken in the distribution system.
It is a Statistics Canada searchable database that lists drinking water plants by treatment category, characteristics of water treatment plants, population served, operation and maintenance costs (split into categories), and total potable water volume (split into surface water and groundwater) for the years 2011, 2013, 2015, and 2017.
A new CDC report shows that from 2016–2018, 18 states reported 421 harmful algal blooms, 389 human illnesses, and at least 413 animal illnesses linked to harmful algal blooms.
Lead in drinking water remains a significant human health risk. At-home lead in water test kits could provide consumers with a convenient and affordable option to evaluate this risk, but their accuracy and reliability is uncertain. This study examined the ability of at-home lead test kits to detect varying concentrations of dissolved and particulate lead in drinking water.
There is a huge amount of occurrence, hospital visit, and cost data in this report. It is the most comprehensive paper I have seen on this topic and worth a detailed read. It is available free of charge.
A recently published peer reviewed paper in the journal ‘Annals of Internal Medicine’ reports that “on the basis of circumstantial evidence, fecal aerosol transmission may have caused the community outbreak of COVID-19 in this high-rise building.” Fecal aerosolization and droplet production are nothing new when it comes to our understanding of pathogen risks, with some early papers having been published nearly 50 years ago.
