On the basis of the four PFAAs considered, it is concluded that (1) levels of PFOA and PFOS in rainwater often greatly exceed US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Lifetime Drinking Water Health Advisory levels.
US schools and childcare centers including that “flushing contaminated water was the most evaluated remedial action but was unreliable because copper quickly rebounded when flushing stopped.” They point to a second potentially important finding, “building water treatment systems have been used, but some were not capable of making the water safe.
We find consistent and robust evidence that drilling shale gas wells negatively impacts both drinking water quality and infant health. These results indicate large social costs of water pollution and provide impetus for re-visiting the regulation of public drinking water.
We report the most comprehensive investigation of drinking water toxicity to date, with measurements of extracted whole-water mammalian cell chronic cytotoxicity, over 70 regulated and priority unregulated DBPs, and total organic chlorine, bromine, and iodine, revealing a more complete picture of toxicity drivers.
a global-scale study of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) pollution in 258 of the world’s rivers, representing the environmental influence of 471.4 million people across 137 geographic regions.
As implied by the name it is the 5th in a series of monitoring rules that provides data for regulatory considerations. An important highlight is the inclusion of 29 different per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (table below).
Following a request for comments in July 2020 they have released Guidance on Monitoring the Biological Stability of Drinking Water in Distribution Systems. The intent of the document “is to provide responsible authorities, such as municipalities and water system operators, with an overview of: 1) causes of microbial water quality deterioration in the distribution system; 2) monitoring tools that can be used to assess biological stability; and 3) distribution system management strategies.
Health Canada has withdrawn the existing Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality for 17 chemical substances, including 13 pesticides. The rational was described as being no longer required since these contaminants are unlikely to be found in Canadian drinking water at levels that may pose a risk to human health.
an interesting paper on an “approach to classify a school’s lead risk, which could help water utilities and schools prioritizing testing and remediation efforts,” recently appeared in the journal ‘Environmental Science & Technology Letters’.
A holistic approach will (i) target multiple microorganisms simultaneously, (ii) involve experts across several disciplines, and (iii) communicate results across disciplines and more broadly, proactively addressing source water-to-customer system management.
