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Why no one won this year’s water wars

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Thursday, May 2, 2024

SACRAMENTO, California — California is having a really good water year. But all the rain and snow is doing almost nothing to lubricate the state’s perpetual conflicts between fish and farms.Neither farmers, cities nor environmentalists feel like they’re getting enough water from the State Water Project and the federally run Central Valley Project, a semi-coordinated labyrinth of reservoirs, canals and pumping stations that together irrigates nearly 4 million acres.Farmers and cities are arguing that the storms mean they should get more than the 40 percent of their contractual deliveries that they’ve been promised so far (they get about 63 percent on average). They’d have more of an argument if endangered fish weren’t also getting massacred at the pumps: The water projects have already exceeded their take limit for the season for steelhead trout, meaning they’re violating the Endangered Species Act.Everyone is frustrated with Gov. Gavin Newsom and President Joe Biden’s administrations, which operate the systems, as well as with themselves:“That water is not recoverable,” said Jennifer Pierre, general manager of the State Water Contractors, which represents the 27 water agencies that get supplies from the State Water Project, including the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and the Santa Clara Valley Water District. “We should all be in timeout right now.”With so many cooks in the kitchen, there’s a variety of culprits. Westlands Water District, which gets its water from the CVP, is blaming the Biden administration, which runs the project through the Interior Department’s Bureau of Reclamation and the Commerce Department’s National Marine Fisheries Service.Westlands General Manager Allison Febbo said she thinks the high steelhead losses could have been due to the fish returning in above-average numbers, rather than to pumping decisions. She’s calling for a hearing in the Republican-led House into how the CVP applied the Endangered Species Act this year.“We are frustrated,” she said in an interview. “The actions being taken have real world consequences in our district, and we don’t see those actions particularly substantiated.”Jon Rosenfield, science director of the environmental group San Francisco Baykeeper, is pointing at Newsom’s Department of Water Resources, which he argues loosened protections for fish during the last drought.“This is a direct result of the Newsom administration waiving its water quality rules, which it already acknowledges are inadequate, for three years in a row,” he said. He also said the state ran its pumps too early, when there were a lot of fish present.Newsom administration officials are penitent and vowing to change, but are also making the argument for more investment.DWR Director Karla Nemeth called the low allocations “unusual” and traced them in part to more real-time efforts by the state to protect endangered fish after a severe die-off roughly two decades ago prompted lawsuits.She outlined a series of “fixes,” including increasing genetic testing of fish to better figure out which ones absolutely need to be protected and building the Delta Conveyance Project, a controversial tunnel to reroute deliveries underneath the overplumbed Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.“This year was kind of a poster child for infrastructure that’s not really up to the challenge of the next century, and more work that needs to be done,” she said in an interview.(Reclamation didn’t respond to a request for comment, while NMFS said “We limit impacts on threatened and endangered species based on all of the best available science to protect them and provide opportunities for their recovery.”)The fight will continue playing out in several venues: State and federal agencies are currently renegotiating the underlying fish-science documents that guide management decisions, which are still governed by Trump-era rules.And last week, they kicked off the monthlong process to plan summer releases from Lake Shasta, the largest reservoir in the state, which will crystallize the conflict as well as anything: Water managers will try to find a balance between releasing water for farms when they need it in the summer and maintaining cool-enough water reserves to send down rivers to protect endangered salmon eggs in the fall.On one point, everyone agrees: California’s water system is broken, whether it’s a wet, a dry or average year.“I don’t think that we are well-positioned for the type of adaptive management and real-time response that’s going to be needed in order to maximize our resources for the environment and for people and farms,” Pierre said. “This year really highlighted that.”Like this content? Consider signing up for POLITICO’s California Climate newsletter.

California's wet winter exposed enduring conflicts between fish and farms.

SACRAMENTO, California — California is having a really good water year. But all the rain and snow is doing almost nothing to lubricate the state’s perpetual conflicts between fish and farms.

Neither farmers, cities nor environmentalists feel like they’re getting enough water from the State Water Project and the federally run Central Valley Project, a semi-coordinated labyrinth of reservoirs, canals and pumping stations that together irrigates nearly 4 million acres.

Farmers and cities are arguing that the storms mean they should get more than the 40 percent of their contractual deliveries that they’ve been promised so far (they get about 63 percent on average). They’d have more of an argument if endangered fish weren’t also getting massacred at the pumps: The water projects have already exceeded their take limit for the season for steelhead trout, meaning they’re violating the Endangered Species Act.

Everyone is frustrated with Gov. Gavin Newsom and President Joe Biden’s administrations, which operate the systems, as well as with themselves:

“That water is not recoverable,” said Jennifer Pierre, general manager of the State Water Contractors, which represents the 27 water agencies that get supplies from the State Water Project, including the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and the Santa Clara Valley Water District. “We should all be in timeout right now.”

With so many cooks in the kitchen, there’s a variety of culprits. Westlands Water District, which gets its water from the CVP, is blaming the Biden administration, which runs the project through the Interior Department’s Bureau of Reclamation and the Commerce Department’s National Marine Fisheries Service.

Westlands General Manager Allison Febbo said she thinks the high steelhead losses could have been due to the fish returning in above-average numbers, rather than to pumping decisions. She’s calling for a hearing in the Republican-led House into how the CVP applied the Endangered Species Act this year.

“We are frustrated,” she said in an interview. “The actions being taken have real world consequences in our district, and we don’t see those actions particularly substantiated.”

Jon Rosenfield, science director of the environmental group San Francisco Baykeeper, is pointing at Newsom’s Department of Water Resources, which he argues loosened protections for fish during the last drought.

“This is a direct result of the Newsom administration waiving its water quality rules, which it already acknowledges are inadequate, for three years in a row,” he said. He also said the state ran its pumps too early, when there were a lot of fish present.

Newsom administration officials are penitent and vowing to change, but are also making the argument for more investment.

DWR Director Karla Nemeth called the low allocations “unusual” and traced them in part to more real-time efforts by the state to protect endangered fish after a severe die-off roughly two decades ago prompted lawsuits.

She outlined a series of “fixes,” including increasing genetic testing of fish to better figure out which ones absolutely need to be protected and building the Delta Conveyance Project, a controversial tunnel to reroute deliveries underneath the overplumbed Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

“This year was kind of a poster child for infrastructure that’s not really up to the challenge of the next century, and more work that needs to be done,” she said in an interview.

(Reclamation didn’t respond to a request for comment, while NMFS said “We limit impacts on threatened and endangered species based on all of the best available science to protect them and provide opportunities for their recovery.”)

The fight will continue playing out in several venues: State and federal agencies are currently renegotiating the underlying fish-science documents that guide management decisions, which are still governed by Trump-era rules.

And last week, they kicked off the monthlong process to plan summer releases from Lake Shasta, the largest reservoir in the state, which will crystallize the conflict as well as anything: Water managers will try to find a balance between releasing water for farms when they need it in the summer and maintaining cool-enough water reserves to send down rivers to protect endangered salmon eggs in the fall.

On one point, everyone agrees: California’s water system is broken, whether it’s a wet, a dry or average year.

“I don’t think that we are well-positioned for the type of adaptive management and real-time response that’s going to be needed in order to maximize our resources for the environment and for people and farms,” Pierre said. “This year really highlighted that.”

Like this content? Consider signing up for POLITICO’s California Climate newsletter.

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Asheville restores drinking water 53 days after Hurricane Helene - but not all are ready to sip

Residents concerned as North Carolina city lifts boil advisory and scientists detect lead in water at area schoolsWhen the western North Carolina town Swannanoa was battered by Hurricane Helene in September, two large trees crushed Stephen Knight’s home. His family of six was launched into a complicated web of survival: finding a temporary home, applying for disaster relief, filing insurance claims.The new logistics of living included the daily search for food and water. Until earlier this week, most residents of this town east of Asheville had no drinkable tap water for 52 days. After the storm damaged infrastructure around the region, water had been partly restored in mid-October. It was good for flushing toilets but not safe for consumption. In some places, sediment left the water inky like black tea. Continue reading...

When the western North Carolina town Swannanoa was battered by Hurricane Helene in September, two large trees crushed Stephen Knight’s home. His family of six was launched into a complicated web of survival: finding a temporary home, applying for disaster relief, filing insurance claims.The new logistics of living included the daily search for food and water. Until earlier this week, most residents of this town east of Asheville had no drinkable tap water for 52 days. After the storm damaged infrastructure around the region, water had been partly restored in mid-October. It was good for flushing toilets but not safe for consumption. In some places, sediment left the water inky like black tea.Local government advised residents not to consume the water without boiling. People with illnesses or open wounds were also advised to skip showers. Parents were cautioned that children should keep their mouths closed while bathing to avoid accidental ingestion.Drinking the water, even after boiling, was the last-resort option, and bottled water became a precious commodity. In the first days after the hurricane, many hauled creek water in buckets to flush their toilets. People bathed and did laundry at public “comfort stations”. Tankers with clean water occupied vacant lots around western North Carolina. Churches, schools and fire stations became water distribution centers. Households changed their routines: Meals that required boiling in water – pasta or rice – fell off home menus. Families stockpiled clean water to mix baby formula, and washing dishes was often a matter of dipping dishes in a solution of bleach and water.As of 18 November, the city of Asheville lifted its boil advisory. That provided some relief to Knight, who works as a nonprofit communications director. Like many residents impacted by the hurricane, he “had to learn what terms like potable and turbidity meant” as they waited for repairs to the badly damaged water North Fork plant that serves much of the region. (Turbidity measures cloudiness caused by tiny particles in water and is a key indicator of water quality.) Residents constantly listened for reports about how long it would take to be able to drink, bathe and use water in their homes or workplaces again. Initial estimates suggested water restoration could have taken as long as December, and many feared their lack of water access could stretch into next year.The remnants of a waterline pile up downstream from North Fork reservoir, a main source of water for the city on 2 October 2024, after the line was destroyed during Hurricane Helene. Photograph: Jeff Roberson/APStill, some residents and institutions are not yet tapping into the newly restored city water supply, concerned that the water may still not be entirely safe. Lead was detected in water at seven area schools, a relatively common problem in American schools due to older pipes. For 19 days, the city of Asheville treated water with high amounts of chlorine in case harmful materials had seeped into the badly damaged system. But while chlorine is a decontaminant, it can also corrode pipes. Right now, no lead has been discovered in the water system’s source, but many North Carolinans are wondering: am I in harm’s way from toxic lead, which can cause serious and fatal illness, or other materials?Knight is skeptical of using city water for preparing food or washing dishes. He remarked that while the cloudiness in the North Fork reservoir’s water has dropped, it still isn’t back to pre-storm numbers. “I’m thinking, I need to order [wipes used for camping or outdoor use] because I still can’t use the water here.”According to the ABC affiliate WLOS, Mission Hospital, one of the region’s largest health systems, is currently using water from recently drilled wells and storage tanks at almost all its facilities, with the exception of a freestanding emergency room.Clear and effective communication and widespread testing will ensure there is not a second crisis in AshevilleSally A Wasileski SchmeltzerIn the immediate aftermath of the storm, Stephanie Allen, a mother of three, hung curtains outside and constructed a makeshift toilet with a five-gallon bucket. Recently, when her son had a high fever, she filled the bathtub with water to cool him down. But she recoiled at the water’s appearance and opted to give him a sponge bath instead.When asked if she would resume drinking Asheville city water in the near future, Allen was hesitant. “I’m not quite ready to drink from the faucet,” she shared. “I need more scientific studies and anecdotal evidence of its safety. More time”.In a open letter to public officials, the University of North Carolina Asheville professor Sally A Wasileski Schmeltzer urged further investigation and communication educating the general public about the risk of lead poisoning. Schmeltzer chairs the school’s chemistry department and specializes in environmental research.Among her recommendations: widespread testing for lead and copper for buildings built before 1988, when lead was commonly used. She also advocated for blood tests for people who consumed the water – even after boiling – and especially for infants, other children, and pregnant or nursing people. Free testing is available, but she noted that homeowners need to understand when and how to test their water and themselves.“ [P]otential damage to private plumbing could be much more widespread than just to those schools that were tested,” Schmeltzer wrote. “I understand that it is very important not to cause a panic. Yet clear and effective communication and widespread testing will ensure there is not a second crisis in Asheville and Buncombe county.”skip past newsletter promotionThe planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essentialPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionSome residents were surprised when the Asheville water resources department spokesperson Clay Chandler said in a press briefing that water customers with pre-1988 plumbing should flush their cold water taps for 30 seconds to two minutes before consuming it “like before Helene”. Asheville is dotted with old homes and buildings; the city is known around the nation for its well-preserved, early 20th century Art Deco buildings. But many area homeowners weren’t aware of the need to flush their pipes before the storm struck. That public education will be a long-term project.Businesses will need more time, too, to recoup losses from property damage, closure and the costs of bringing in water to stay open, if they chose to do so.Meg Moore has worked for about two years at Cecilia’s, an Asheville staple selling an eclectic mix of empanadas, crepes and tamales.“To get a plumber in here and turn off piping to city water and redirect it to the water tote and make sure it gets continually filled with potable water, there is a price tag on that,” Moore said. Before water restoration, many businesses asked: “Is it worth the thousands of dollars to do all that, not knowing how long it would take for water to be restored?” Cecilia’s used bottled gallons of water as well as compostable plates and silverware, careful to conserve what little water they procured. The owners were able to keep serving customers through Cecilia’s food truck business, which requires less staff and significantly less water to operate. Now that the restaurant’s reopened, staff are eager to see people walk through the doors.“This is the first day we’ve been open since potable water,” Moore said. “I think maybe some people are hesitant to dine out.”Pennycup Coffee Co, offers its own locally roasted beans, brews and baked goods. Its locations reopened in late October, using potable water totes to fuel operations. Water “totes” are large, industrial-grade bulk containers that can hold up to 330 gallons of liquid.Alex Massey, a barista at Pennycup’s north Asheville cafe, detailed the steps taken to open the cafes’ doors: using 275-gallon water totes for coffee-making, boiling water in the coffeemaker for dishwashing and an early closing time to accommodate the extra work.Massey feels area officials could’ve done a better job communicating about the water crisis. But he feels confident in the city’s newly potable water based on information from other sources. After the boil water notice was lifted, Pennycup joined other area restaurants in making the switch back to city water. Most customers haven’t minded, but a few walked out once Massey shared the news.

Water

Food

Crisis

Despite back-to-back deals on water from Mexico, relief for South Texas farmers is far from certain

Texas agreed to take 120,000 acre-feet of water from Mexico this month, only after the U.S. and Mexico agreed to an updated treaty.

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news. McALLEN –– South Texas farmers remain concerned about their access to water despite back-to-back announcements this month that signaled better days ahead. First, the U.S. and Mexico signed an amendment to an international water treaty that dictates how water is shared between the two countries. Then earlier this week, Texas agreed to accept a relatively small offer of water that would go toward paying off Mexico's current water debt while also bringing relief to farmers and ranchers whose land has gone dry in the face of the current water shortage. However, relief is still a ways off as the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the state agency that decides how to allocate the water, has yet to give the green light for that water to be used. The water in question is 120,000 acre-feet from Mexico's San Juan River. Mexico had offered the water in October, but the irrigation districts that provide water to farmers and ranchers were hesitant to accept it. They worried that accepting water now would cut into their critical supply needed for farming next season. The change in the water treaty essentially forced the state's hand. Earlier this month, the U.S. and Mexico signed an amendment to the 1944 international water treaty that had been in the works for more than a year. The amendment gives Mexico more ways to deliver water it owes the U.S., including allowing them to meet their obligations by delivering water it doesn’t need from the San Juan and Alamo rivers, which are not managed by the treaty. Under the treaty, Mexico must deliver 1,750,000 acre-feet of water to the U.S. from six tributaries every five years. Four years into the current five-year cycle, Mexico has delivered just 427,914 acre-feet with a balance of more than 1.3 million acre-feet of water that is due by October 2025. Through the new amendment, the U.S. will credit Mexico for water it provides from the San Juan River even though it is not one of the six tributaries, a position that Gov. Greg Abbott sharply criticized when he ordered the state to accept the water earlier this week. "Texas stands firm in its position — consistent with the text of the Treaty — that those commitments may be satisfied only with water from the six named tributaries," Abbott said. The most important Texas news,sent weekday mornings. Because that water will go toward satisfying Mexico's water obligations, TCEQ Commissioner Bobby Janecka confirmed Thursday that farmers and irrigation districts will be charged for it. “I’m not aware of a path yet, that there’s any opportunity to do it fully no-charge,” Janecka said during a symposium on the state of the Rio Grande hosted by the Texas Water Foundation. Janecka said not charging those who receive from the 120,000 acre-feet of water would risk leaving users in other areas of the state without water in the future. But there's a possible solution in the new amendment. It will also allow Mexico to transfer water it has stored at the Falcon and Amistad international reservoirs to meet its obligations. The hope is that Mexico will transfer enough water to make up for any water that farmers will be charged for accepting the San Juan River water. "I am very optimistic but I expect the worst," said Michael Kent, general manager for Donna Irrigation District. Janecka said his staff is reviewing options for allocating the accepted water. Sonny Hinojosa, a water advocate for Hidalgo County Irrigation District No. 2, criticized the ongoing delays in accepting the water. “We're just wondering why are they throwing up so many roadblocks in accepting this water,” Hinojosa said. “With the governor's directive, they have to accept it, but there's still some issues that nobody really understands what they are.” Kent said he was grateful that Abbott’s order essentially set a clock for TCEQ to take action on the water but emphasized that time was of the essence. He lamented the toll the water shortage had already taken on the Rio Grande Valley’s agriculture industry which lost its sugar mill, the last one in the state, in February due to lack of water. Farmers fear citrus will be next. Because the water shortage has resulted in less citrus production, Kent said citrus growers in his district have avoided using packing sheds to process their fruit as a way to save money. “The margins would be too slim since the yield was low because of the lack of water,” Kent said. “So it's a matter of time and it's very difficult to plan for the future.” Reporting in the Rio Grande Valley is supported in part by the Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc. Disclosure: Texas Water Foundation has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

Water

Agriculture

Health

‘Lead and Copper’ Shows How Water Poisoning Runs Downhill

A new documentary about the Flint water crisis draws out the complexities of the problem.

“There’s a definite sense of people being expendable in this country,” says University of Florida professor Riché Barnes in director William Hart’s new film, Lead and Copper. “And it usually runs across racial lines. When it gets outside of racial lines, it runs on economic lines.” Barnes’s observation underscores the moral clarity that Hart brings to his investigation of the Flint water crisis, which exposed an entire community to high levels of lead through contaminated drinking water. That clarity helps cut through the morass of finger-pointing and misinformation that various politicians and bureaucrats use to abdicate responsibility. Lead and Copper reminds viewers that these decisions threaten people’s lives. Although just forty miles from Lake Huron, Flint, a post-industrial city whose population has dwindled to a nearly 100-year low, has been getting its water via a pipeline through Detroit since 1967. To lower its water costs, the city contracted the construction of its own pipeline in 2013. The pipeline would not finish construction until 2018, so in 2014, the city started taking from the nearby, heavily polluted Flint River instead of continuing to draw from Detroit. Very soon, mothers such as Janae Young started noticing the strange color of their water and the sores and rashes that appeared on the bodies of their children. The film follows Young through the process of caring for her children, even after their burns subside. She spreads lotion on their bodies, takes them to numerous check-ups, and boils water before using it—at least until yet another functionary informs her that boiling is ineffective against contamination. Young and other residents report the problems to their local government, which is overseen by various state and federal agencies. The course of action should be simple, right? Instead of using clean, if expensive, water from Detroit, the city started getting cheaper, poisoned water from the Flint River. Surely, then, one of the multiple oversight agencies in place would just order Flint to keep getting its water from Detroit until its own pipeline project is completed. But as Lead and Copper reveals, no one in power pursued a simple solution. Instead, governors, city managers, and regulators alike evaded responsibility and let the citizens suffer. Hart identifies a number of key culprits, including an unelected city manager appointed by Michigan’s plutocrat governor, an intentionally unrepresentative water sampling process by the state’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and a lack of diligence from the federal EPA. The city only begins providing bottled water and testing kits to citizens after mother LeeAnne Walters marshals help from Federal EPA manager Miguel Del Toral and Virginia Tech professor Marc Edwards to draw attention to the problem. Together, Walters and Del Toral demanded that city officials stop using the polluted water and provide emergency provisions for Flint Residents. Hart employs several on-screen graphics to help clarify the crisis, including a sleek line-art map of the United States and animation illustrating the passage of time. As the camera pans across the map, the narrative turns its attention away from Flint to similarly affected neighborhoods in Newark, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C., in which the full scope of the problem is revealed. These visual elements don’t just provide clarification; they also underscore the complicated nature of the problem. One of the film’s most effective moments shows then governor of Michigan Rick Snyder at a Congressional hearing about the crisis in Flint, in which the late Representative Elijah Cummings, Democrat of Maryland, questions Snyder about the extent of his knowledge about the crisis in Flint. As the film features Snyder’s testimony, a simultaneous graphic element reveals that someone close to the governor raised concerns much earlier. With every spin of the dial, and with every expansion on the map, viewers see in clear, unmistakable terms what various government officials and politicians have tried to obscure: that the water poisoning started after the city manager, the mayor, or someone in government made a cost-saving decision, and the adverse effects flowed down to the most vulnerable. While Lead and Copper’s complex representation of the crisis often works to underscore the movie’s point that the least powerful suffer the most, the narrative sometimes gets unnecessarily muddy. The film’s talking heads include Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and former Flint Mayor Dayne Walling, two figures with far more influence than the mothers of afflicted children. The film allows both of these leaders to speak for themselves, rarely provides overt fact checks to their explanations, and therefore seems to endorse their claims that they, too, were duped by bureaucrats above them and helpless to change things. Lead and Copper also gets muddled when Edwards begins diagnosing the problems. Like a good professor, he shows the viewers physical evidence of the water poisoning, such as the thick lead pipes used in the houses of most Flint residents. He explains in simple terms that lead from the pipes seeps into the water unless certain chemicals are used, and that Flint neglected to use these chemicals. Edwards’s explanation makes sense, but he’s introducing a problem independent of the decision to get water from the Flint River. The use of lead pipes helps connect the problems of Flint to those of Newark, Washington, D.C., and several other locations listed in the movie’s final title cards. But without distinguishing between water poisoned because of pollution in the Flint River and water poisoned because of lead pipes that have been in place for decades, these revelations introduce issues beyond the city’s water source, unnecessarily complicating Lead and Copper’s central line of argument. In fact, all of the connections between Flint, Newark, and Washington, D.C. feel more like appendices than they do expansions of the film’s central theme. With so many people actively trying to obfuscate the facts, these instances can sometimes create more confusion than clarity. Despite these occasional problems, Lead and Copper is ultimately about the affected community members. The film reminds viewers that we are not helpless against structures that allow the powerful to carelessly poison Black and low-income families. The film might end in a terrifying set of statistics about counties across the country with high levels of lead in their water systems, but we first see footage of Janae Young educating an elementary class about recycling and LeeAnne Walters vowing to continue the fight. There’s much work to be done, but Lead and Copper can bring others along. Given the many held unaccountable and the work yet to be done in Flint, it’s not accurate to say that Lead and Copper has a happy ending. But when we see people working to save lives and deliver justice, viewers cannot help but believe that they can turn the flow of even a poisoned river. Lead and Copper is available to rent on streaming services everywhere starting Tuesday, November 19. Joe George is a pop culture writer whose work has appeared in Polygon, Slate, Den of Geek, and elsewhere. You can follow him on Twitter at @jageorgeii and read more at joewriteswords.com. Read more by Joe George November 21, 2024 2:13 PM

Water

Crisis

Culture

Goodbye Microplastics: New Recyclable Plastic Breaks Down Safely in Seawater

A new durable, biodegradable plastic developed by researchers breaks down in seawater, offering a potential solution to microplastic pollution. This material, based on supramolecular structures, can be tailored for different uses and is fully recyclable, enhancing its environmental benefits. New Sustainable Plastic Researchers led by Takuzo Aida at the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science [...]

Water

Pollution

Sustainable

Scientists identify previously unknown compound in drinking water

An international team of scientists have discovered a previously unknown compound that is prevalent in U.S. drinking water, sparking concern about potential public health risks. The mystery compound is called "chloronitramide anion," which forms from the decomposition of inorganic chloramines — disinfectants used to safeguard people from diseases like typhoid and cholera, the researchers found in a study, published on Thursday in Science. In the United States alone, more than 113 million people, or about a third of the country's population, drink chloraminated water, or water that contains these disinfectants, according to the study authors. While the toxicity of chloronitramide anion is still unknown, the researchers expressed alarm about both its prevalence and its similarities to other problematic substances. "Its presence is expected, quite honestly, in all chlorinated drinking waters to some extent, because of the chemistry," senior author David Wahman, an environmental engineer at the Environmental Protection Agency, said during a press call prior to the article's publication. "It has similarity to other toxic molecules," Wahman added. The authors therefore emphasized an urgent need for further research to evaluate whether the chemical poses a public health risk, stressing that merely identifying the compound was a challenge. "Because this compound's so small, we couldn't really break it apart," co-author Juliana Laszakovits, a postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zurich, said in the press call. "The fragments that formed weren't able to be detected by the mass spectrometer." But by combining classic synthesis methods with advanced analytical techniques, including both high-resolution mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometry, the scientists were ultimately able to isolate and identify chloronitramide anion. They measured the compound's concentration content in a range of chloraminated U.S. water systems, detecting levels as high as about 100 micrograms per liter — surpassing most regulatory limits for other disinfection by-products, which hover between 60 and 80 micrograms per liter. The researchers also noticed that the compound was absent from water systems that use disinfectants other than chloramines. Lead author Julian Fairey, an associate professor of civil engineering at the University of Arkansas, stressed in a statement that even if the new compound is not toxic, there is much knowledge to gain from their study and future related research. “Finding it can help us understand the pathways for how other compounds are formed, including toxins," Fairey added. "If we know how something is formed, we can potentially control it.”

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Health

Science

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Mayday Terranean

Mayday Terranean is a documentary film portraying the problems of the Mediterranean Sea as well as the beauty it still has to offer. Scientists, conservationists and activists from countries around the Mediterranean Sea talk about the topic, their relationship to ocean conservation and shed light on the story of this wonderful but endangered place.

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Home Waters

Three high school girls trek 50 miles from Florida’s Rainbow Springs State Park to the Gulf of Mexico to explore the hidden rivers, springs, and forests in their backyards. Their journey covers an important, yet unprotected, area of the Florida Wildlife Corridor and helps connect the next generation to our last remaining wild places in the Sunshine State.

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BlackWater

BlackWater is a documentary about protecting Florida Springs, focusing on the Ichetucknee River. The Florida Springs have been displaying a decline in quality and will continue to if we do not make a change. I encourage you to visit and experience the Florida Springs system, as it truly is a religious experience. Produced by Ethan Beckley, Annick Joseph, and Jiahui Shen.

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Sacred Waters: The Okefenokee in Peril

Sacred Waters: The Okefenokee in Peril takes viewers into the heart of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, showcasing its mystical natural beauty, cultural importance, and incredible ecological value. But, as the title of the film sets forth, the sacred waters of the Okefenokee are in peril. The threat of a proposed mineral mine near the edge of the Okefenokee looms large, putting the natural integrity of the Swamp at risk. As Sacred Waters brings us deeper into the Okefenokee, we understand how great this threat truly is.

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Land Use

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Waters of the U.S.

The current administration is rolling back crucial protections for streams and wetlands across the country in a direct assault on the Clean Water Act. This incredibly beautiful film tells the story of the rivers, streams, and wetlands of Alabama to illustrate the dangers of the proposed regulation. By doing so, it shows the economic benefits, ecological health, and cultural way of life that hang in the balance. The director hails from Miami, Florida, with a strong passion for environmental advocacy. With a degree in Editing, Writing & Media from Florida State University and a background in environmental journalism, he intends to make documentaries to inspire protection wildlife and our natural resources.

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Why no one won this year’s water wars

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Asheville restores drinking water 53 days after Hurricane Helene - but not all are ready to sip

Despite back-to-back deals on water from Mexico, relief for South Texas farmers is far from certain

‘Lead and Copper’ Shows How Water Poisoning Runs Downhill

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Scientists identify previously unknown compound in drinking water

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Why no one won this year’s water wars

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