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Here is another great article in the New York Times’Toxic Waters series. This time, Charles Duhigg takes a look at the cost of replacing crumbling urban sewer and water infrastructures in cities like Washington, DC. He notes that:
State and federal studies indicate that thousands of water and sewer systems may be too old to function properly.
For decades, these systems — some built around the time of the Civil War — have been ignored by politicians and residents accustomed to paying almost nothing for water delivery and sewage removal. And so each year, hundreds of thousands of ruptures damage streets and homes and cause dangerous pollutants to seep into drinking water supplies.
The article explores how many people take their water infrastructure for granted, and rate increases have been fought tooth-and-nail in cities around the country, including Philadelphia. The article ends with this powerful quote: “This is the fight of our lifetimes. Water is tied into everything we should care about. Someday, people are going to talk about our sewers with a real sense of pride.”
Read the whole article here.
PennFuture is leading the way on challenging the Marcellus Shale Drilling. Go PennFuture!
Drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale is growing at a breakneck pace – often destroying water supplies and damaging local communities, with no tax in place to restore and repair the damage and reimburse our citizens – it’s clear that taming the Marcellus Shale drillers is Job 1 for next year.
National gas drillers from around the world are coming to Pennsylvania to tap one of our most valuable natural resources – natural gas in the vast Marcellus Shale formation that underlies most of the state. Some of the drillers are conscientious about protecting the environment, but many are not. This brings tremendous risks to our land and water. And right now, those risks are being shouldered by local communities and environmental treasures.
In almost every state that has substantial natural gas deposits, drillers must pay a severance tax on the extraction of the resource to compensate for the depletion of the resource and for damage done to the environment and public infrastructure.
But not in Pennsylvania. This past year, we successfully pushed for a vote in favor of the tax in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, but the Republican-controlled Senate and the oil, gas and drilling industries blocked any consideration in the Senate.
We are determined to push the tax through in 2010…
Visit PennFuture’s website to learn how you can help! Also check out our past posts on Marcellus Shale to learn more about the issue.
Here is a great New Year’s Resolution for Pennsylvania recommended by PennFuture:
Enact mandatory recycling of electronic gadgets and computers. There is nothing to prevent people from simply dumping electronic gadgets, computers and televisions into landfills, even though many are classified as hazardous waste and often contain toxic materials. Legislation being considered by the House and Senate will protect our environment and grow Pennsylvania’s green economy. The proposed law requires the manufacturers of electronics to arrange for them to be responsibly recycled, usually bylocal e-cycling businesses. Enacting e-cycling legislation will be yet another win for the economy and the environment.
Contact your state legislator to make sure that Pennsylvania adopts the right resolutions!
The New York Times has recently published some more truly fascinating articles in their “Toxic Waters” series. In “Millions in U.S. Drink Dirty Water, Records Show,” Charles Duhigg explains how some water treatment systems have gotten away with illegal concentrations of harmful substances in drinking water. From the article:
More than 20 percent of the nation’s water treatment systems have violated key provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act over the last five years, according to a New York Times analysis of federal data.
That law requires communities to deliver safe tap water to local residents. But since 2004, the water provided to more than 49 million people has contained illegal concentrations of chemicals like arsenic or radioactive substances like uranium, as well as dangerous bacteria often found in sewage.
Regulators were informed of each of those violations as they occurred. But regulatory records show that fewer than 6 percent of the water systems that broke the law were ever fined or punished by state or federal officials, including those at the Environmental Protection Agency, which has ultimate responsibility for enforcing standards.
In “Sewers at Capacity, Waste Poisons Waterways,” Duhigg explains the problem with combined sewer overflows, with a brief mention of how Philadelphia is addressing the problem through the Green City, Clean Waters program.
Duhigg explains the problem in a nutshell:
One goal of the Clean Water Act of 1972 was to upgrade the nation’s sewer systems, many of them built more than a century ago, to handle growing populations and increasing runoff of rainwater and waste. During the 1970s and 1980s, Congress distributed more than $60 billion to cities to make sure that what goes into toilets, industrial drains and street grates would not endanger human health.
But despite those upgrades, today, many sewer systems are still frequently overwhelmed, according to a New York Times analysis of environmental data. As a result, sewage — including human excrement and dangerous industrial chemicals — is spilling into waterways.
In the last three years alone, more than 9,400 of the nation’s 25,000 sewage systems — including those in major cities — have reported violating the law by dumping untreated or partly treated human waste, chemicals and other hazardous materials into rivers and lakes and elsewhere, according to data from state environmental agencies and the Environmental Protection Agency.
You can read all of the articles in the series here. Don’t forget to check out the accompanying videos as well!
This New York Times article shows how much damage we’ve done to our oceans.
From the article:
Light bulbs, bottle caps, toothbrushes, Popsicle sticks and tiny pieces of plastic, each the size of a grain of rice, inhabit the Pacific garbage patch, an area of widely dispersed trash that doubles in size every decade and is now believed to be roughly twice the size of Texas. But one research organization estimates that the garbage now actually pervades the Pacific, though most of it is caught in what oceanographers call a gyre like this one — an area of heavy currents and slack winds that keep the trash swirling in a giant whirlpool.
Scientists say the garbage patch is just one of five that may be caught in giant gyres scattered around the world’s oceans. Abandoned fishing gear like buoys, fishing line and nets account for some of the waste, but other items come from land after washing into storm drains and out to sea.
Plastic is the most common refuse in the patch because it is lightweight, durable and an omnipresent, disposable product in both advanced and developing societies. It can float along for hundreds of miles before being caught in a gyre and then, over time, breaking down.
But once it does split into pieces, the fragments look like confetti in the water. Millions, billions, trillions and more of these particles are floating in the world’s trash-filled gyres.
Yikes! Read the whole thing here.
Today’s Fresh Air on National Public Radio features Charles Duhigg, a journalist working on the New York Times’ fascinating Toxic Waters series. In the interview, Duhigg notes that in some senses, the Times’ database of water polluters is more comprehensive than the EPA’s, because it includes raw data from all 50 states.
One of Duhigg’s recent articles explains that the EPA is vowing to work harder on enforcing water pollution laws. From the article:
The E.P.A. has come under scrutiny recently for not punishing tens of thousands of polluters over the last decade, and many of the lawmakers at the hearing on Thursday are longtime critics of the agency’s vigilance. In September, a New York Times investigation found that companies and other workplaces had violated the Clean Water Act more than 500,000 times in the last five years, but fewer than 3 percent of polluters had ever been fined or otherwise punished.
On Fresh Air, Duhigg explains there are many reasons why the EPA hasn’t effectively enforced water polluters, including lack of interest from voters, limited funding, effective lobbying from polluters and loopholes in the law. Later in the interview, he explains some of the concerns we’ve talked about associated with natural gas drilling. He also reminds listeners that “water really is a local issue.”
You can listen to the interview indefinitely here and read the Toxic Waters series here. The next article in the series will be about an issue near and dear to our hearts: the combined sewer overflow problem in older American cities!
TTF has made the news again!
Check out this article about our recent Model Neighborhood Van Tour in the Germantown Chronicle. Scroll down to “Innovative Water Management Techniques in NW.”
From the article:
It’s fall. The leaves are turning. It’s a perfect time for water resource tours.
At least that’s what the Tookany/Tacony-Frankford (TTF) Watershed Partnership and the Wissahickon Environmental Center figured on Sunday October 4, when they took residents around the Awbury and Cliveden neighborhoods of the Northwest to examine the innovative work being done to clean drinking water at its source – from the rain that falls out of the sky.
. . . Partly in response to pressure from groups like TTF, states and municipalities have been adopting stricter storm water maintenance laws and the ethic of helping Mother Nature clean her water and protect her streams is slowly gaining popularity.
You can click here for more information on our Model Neighborhood Van Tour. Thanks to everyone who came out to make that day such a success!
We were so thrilled to discover that the cover story of this month’s Grid magazine features TTF Board Member and friend, Fred Lewis. We’ve written about Fred’s wonderful work with the Senior Environment Corps at Center in the Park here before.
You can read the article online here or download the .pdf. Or, you can pick up a hard copy in person. You can find out where to find copies here.
From the article:
The group’s dedication to the environment is obvious to anyone who spends any time with the members. They are eager to give back to their community, a city where many have raised children and grandchildren, and worked lifetimes in public service and the private sector.
“It gives the volunteers a chance to feel they are doing something that is helpful to the community,” says Lewis. “Generally, when people retire, they look for things that will satisfy their interests. But with water monitoring, you get to do something for the community. It keeps you mentally and physically involved.”
Despite arthritis and two knee replacements, Lewis is more involved than ever with environmental causes. When the octogenarian’s not out in the field climbing up and down rocky river banks and trudging through rain and snow with his test tubes and ph strips, he’s active in almost a dozen other organizations and boards of directors including the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, Wissahickon Watershed, Water Department Advisory Council, Retired Seniors Volunteer Program and the Delaware Estuary, to name just a few.
His energy is contagious. “We are always encouraging people to come join us,” he says. “The only real requirement is that they be over 55. We’ll teach them everything they need to know. All they have to do is care about the environment.”
Way to go, Fred and the Senior Environment Corps!
Also, make sure to check out the another water-related article in this issue of Grid, “High Water,” which explores the issue of pharmaceuticals in our drinking water.
There’s another great article about the Green City, Clean Waters plans for Ross Street in the Germantown Chronicle. Scroll down to “PWD Unveils Water Runoff Plan for Ross Street.”
From the article:
The Model Neighborhoods program is the start of PWD’s $1.6 billion, 20-year effort to clean up its troubled combined sewer overflow system and bring it in line with federal EPA mandates by 2029. But it also represents a major foray into new territory for the city utility – managing storm water not just with pipes, but with strategically-placed greenery along streets throughout Philadelphia.
Using a grass-roots nomination process guided by local community partners, in this case the Tookany/Tacony-Frankford (TTF) Watershed Partnership, Inc., based at Awbury Arboretum, the Chew-Belfield Neighborhood Association, and the various block associations of this hilly region of the Northwest, PWD found the perfect block to begin with.
“The community picked the block, we didn’t pick the block,” said PWD Engineer Amy Leib. “But it wound up working well for us.”
Read the whole thing here.
Sandy Bauer’s article in last week’s Philadelphia Inquirer, Breaking Ground with a 1.6 Billion Plan to Tame Water, does a fantastic job of explaining the Philadelphia Water Department’s Green City, Clean Waters Plan. Here at TTF, we are thrilled to be a partner on one of the first blocks to participate in the program: the 6300 Block of Ross Street.
Reverend Chester Williams, a great friend and partner of TTF, was quoted in the article:
“I love it,” said the Rev. Chester Williams, president of the Chew and Bellfield Neighborhood Club. In his view, what’s not to like about cleaner air, cooler houses, and prettier streets?
“We’re just praying that it moves a little faster,” he said.
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