The New York Times has a great new series on water pollution. One article, “Clean Water Laws Are Neglected, at a Cost in Suffering,” has some startling statistics:
The Times’s research also shows that last year, 40 percent of the nation’s community water systems violated the Safe Drinking Water Act at least once, according to an analysis of E.P.A. data. Those violations ranged from failing to maintain proper paperwork to allowing carcinogens into tap water. More than 23 million people received drinking water from municipal systems that violated a health-based standard.
As one citizen quoted in the article asked, “How can we get digital cable and Internet in our homes, but not clean water?”
There is also an innovative tool that allows readers to check on violations around the country. The Tookany/Tacony-Frankford Watershed looks good, but there are plenty of violations in the state of Pennsylvania. You can also check out the levels of atrazine (a weed killer) in your drinking water. Pennsylvania seems to be doing a good job in this regard.
This series looks like it is going to have lots of fascinating features, and we’ll be sure to keep mentioning them here!
