Drinking Water

The Philadelphia School District has begun providing bottled water to 70 schools that have yet to be tested for lead in their drinking water. "We've done this to allay people's concerns," said Barbara Farley, a district spokeswoman. The drinking-water taps have been shut off in those buildings and will stay off until they are determined to be safe through testing, she said. Last year, the school district signed an agreement with the city Health Department and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to begin testing for lead in water in all 295 district buildings.

A farmer asked the Moorestown Township Council last night to help speed testing for hazardous chemical pollution in the groundwater on his property and other land in the eastern section of the township. "This is possibly affecting the drinking water of people in this area who are not on the municipal water system," asked farmer Greg Leonberg. "I would ask the township to help us in any way you can. Engineers for the General Electric Corp. this month asked Leonberg for permission to run tests on his 36-acre farm to determine how far chemicals have spread from underground leaks at GE's Government Electronic Systems Division on Borton Landing Road.

Every Monday morning, Laura Zalar and Ruby Burkett take a couple of gallon jugs of Clorox and hike about a mile to a small cinderblock bunker in the Cambria County woods. There they pour half a jug into a plastic 30-gallon tub and mix it with water. The solution runs out of a tube and slowly drips into the pipe that carries water from a pond in the woods to Onnalinda's 18 homes. And that is how this weathered, played-out coal hamlet disinfects its drinking water. "It's about the best we can do. . . . It seems to work all right," Zalar said.

Scientists are finding traces of drugs, herbicides and fragrances - even birth-control hormones and weed killers - in the nation's drinking water. Where once experts thought the water-filtration process would eliminate the chemicals, new studies, including surveys in Philadelphia and New Jersey, have discovered otherwise. One water industry investigation into 18 drinking-water plants nationwide found the compounds in 14 of them. "Initially it was a surprise," said Joseph Bella, executive director for the Passaic Valley Water Commission, whose plant was the basis of the New Jersey study.

Even modern American cities like Philadelphia are vulnerable to microscopic killers in the water, environmental groups said yesterday as they urged Congress to support strict water quality controls. Citing the threat of microorganisms that defy chlorine and may escape detection, the groups pointed to federal Centers for Disease Control figures showing that 900,000 Americans are sickened by their drinking water each year. Last year a parasite killed 104 people and sickened 400,000 in Milwaukee.

Responding to concerns over groundwater contamination, the House yesterday voted overwhelmingly to strengthen the nation's main environmental law regulating drinking water supplies. The Senate is expected to approve the same measure - an overhaul of the 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act - and send it to the President, perhaps as early as this week, for his signature. The bill bans the use of lead in drinking-water systems, directs the Environmental Protection Agency to issue standards within three years for 83 contaminants, and requires states to begin taking steps to protect underground sources of drinking water.

Philadelphia drinking water meets or exceeds all federal standards, according to a new report mandated by the 1996 Clean Water Act. About 3 percent of homes tested showed elevated levels of lead in tap water, and some samples of water supplied to homes in South and West Philadelphia showed elevated levels of disinfectant by-products. But none of the tests showed overall contamination beyond the range permitted by the Environmental Protection Agency. The Philadelphia Water Department will release a detailed, six-page report in advertisements in local weekly newspapers later this month and will mail copies of the 1998 version of the report to all customers with billing statements by next June, said Joanne Dahme, general manager of public affairs for the department.

Senate President John F. Russo announced an ambitious plan yesterday to clean up contaminated drinking water, a problem that he called "by far the most important facing New Jersey today. " The cornerstone of the plan is a $200 million bond issue that would raise money to help New Jersey cities replace tainted water supplies. Price, Russo said at a news conference in the Senate chambers, is no object when it comes to clean water. "We have neglected the safety of our drinking water far too long," he said, adding that the problem of unsafe drinking water is obvious when "you can't hold up a glass of water and know whether it will quench your thirst, make you sick or kill you. " Russo, a Democrat, is from Ocean County, where several recent cases of contaminated water have arisen.

Mount Laurel's Township Council is considering a ban on lawn watering or other landscaping uses of township potable water at future commercial and industrial developments because of the recent serious drain on the township's water supply. The summer's long drought, which resulted in water restrictions, has threatened the township's water supply and forced the mayor and council to think about ways to ease the strain that a seemingly endless calendar of 90- degree-plus days has placed on the township's capacity to supply drinkable water.

TRENTON - Residents of Trenton and four suburbs are being advised to boil water before drinking it, because Trenton's water plant is having problems treating water because of the high level of the Delaware River. In addition to Trenton, residents of Ewing, Lawrence, Hopewell, and Hamilton are being advised to boil water. Officials said the heavy flow in the Delaware forced them to draw from a reserve. That reduced the volume of treated water to only one-quarter of the normal 28 million gallons per day as of Monday afternoon.

THIS IS A letter in response to the editorial "Liquid Assets: A bottled-water ban has merit, but it's not crystal clear. " I sincerely congratulate the Daily News for having published an article which so articulately elucidates the problems of allowing national parks to continue to sell bottled water. As the article states, when discussing the issue of the sale of bottled water, there inevitably gets asked the question of whether water should be seen and treated federally as a human right.

LOS ANGELES - British tourist Michael Baugh and his wife said water had only trickled for days as they brushed their teeth, showered and drank from the taps at the Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, but they could not have imagined the disturbing reason. The body of a Canadian woman was later discovered at the bottom of one of four cisterns on the roof of the historic hotel near Skid Row. The tanks provide water for hotel taps and would have been used by guests for washing and drinking.

Levels of radioactive iodine-131 in a city drinking-water intake rose to their highest level yet earlier this year. However, city and state officials noted the spike, measured Oct. 17 at the Belmont water plant, is a one-time event. It's not a public health concern, they said, and the water remains safe to drink. "The biggest message is that it's not a health issue," said David Allard, director of the state Department of Environmental Protection's Bureau of Radiation Protection.

LAST WEEK, DUKE University released a study on water quality in the Marcellus Shale region. Many Pennsylvanians concerned about the state's new industry of gas drilling will be interested in the findings of this study. Here's a sampling of headlines from the media coverage: Marcellus Shale study claims gas drilling did not contaminate drinking-water wells; New research shows no Marcellus Shale pollution; Pennsylvania fracking can put water at risk, Duke study finds; Yet another study confirms fracking can pollute groundwater; New study: Fluids from Marcellus Shale likely seeping into Pa. drinking water; Findings are mixed in fracking-water study.

Cranberry juice has long been touted as an effective home remedy for preventing pesky, painful urinary tract infections, but now the folklore has more science to back it up. A review of studies in last week's Archives of Internal Medicine found that consuming cranberry products can help prevent the infections, especially for women who have had them before. Researchers from National Taiwan University found that cranberry users — either in juice or pill form — were 38 percent less likely to develop urinary tract infections compared to nonusers.

The eleventh-hour surprise decision by Pennsylvania lawmakers to ban natural-gas exploration across a swath of suburban Philadelphia is another sign that the region isn't ready for drilling rigs. It's possible that it never will be. In pushing through a drilling ban across a little-known rock formation in Bucks and Montgomery Counties, State Sen. Charles McIlhinney (R., Bucks) said he wanted to assure that communities were protected while experts evaluate a new report that identifies gas reserves under the two counties.

A Duke University study that examined the possibility that Marcellus Shale drilling in northeastern Pennsylvania contaminates drinking water concluded that pathways in rock formations that allowed salinated water into shallow aquifers were naturally occurring and not a result of hydraulic fracturing. Still, the authors warned in the study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that those naturally occurring pathways could allow chemicals and contaminated water caused by fracking also to travel into the drinking water supply.

KRYMSK, Russia - Russia's president moved quickly to address anger over the deaths of at least 171 people in severe flooding in the Black Sea region that turned streets into swirling muddy rivers and inundated thousands of homes as many residents were sleeping. Vladimir V. Putin, who was criticized in past years for a delayed or seemingly indifferent response to disasters, flew to the region in southern Russia committed to showing he was taking charge of the situation. He ordered the head of Russia's investigative agency to establish whether enough had been done to warn people about the floods.

Government officials have now confirmed what they strongly suspected a year ago: The radioactive iodine-131 in some of the region's waterways, also found in minute amounts in Philadelphia's drinking water, is coming from thyroid patients. After patients swallow the chemical in capsule or liquid form, some of it passes into their urine, which then enters the wastewater-treatment system and winds up in rivers that provide drinking water, the officials said. Philadelphia's water is safe, according to officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the state Department of Environmental Protection, the Philadelphia Water Department, and the city Department of Health.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday said that well-water tests of 11 homes in Dimock, Pa., near Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling "did not show levels of contamination that could present a health concern. " The samples included three of four households that are receiving drinking water deliveries from the federal government. EPA said it will reevaluate the need to provide water after an additional round of testing. "We are pleased that data released by EPA today on sampling of water in Dimock confirmed earlier findings that Dimock drinking water meets all regulatory standards," said George Stark, spokesman for Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., whose drilling activity has been blamed for well-water contamination.