Health Standards

More than 1.7 million Pennsylvanians - including tens of thousands in the Philadelphia suburbs - are drinking tapwater from systems plagued with violations of federal health standards, the Pennsylvania Public Interest Research Group said yesterday. Not all customers of those water systems - 45,000 people nationwide - actually drank contaminated water, said the Environmental Working Group in Washington, which crunched the numbers. In some cases, big water utilities had bacteria or lead contamination in only small parts of their systems.

After months of debate over what to do about high levels of radium in some South Jersey wells, the state has decided to see if health standards should be tightened and new treatment technology added to drinking-water systems. Robert Shinn, commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protection, said that New Jersey could no longer wait for the completion of federal radium studies. "We've got a little conundrum on how to proceed," he said yesterday. "We are out in front on this issue . . . and we can't wait for the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

As environmental officials and activists in Pennsylvania and New Jersey generally applauded President Bush's clean-air proposals, an official in EPA's Philadelphia office yesterday said he was optimistic that the city would be able to meet federally mandated health standards for ozone by the year 2000. Thomas Maslany, director of the air management division in the Philadelphia Environmental Protection Agency office, said Philadelphia last year exceeded federal health standards for ozone - an acrid gas linked to a wide range of respiratory problems - 21 times.

How much water do you consume each day? Some people in Pennsylvania can fix it almost to the drop because instead of just turning on the tap for a drink or to fill a pot for cooking, they have to pour their water from a bottle or boil it first on the stove. The stuff in the faucet isn't safe to swallow because it contains bacteria or chemical pollutants. In more fortunate communities, however, there is another reason the knowledge is useful. The Environmental Protection Agency sets some health standards for allowable additives and contaminants in the water based on an average consumption.

The Camden County Health Department, which shut down two Chinese restaurants last month for allegedly storing game meats in their freezers, is launching a program to prevent similar problems at other restaurants in the area. Both establishments - the Hunan Inn in Gloucester Township and the China Flower in Mount Ephraim - were closed for about five days while they removed the meats and cleaned their kitchens to meet health standards. During routine inspections of the restaurants, health officials said they found meats that were later identified by State Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife officials as a skinned raccoon at the China Flower and two bear paws at the Hunan Inn. "The unfortunate thing is that there are many delicacies which are served overseas that are not permitted here because of experiences with sometimes fatal illnesses," said Robert Pirrotta, principal sanitary inspector for the county.

Suspicions of illegal dumping, and the widespread concern that follows, can really skew environmental statistics. New Jersey's 260 ocean and bay beaches were closed 208 times last summer, a 46 percent increase over the previous year. But more than half of the closures were attributed to medical waste - some of it deliberately dumped off shore, according to investigators, and discovered on Cape May County beaches. The summer of 2008 "was a fluke," said Virginia Loftin, a research scientist with the state Department of Environmental Protection.

You may have heard all sorts of things about the newly remodeled Clean Air Act by now. Too costly. Filled with loopholes. An economy-wrecker. A public health bonanza. Well, we're here to tell you that it's a minor miracle. Perhaps a major one considering the source - a contentious, often gridlocked 101st Congress that, in its final days, got diverted by the budget, the Persian Gulf crisis and a cry rising from beyond the Beltway to throw the bums out. You may be reading in this very newspaper some day about special deals and delays granted various interests by the fine print in this bill that hasn't yet been fully analyzed by neutral observers.

Much of the nation's effort to control smog has been a failure, and new strategies are needed to reduce ozone pollution, several researchers said yesterday. "The controls by the Environmental Protection Agency aren't working," said Harold Johnston, a chemist at the University of California at Berkeley, in an address here to the 159th annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the nation's largest scientific group. Researchers said the EPA had failed to reduce ozone pollution to required levels in Philadelphia, Camden, Los Angeles and many other cities because of inadequate knowledge about the formation of smog and improperly designed control strategies.

Citizens Bank Park, Lincoln Financial Field and Wells Fargo Center (formerly the Wachovia Center) were cited for critical violations of health requirements at food and concession stands, according to health department inspection reports reviewed by ESPN's "Outside the Lines. " ESPN reviewed local health department reports conducted in 2009 of all 107 North American arenas and stadiums occupied by Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, the National Football League and the National Hockey League.

Citizens Bank Park, Lincoln Financial Field and Wells Fargo Center (formerly the Wachovia Center) were cited for critical violations of health requirements at food and concession stands, according to health department inspection reports reviewed by ESPN's "Outside the Lines. " ESPN reviewed local health department reports conducted in 2009 of all 107 North American arenas and stadiums occupied by Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, the National Football League and the National Hockey League.

Suspicions of illegal dumping, and the widespread concern that follows, can really skew environmental statistics. New Jersey's 260 ocean and bay beaches were closed 208 times last summer, a 46 percent increase over the previous year. But more than half of the closures were attributed to medical waste - some of it deliberately dumped off shore, according to investigators, and discovered on Cape May County beaches. The summer of 2008 "was a fluke," said Virginia Loftin, a research scientist with the state Department of Environmental Protection.

After months of debate over what to do about high levels of radium in some South Jersey wells, the state has decided to see if health standards should be tightened and new treatment technology added to drinking-water systems. Robert Shinn, commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protection, said that New Jersey could no longer wait for the completion of federal radium studies. "We've got a little conundrum on how to proceed," he said yesterday. "We are out in front on this issue . . . and we can't wait for the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

This week's heat wave has led to a spate of ozone pollution violations in the Philadelphia area. From Monday through Wednesday, ozone levels exceeded federal health standards twelve times at six different state monitoring sites in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. There were no violations Thursday or as of late afternoon yesterday. "This shows that the Philadelphia area still has a serious problem with ozone," said Joseph Minott, executive director for the Delaware Valley Clean Air Council, a citizens' advocacy group.

More than 1.7 million Pennsylvanians - including tens of thousands in the Philadelphia suburbs - are drinking tapwater from systems plagued with violations of federal health standards, the Pennsylvania Public Interest Research Group said yesterday. Not all customers of those water systems - 45,000 people nationwide - actually drank contaminated water, said the Environmental Working Group in Washington, which crunched the numbers. In some cases, big water utilities had bacteria or lead contamination in only small parts of their systems.

Much of the nation's effort to control smog has been a failure, and new strategies are needed to reduce ozone pollution, several researchers said yesterday. "The controls by the Environmental Protection Agency aren't working," said Harold Johnston, a chemist at the University of California at Berkeley, in an address here to the 159th annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the nation's largest scientific group. Researchers said the EPA had failed to reduce ozone pollution to required levels in Philadelphia, Camden, Los Angeles and many other cities because of inadequate knowledge about the formation of smog and improperly designed control strategies.

You may have heard all sorts of things about the newly remodeled Clean Air Act by now. Too costly. Filled with loopholes. An economy-wrecker. A public health bonanza. Well, we're here to tell you that it's a minor miracle. Perhaps a major one considering the source - a contentious, often gridlocked 101st Congress that, in its final days, got diverted by the budget, the Persian Gulf crisis and a cry rising from beyond the Beltway to throw the bums out. You may be reading in this very newspaper some day about special deals and delays granted various interests by the fine print in this bill that hasn't yet been fully analyzed by neutral observers.

As environmental officials and activists in Pennsylvania and New Jersey generally applauded President Bush's clean-air proposals, an official in EPA's Philadelphia office yesterday said he was optimistic that the city would be able to meet federally mandated health standards for ozone by the year 2000. Thomas Maslany, director of the air management division in the Philadelphia Environmental Protection Agency office, said Philadelphia last year exceeded federal health standards for ozone - an acrid gas linked to a wide range of respiratory problems - 21 times.

How much water do you consume each day? Some people in Pennsylvania can fix it almost to the drop because instead of just turning on the tap for a drink or to fill a pot for cooking, they have to pour their water from a bottle or boil it first on the stove. The stuff in the faucet isn't safe to swallow because it contains bacteria or chemical pollutants. In more fortunate communities, however, there is another reason the knowledge is useful. The Environmental Protection Agency sets some health standards for allowable additives and contaminants in the water based on an average consumption.