Water Supply

Medford Township officials and local businessmen met yesterday to discuss how to bring municipal water to the Stokes Road commercial district, the site of a fire that destroyed several stores nearly three weeks ago. About half the township uses municipal water. The other half, including the Stokes Road commercial district, uses private well water. Township Administrator Richard Deaney said preliminary plans call for constructing a complex loop system of water mains around the commercial zone to tie in with an existing municipal water well.

The developer of Charlestown Hunt intends to provide water for the 333 dwellings by extending the main water line from Phoenixville, an engineer testified last week. Consulting engineer Robert Plucienik, representing Realty Engineering Co. of Wayne, was the only witness to appear in the second of the Charlestown Board of Supervisors' hearings on the proposed 133-acre development of houses, townhouses and apartments off Route 29 near Buckwalter Road. The first hearing Oct. 7 drew a crowd of more than 100, but only 25 people were in the audience Oct. 9 as the supervisors questioned Plucienik about water supply and engineering proposals.

Gov. Casey ordered the National Guard yesterday to be ready to provide emergency drinking water to thousands of people whose supplies were endangered when two million gallons of diesel fuel spilled into the Monongahela River and left a 20-mile slick stretching to Pittsburgh. Authorities said some area schools might be closed today because of expected water shortages. Hospital water supplies also might be affected. About 400 residents were forced out of their homes for nearly 12 hours - they were allowed to return yesterday afternoon - after the three-million- gallon diesel fuel tank collapsed, spewing debris that ruptured a nearby gasoline tank, about 5 p.m. Saturday.

State Rep. Jay Moyer (R., Montgomery) has asked the Public Utility Commission to investigate Pennsylvania-American Water Co. after residents of Whitpain and East Norriton Townships were told to boil their water before drinking it for the third time in three weeks. Moyer said he received "innumerable calls and e-mails" from customers about the failure of the utility's pumping station in Norristown. The water company is asking the PUC for a 15 percent rate increase. "It is simply unacceptable that PAWC would seek to increase its bottom line at the same time they are failing to provide adequate service, and they are endangering the health and safety of my constituents in this way," he said in a letter to the commission.

Two types of chemical contaminants have been detected above acceptable levels in the Camden city water supply, and state environmental officials have given the city a year to improve its water-treatment system. Neither chemical presents an immediate danger, state officials cautioned yesterday as they announced the results of statewide water tests. But left unchecked, they said, the contamination could cause a slight increase in the frequency of cancer cases among people who drink the water over a lifetime.

In East Bradford Township, where the majority of homes use well water, more than 60 residents told the Board of Supervisors they are concerned about the township's underground water supply. At a meeting Tuesday night, the residents said a study should be done of the township's water table and an independent water study should be done before a proposed subdivison, Winchester, is approved. The water table study, proposed to be conducted by the Brandywine Valley Authority, would determine areas of the township that could not handle increased development, said Supervisor John H. Spangler.

The base commander for the Willow Grove Naval Air Station says the Navy will take two years to clean five possible toxic-waste sites at the Horsham Township installation. "Right now, there is no immediate danger," Capt. Thomas H. Hoivik told about 70 people at a luncheon Tuesday sponsored by the Greater Willow Grove Chamber of Commerce. Hoivik said the base's water supply did not appear to be affected by possible contaminants. "It looks OK," he said in response to a question.

Despite strict water rationing, some officials of Washington Township's water authority fear the township may not have enough water to go around this spring and summer. The potential shortage is causing debate on the Municipal Utilities Authority about whether to deny water for new housing developments - a move that would create a moratorium on construction in the fastest growing township in Gloucester County. At a recent meeting, the board split 3-2 in granting Terruce Corp.

The Coatesville Water Authority (CWA) has offered to supply water for neighboring Valley Township's burgeoning housing developments, but Valley officials are not sure they want to accept the offer. The township is willing to discuss the issue, but, in the words of supervisors Chairman William Lambert, "This board will not be dictated to. " Talks between Valley officials and members of the CWA about supplying water to Valley Springs, a development of 137 houses under construction, broke down during the summer.

Winslow Township officials acknowledged last night that there were serious problems with water pressure and supply in the Sicklerville section. The committee members told residents of the Avondale West development that they would place a pressure meter at the end of the water lines and would monitor the flow. They said they would take steps to solve the problem by next month. The action came after a petition with 106 signatures was presented. It stated that residents could not take showers on the weekends and had been completely without water several times in the last three months.

In a recent column, a newly minted Jersey Shore homeowner asked for help making his damp abode drier. He said he'd been told that building code mandated that the vapor barrier be up against the floor over the crawl space, but the two-year solid oak flooring was beginning to curl because of moisture. This came from Stone Harbor builder/contractor Gene Richards in response: "We built 60 ranch-style condos at the Shore with crawl spaces. Vapor-shield insulation, not paperback, was used in the floor-joist system.

Several dozen demonstrators gathered outside the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia this morning to urge the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to deliver clean water to residents of Dimock in Susquehanna County. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson was attending an unrelated event inside. Dimock residents Craig and Julie Sautner said they have been unable to use their well water for more than three years, saying it was contaminated as a result of natural gas drilling nearby.

Aren't you sick of the gridlock? The refusal to compromise, the unwillingness to listen to the other side, the take-no-prisoners vituperation? No, not Washington - Pennsylvania. Natural-gas drilling is an issue on which communities should and could find common ground. But the angry tone of the debate is only driving us apart. The polarization is only partly about the risk of environmental damage. In the county where we live, for example, drilling has brought long-simmering social tensions to the surface.

Just days before a decision on a pivotal issue for the Delaware River - whether to allow natural gas drilling in the watershed - the event appears to be off. The Delaware River Basin Commission, which oversees water use in the region, was poised to vote Monday on regulations that, if approved, as many expected, would have ended a drilling moratorium. But now, the vote has been postponed indefinitely, the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, an environmental group opposed to the drilling has announced.

Lately, another day means another call from Reading announcing a dump of millions of gallons of raw sewage into Pottstown's water supply. "This is the fifth time in three weeks," Pottstown Borough Manager Jason Bobst said Thursday. "This is getting old. " In late August, Hurricane Irene rent a leak in a 60-year-old, 42-inch sewer main in the Berks County city. Since then, officials there have struggled to patch a series of newly erupting cracks and stop a cycle that has forced them to divert the pipe's contents into the Schuylkill over and over again to relieve pressure.

Question: We have a brick and mortar edging on our driveway and steps leading up to the front door. The mortar needs repair. Is this something we can do ourselves, or should we have a professional do it? Answer: These are the kinds of jobs performed by masons with years of experience. Although I have built brick walkways and garden beds over the years, I've done it for the experience, rather than from necessity. I've also pointed brick chimneys and stone walls because they were jobs that had to be done quickly, or they were too small to be cost-effective for a mason to do them.

FORT WORTH, Texas - In parched West Texas, it's often easier to drill for oil than to find new sources of water. So after years of diminishing water supplies made even worse by the second-most severe drought in state history, some communities are resorting to a plan that might have seemed absurd a generation ago: turning sewage into drinking water. Construction recently began on a $13 million water-reclamation plant believed to be the first in Texas. Officials have worked to dispel any fears that people will be drinking their neighbors' urine, promising that the system will yield clean, safe water.

PORTLAND, Ore. - Josh Seater could have done some serious harm when he stepped up to the wrought-iron fence around a Portland reservoir last month if he were holding something more ominous than a full bladder. The open-air reservoir contains treated water that goes directly to people's spigots, and Seater's decision to urinate there after a night of drinking led Portland officials to drain the entire basin to keep from rattling the public's nerves about the purity of the drinking supply.

Drilling does not threaten water Thursday's editorial ("Save our water") all but endorsed an outright ban on clean-burning, job-creating natural-gas development from the Marcellus Shale, which puts more than 141,000 Pennsylvanians to work, and thousands more into other support industries. The editorial implies that Philadelphia's water supply is at risk from the potential development of natural gas more than 150 miles north of the city. Readers deserve to know that Pennsylvania American Water - one of the commonwealth's largest water utilities - recently confirmed through testing "that the quality of the water supplied by [their]

PHILADELPHIA'S TAP water has been laced with fluctuating levels of radioactive iodine since at least 2007, but city officials say they only recently learned of the problem. Iodine-131, which has no taste or smell, is a carcinogenic isotope, but federal environmental officials apparently weren't concerned enough to tell you that it's in your drinking water. The Philadelphia Water Department, now participating in a multi-agency investigation, doesn't know how the iodine is getting into the water supply.