Seemed like a good song to be playing on the Boston Tea Party day. That said, the water quality is a lot better in Boston thanks to them building the deep-water sewage pipe, which spreads the nutrients from the sewers farther out in the sea, and I doubt the curfew the song was written back about in the mid-1960s is still around.
MWRA's Deer Island Sewage Treatment Plant is the centerpiece of MWRA' $3.8 billion program to protect Boston Harbor against pollution from Metropolitan Boston's sewer systems.
The plant removes human, household, business and industrial pollutants from wastewater that originates in homes and businesses in 43 greater Boston communities. In compliance with all federal and state environmental standards and subject to the precedent-setting discharge permit issued for the plant by EPA and DEP, its treated wastewater can be released to the marine environment.
Being that everybody's talking about the Boston Harbor today, it's good to learn about the Deer Island Treatment plant that is helping to reduce the dirty water that tea was once dumped into.
That's the conclusion of the biggest study of its kind, undertaken by conservation group IUCN. While nutrient run-off has been known for decades, researchers say that climate change is making the lack of oxygen worse. Around 700 ocean sites are now suffering from low oxygen, compared with 45 in the 1960s. Researchers say the depletion is threatening species including tuna, marlin and sharks.
New York state Governor Andrew Cuomo has signed into law a bill banning all but trace amounts of 1,4-dioxane in personal care and cleaning products, despite industry protests that it could cost more than $2bn to implement. The legislation (S 4389B/A 6295A), which cleared the legislature in June and was approved by Mr Cuomo on 9 December, is intended to address 1,4-dioxane contamination in drinking water by limiting the amount that can be present in consumer products.
The substance, a possible carcinogen and one of the first ten substances subject to TSCA evaluation, can appear as a contaminant during the manufacturing process of certain cosmetics, detergents and shampoos. It has been found in high concentrations in Long Island, New York, drinking water.
The law puts in place a phase-down schedule that will see permissible levels set at ten parts per million (10ppm) for cosmetics, all the way down to 1ppm for certain personal care and cleaning products, by the end of 2023. And beginning in 2025, the state’s department of environmental conservation will be charged with determining whether those trace concentration thresholds should be lowered to offer better protection to human health and the environment. Those not in compliance could face civil penalties of up to $1,000 for each day of a violation, increasing to $2,500 for a second offense. However, one-year compliance waivers may be given out when a manufacturer "has taken steps to reduce the presence of 1,4-dioxane in that product and is unable to comply with the requirements".
With 1,4-dioxane having an affinity to water, a fairly long half life, and an inability to bind to soil, it's probably a good thing to see it being phased out. Sure it will cost manufacturer significant money to remove the contamination from personal care products -- it's something that rides along with useful chemicals -- but the cost will be spread out over millions of consumers, and it's a pretty nasty chemical that probably is carcinogenic. Wastewater treatment plants and septic systems can eat away at the biological material and remove some of the chemicals that are solids, the truth is most things that get flushed down the toilet or sink, ultimately do end up again in our drinking water.
President Donald Trump’s latest effort to reshape US environmental regulations appears to involve toilets.
During a small business event at the White House Friday, Trump announced he has ordered a federal review of water efficiency standards pertaining to bathroom fixtures.
“People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times as opposed to once. They end up using more water,” Trump said, complaining that water flow in other fixtures has slowed to a trickle. “You can’t wash your hands practically, there’s so little water comes out of the faucet, and the end result is you leave the faucet on and it takes you much longer to wash your hands, you end up using the same amount of water.”
Although Trump said during the event that the “EPA is looking at [water flow] very strongly, at my suggestion,” this review is actually mandated under 2018 legislation that directs the Environmental Protection Agency to investigate water regulations adopted before 2012.
These include the agency’s WaterSense program, which was first launched in 2006 in order to reduce the water use of fixtures like toilets. The requirement that toilets use a set amount of water began on the federal level in 1992, according to the Associated Press, when President George H.W. Bush signed the Energy Policy Act, a law mandating any toilets installed in homes after 1994 use 1.6 gallons of water or less per flush.
A stunning new map shows the complex network of rivers and streams in the contiguous United States.
Created by Imgur user Fejetlenfej, a geographer and GIS analyst with a ‘lifelong passion for beautiful maps,’ it highlights the massive expanse of river basins across the country – in particular, those which feed the Mississippi River.
The map visualizes Strahler Stream Order Classification, the creator explains, with higher stream orders indicated as thicker lines.
But water problems here and elsewhere go beyond the decline of coal.
"We are dealing with systems that are old," says Colette Easter of the American Society of Civil Engineers. The group has found that America's drinking water infrastructure needs a $105 billion investment in repairs, including more than $8 billion in Kentucky.
And Easter says declining population can compound the challenges facing all rural systems, as fixed costs are spread among fewer ratepayers.
"The only way you can fix infrastructure without affecting rates is if someone gives you the money," says Andrew Melnykovych, a spokesperson for the Kentucky Public Service Commission. But federal and state grants for repairs are harder to come by. "Absent some dramatic change at both the state and the federal level, that grant money is just not out there in the kind of quantity needed to address water infrastructure needs," he says.
Clean water is expensive, and the cost of upgrading water supplies and waste water infrastructure can be difficult especially for those on a fixed budget.