Drinking Water

Many Americans thought tap water could make them ill only if they traveled to some Third World countries.Then in April, thousands of Milwaukee-area residents came down with diarrhea, abdominal pains and vomiting. At first it was thought to be a flu outbreak. Laboratory tests eventually detected a waterborne parasite in the city's water supply, which comes from Lake Michigan.By the time Milwaukee's water was declared safe again, an estimated 370,000 people had been made sick by drinking water contaminated with the parasite, cryptosporidium.

Traces of a hazardous chemical have turned up in three wells that provide drinking water to the city of Aberdeen, test results released yesterday by Aberdeen Proving Ground show. In June, perchlorate was detected in one of 11 city wells around the base's perimeter. The chemical did not reappear in that well when water was tested July 23, but it was detected in three others, said Pat McClung, APG spokeswoman. City Manager Peter A. Dacey said "there's no need for alarm," because the perchlorate appeared at low levels - between 1.2 and 1.7 parts per billion.

Even as officials at Harford Memorial Hospital sought to identify new cases of Legionnaire's disease, experts say outbreaks of the infection are far more common nationwide than many people believe and could be controlled."

The outcome of a proposal for Manchester to annex the Black Farm may depend on the quality and quantity of water found on the 157-acre tract, town officials say.The need for drinkable water is always a concern for the town. Springs provide much of its drinking water, and the costly process of drilling wells often fails to find an adequate supply.The town charter requires that developers guarantee new water at the rate of 500 gallons a day for each housing unit, said Philip Arbaugh, the town manager.

The county's first published tap water analysis of the Freedom District system has pronounced the supply that serves Carroll's most populated area safe and healthy."

Three more rural water districts -- one in Arkansas and two in Texas -- have been found to have high levels of a cancer-causing chemical in their drinking water, likely because of old plastic pipes.Sixteen districts in Kansas and Missouri already had reported high levels of vinyl chloride, a chemical known to cause cancer in humans. The Arkansas and Texas districts are the first in which high levels of the carcinogen have been found in those states.Representatives for the plastic pipe industry and the vinyl industry said they thought the problem was centered in the nation's rural midsection, especially in Kansas and Missouri, where the contamination was revealed last year.

The outcome of a proposal for Manchester to annex the Black Farm may depend on the quality and quantity of water found on the 157-acre tract, town officials say.The need for drinkable water is always a concern for the town. Springs provide much of its drinking water, and the costly process of drilling wells often fails to find an adequate supply.The town charter requires that developers guarantee new water at the rate of 500 gallons a day for each housing unit, said town manager Philip Arbaugh.

The county's first published tap water analysis of the Freedom District system has pronounced the supply that serves Carroll's most populated area safe and healthful."

A Southeast Middle School teacher was suspended indefinitely this week after she mailed parents a letter saying the school's drinking water was contaminated with lead.Math teacher Diana R. Williams warned parents to have their children tested and suggested the school should have informed them about the lead in the drinking water found by the Environmental Protection Agency.School officials considered the Feb. 24 letter inflammatory, and the principal responded with her own letter to parents two days later.

The Baltimore County health director warned county and state employees at a Towson office building yesterday to watch for symptoms of Legionnaires' disease after a Health Department staffer contracted the disease.In a memo from Dr. Michelle A. Leverett, about 700 county and state employees were notified that Legionnaires' disease, which could be spread through a building's water and ventilation systems, has been diagnosed in a worker in the Investment Building.An environmental consultant will test the drinking water and the ventilation system in the 13-story building off York Road, said an attorney for the building's owner, A.M.G.

This week, Watchdog brings you an update on a still-unresolved problem. Update:: Watchdog reported in July about the fountain in the middle of Druid Lake, which at the time had not been working for at least a month. The fountain had been featured in Watchdog in 2007, when a lightning strike blew out its electrical system. That came after a $700,000 renovation in 2004. And then this year, as the fountain turns 50, Reservoir Hill resident Michael Baseman once again noted the absence of the streaming water, which he particularly enjoyed at dusk or before sunrise, when illuminated by colored light.

President Barack Obama may have made history last November, but he seems deaf to history's loudest call right now. The president clearly believes that health care reform, above all else, will define his early presidency. But even if Mr. Obama scores total success on health care, few future Americans will care or remember as long as the Earth's ailing atmosphere goes untreated. Climate change, it turns out, is the ultimate public health issue. And yet the House of Representatives passed a mere band-aid of a bill last month on global warming.

The same pollution afflicting the Chesapeake Bay's fish and shellfish poses human health risks to people in the region, from bacteria and harmful algae in the water to contaminants in fish and drinking water, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation says. In a report released today, the Annapolis-based environmental group said the incidents of infection and illness among people who swim and wade in the bay's waters warrant greater government action to protect the public from pollution. "Dirty water doesn't only have an economic impact, it's got a human health impact as well," said William C. Baker, foundation president.

Maryland was handed nearly $122 million Tuesday from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to fund drinking water projects and improve water quality as part of the federal government's latest round of stimulus spending. The stimulus effort, called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, was advanced by President Barack Obama to jump-start the economy by improving the nation's infrastructure and creating and saving jobs. The money has begun steadily flowing to states through a variety of programs that are expected to improve roads and schools, as well as waterways and other programs.

The public works director in Annapolis ought to investigate what substance has infiltrated the city's drinking water supply that caused so many to so easily lose their sense of propriety. Little else could explain how lawmakers in the state capital rarely comprehend how their behavior might seem if not downright unethical then at least ethically challenged. As our colleagues at The Washington Post recently reported, the House of Delegates' Ways and Means Committee held an "invitation only" St. Patrick's Day party at its offices organized and paid for by Ocean Downs Racetrack and the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association.

For the past eight months, Luke Brackett has been part administrator, part lone ranger. Hired by Baltimore City in November to spearhead the creation of a new police force to protect the three city-owned reservoirs in Baltimore and Carroll counties, Brackett spends part of his days patrolling the watersheds and part interviewing applicants interested in joining his force. "I'm tasked with bringing the department to life," Brackett said. "We're still getting our feet wet, no pun intended."

You can easily spend $4 or more for a gallon. Yet you feel you can't live without the stuff. But it may be time to explore alternative sources. We're referring, of course, to that great lubricant of modern life: bottled water. (What, you had some other expensive liquid in mind?) Maybe oil and water don't mix, but that's not to say they don't affect each other. The economy is sagging, and high gasoline prices are taking much of the blame. When filling up the minivan sets you back $75, there's an inclination to cut back on frills - for instance, things you can get almost for free.

Let county collect from the polluters The Sun's article about Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold's reaction to the veto of legislation that would have required the Maryland Department of the Environment to reimburse Anne Arundel County for its costs for residential water well sampling near the BBSS fly ash disposal site may mislead readers ("O'Malley veto assailed," May 23). In this case, MDE took the third-largest enforcement action in its history by requiring BBSS to pay to connect the homes whose water was affected by the pollution to a permanent public water supply, mandating remediation of groundwater contamination, stopping fly ash disposal until the disposal site is upgraded to meet modern landfill standards and making the polluters pay a $1 million penalty.

Baltimore's decision to begin tapping the Susquehanna River on Tuesday to head off a potential shortage of drinking water next spring illustrates that planning ahead has become crucial in water management. Thanks to such planning by earlier generations, the Baltimore metropolitan area is served by three sizable reservoirs that are the envy of other Maryland cities, which wouldn't be allowed to build one today. And yet in periods of drizzly drought such as these, the reservoirs are not being replenished quickly enough with rainwater to ensure they will have adequate supplies when warmer weather brings higher demand.

An Anne Arundel County family has filed a lawsuit against Maryland's largest power company, contending that a leaky coal-ash waste dump contaminated their neighborhood's drinking water. At a news conference yesterday in Gambrills, Gayle K. Queen, an education counselor, said her husband, David, died of kidney failure last year after drinking water laced with lead, arsenic and other pollutants. Five or six other people in the neighborhood also died of suspicious causes, she said. "The people in this neighborhood are anxious every day if the water they drink every day is safe or toxic," said one of her attorneys, Wayne K. Curry, the former Prince George's County executive, now with William H. Murphy Jr.'s law firm in Baltimore.