Drinking Water

GRAND FORKS, N.D. -- As most of the die-hards fled yesterday from this unlivable city, struck by both flood and fire, residents began coming to grips with the knowledge that it could be weeks before they can return.The supply of drinking water has run out, and the sewage, oil and animal carcasses fouling the floodwaters have prompted fears of disease.In another blow to the battered city, a fire downtown added to the misery over the weekend. Flames destroyed three buildings and damaged several others.

WASHINGTON - EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman rescinded yesterday a Clinton administration decision that would have reduced by 80 percent the amount of arsenic allowed in the nation's drinking water. Critics said the move, combined with other recent actions, signals a tendency by Bush administration officials to appease industry rather than safeguard public health and the environment. But Whitman, while acknowledging that arsenic levels permitted under current federal regulations are too high, questioned the level that would have been allowed under the Clinton ruling.

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.

DES MOINES, Iowa -- The Raccoon River is the most nitrogen-polluted river in America's heartland. Each day in spring and summer, the Raccoon carries as much as 600 tons of nitrate, the biologically active form of nitrogen, past the Des Moines Waterworks' intake pipe. To protect the people of Iowa's biggest city against a potentially dangerous overdose of nitrate, the waterworks has built the world's largest nitrogen removal system. Eight giant tanks use custom-made, electrically charged plastic particles to remove a half-ton of nitrate from each day's water supply.

Temperatures hung in the 90s, the area's worst drought in more than a century continued without relief -- but the Anne Arundel County Fire Department got a worse-than-tepid response yesterday to its offer of free drinking water for those whose wells are running dry. As of late yesterday, firefighters at the Riva and West Annapolis stations -- both in areas where residents have reported problems with their wells --said no one had stopped by yesterday asking...

WASHINGTON -- Critics are calling the Environmental Protection Agency's plan to cut the lead content in Americans' drinking water a disappointment because water suppliers would have years to comply fully."

Aberdeen Proving Ground officials said yesterday that samples taken from Aberdeen's drinking water wells were free of the hazardous industrial chemical found recently in the ground water around the wells. "We didn't find any traces of perchlorate," said proving ground spokesman George Mercer. All 11 city wells were tested this week. "For the moment, [the results] give us some breathing room," he said. "We don't have to make a quick decision. We obviously have to keep talking to the city and to each other and keep reviewing."

Thomas Taro almost caresses the 16.9-ounce plastic bottle of Natural Spring Water, then a faraway look slowly creeps across his face. "If it gets above 10, I'll be out of business," he said. By "it" Taro means nitrates. And by "10" he means milligrams per liter - the maximum permitted by the government for drinking water. His concern is understandable because he operates Brick House Farm Water Co., which draws 47 million gallons of bottled spring water annually for customers from his 98-acre farm.

Whenever talk turns to tapping Piney Run Lake as a drinking water supply for Carroll County, Dot Sumey pulls out her photos from 1999, when the county had to draw down the manmade lake by about 5 feet to repair docks. The pictures show a muddy and lifeless expanse of shoreline, devoid of plants and animals. "There was an immediate effect on the ecology of the lake," said Sumey, whose home faces Dot's Cove, a section of the lake named in honor of her long residence there. "Cattails and rushes that provide oxygen to the water, the fresh water clams in the shallows - everything perished.

The state and county are collecting samples from Piney Run Reservoir, a potential water source for South Carroll, to determine levels of phosphorus and sediment and possibly pinpoint their source. While certain amounts of such nutrients are acceptable, excessive levels can spawn thick algae blooms that affect water quality and create problems in water treatment. "Elevated levels of certain elements are not acceptable," said county hydrogeologist Tom Devilbiss in a meeting with the county commissioners yesterday.