Comments on: Digital Cable But No Clean Water?

By: aepcentral

aepcentral — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:52:09 +0000

Thanks everyone for your comments. The article and investigation has stirred much discussion.

By: Kimberly Davis

Kimberly Davis — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 18:52:30 +0000

We no longer need to demand to know what is in our drinking water, as all public purveyors must publish and send to their customers, annually, a Consumer Confidence Report. The CCR discloses all tests against all parameters, and highlights any that failed (very few, now).

The article conflated three or four different laws and issues, to its detriment. This family and their neighbors were drinking from private, onsite wells. The mining company may well be legally, and certainly morally, liable, but groundwater is not “state waters” in, I think, all states.

Too, the writer confused the Clean Water Act, which regulates effluent (wastewater), and of course there are indeed regulations which must be prosecuted vigilantly.

The Safe Drinking Water Act regulates both raw, but more importantly, finished water, and violations, thankfully, are much rarer.

I have dedicated my life to clean water and there are lots of important issues, but other writers are right to warn this article could wrongly impugn the safety of the nation’s tap water – with an undesired consequence of more use of bottled water.

By: Christopher

Christopher — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:07:57 +0000

I think an honest talk about it is appropriate. The article is not honest or evenhanded. It didn’t even let you know that some of the illegal discharges of water include discharge of clean drinking water into creeks. Or about the number of illegal discharges that are no more than sediment from construction sites. Neither discharge appreciably affects the drinking water from a public health view point.

By: fern

fern — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:50:34 +0000

So what do you suggest? That we just don’t talk about it?

If people react like they should, demanding to know what is in their water… and that includes what is in their bottle water (answer: same as in your tap + BPA + phthalates), maybe we would be able to have safer water for everybody.

By: Lee

Lee — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 13:08:36 +0000

I read this article in another publication. This is a dangerous article in that is disrupts the public’s confidence in the US potable water system. The US has the cleanest and safest water in the world. I am not excusing the people affected by the article. There will always be violators. Most states, including my own require publishing consumer confidence reports that list the constituents in the drinking water and how it compares to the MCL set by the EPA. I drink tap water and will continue to drink tap water. I have the utmost confidence in the water the City of Springfield puts out.

By: Christopher

Christopher — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:25:24 +0000

The New York times provided lots of claims, but not much clickable links to look at the data. They didn’t even tell us where the Hall-Massey’s water comes from, a well, a municipality? If its a well what type of treatment do they have? Did they test the well when it was installed? If its from a municipality, what’s the name of purveyor so we can look at the water test records? They quote the lawyer’s study of 100 people, but no other corroborating evidence.

I’m also a little confused on the causality of the mines they reference. The mines are digging things up from the ground where the ground water is, but somehow magically the ground under the houses don’t have the same type soil composition? Lots of accusations, not a whole lot of substance.

By: Josie Summa

Josie Summa — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 20:16:35 +0000

I read this article and was shocked and saddened. The truth is, when the agencies start exerting a little muscle, the polluters go immediately to their legislators to complain. You know, intimidation a la Bernie Madoff.