I listened to Terry Gross's Fresh Air interview How Safe is Your Drinking Water with The New York Times journalist Charles Duhigg on NPR radio on my drive home this evening.
An estimated one in 10 Americans have been exposed to drinking water that contains dangerous chemicals, parasites, bacteria or viruses, or fails to meet federal health standards. Part of the problem, says journalist Charles Duhigg, is that water-pollution laws are not being enforced.
I found Duhigg' knowledge of the subject very informative and interesting. Duhigg is currently writing a series about water quality in America. It's an excellent series, which includes videos about waste polluting our waterways, dairy waste leaching into our groundwater, how the billions of gallons of toxic watery sludge, a bi-product of coal mining that is seeping into the ground, is contaminating water supplies and the health of nearby communities.
Duhigg's series covers the topics of coal-fired power plants and the conflict between cleaning our air at the expense of polluting our waterways; agricultural waste that is causing illness in communities where the runoff is getting into nearby rivers and streams; toxic levels of chemicals in drinking are water causing illness and disease while pollution violators go unpunished; herbicide contaminants in our reservoirs and water sources, even at low concentrations are endangering the health of our nation. Next in Duhigg's series will be the topic of old sewer systems and their effects of the health of communities.Read all the articles in the series and resources to learn more about water quality and pollution, evaluating and treating your drinking water, and a consumer guide for water filtration systems.
PHOTO by Damon Winter/The New York Times: "Father Rodney Torbic the priest at the St,. George Church, lives across the road from the Hatfield's Ferry and sees people suffering."
