Safe Drinking Water
The difficult separation of drinking water and sewage may face more challenges than its aging infrastructure can withstand as unpredictable weather conditions produce floods around the nation. The U.S. needs better ways to monitor the safety of drinking water, Joan Rose, MSU's Nowlin Chair in water research believes.
Her Great Lakes work is part of a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration effort to develop forecasts of water quality problems for lakes, rivers and streams. Much of her work is focused on a water resources system that puts its faith more in water treatment than watershed protection for providing safe water. Focusing solely on treatment puts the water systems in peril from both overwhelming weather events and contaminants that resist conventional treatment.
The recipe for disaster is there, including intake points for drinking water are not consistently shielded from the sewage that periodically spills into surface waters; there is inadequate monitoring of the rivers, lakes and streams that provide drinking water and the quality of the treated drinking water; and there are signs that the water and sewer pipes are getting old. Much of the United States has combined sewer systems, in which sewage is carried to treatment facilities, but can overflow into rivers and lakes during storms.
In the summer of 2004, 1,450 people reported being ill in a resort community in northern Ohio with campylobacter, norovirus, giardia and salmonella. That summer was marked by rainfall that was 150 percent above the 50-year average. An overflow of sewage into Lake Erie ultimately had an impact on groundwater. Both wastewater management, rainfall and lake events were predictors of the potential risk.
February 19, 2007 6:44 AM | Category: Water