Red tide is always bad. Global warming is making it worse, researcher says

A chain reaction started in Europe about 260 years ago, thousands of miles from Florida, and the effect — climate change — is now punishing Manatee County, especially when it comes to red tide.

Scientists and entrepreneurs met at the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee to discuss climate change on Friday. Among them was Robert Corell, a principal at the Global Environment Technology Foundation.

“It began in England with the discovery that we can take coal and we can make energy out of it,” Corell said. “We can build the future of humankind in a way that had never been thought of before.”

Harmful emissions spiked dramatically at the onset of the Industrial Revolution. Scientists know that, he said, because they measure greenhouse gases that were captured in ice — a time capsule of the atmosphere.

A similar increase is true for the world’s population, which grew from less than one billion people in 1751, to about 7.7 billion people in 2019.

The speakers outlined rising sea levels, worsening hurricanes and suffering industries. They also highlighted a familiar problem in Manatee County: severe, prolonged cycles of red tide.

As a resident of Longboat Key, the recent blooms were personal for Lenny Landau. He pointed to vacant restaurants and canceled hotel reservations, along with the dead fish and respiratory irritation that comes with red tide.

Blooms of red tide are a risk to the environment, public health and the economy.

“If somebody was at war with the state of Florida and they wanted a weapon to come after us, it’s clear that red tide would be perfect, because red tide impacts everything,” he said.

Landau prefaced his speech by saying he was an engineer, not a scientist, though both are motivated by curiosity and problem solving.

He studied red tide for several months and concluded that rising sea levels would eventually be a local concern. However, through the work of another researcher, his focus shifted to red tide.

“I know about sea rise,” he said. “It doesn’t affect me right today, but red tide affects all of us today or tomorrow.”

Florida’s red tide originates from a microscopic organism, Karenia brevis, which occurs naturally in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s the only organism of its kind, mainly because it leads to dead fish, shellfish poisoning and human respiratory irritation, according to Friday’s presentation.

“There is no other organism in the world that does all three,” Landau said. “When you hear about red tide in Boston or someplace else, this is not it. It’s different — this is our red tide.”

A problem begins when nutrients are pulled from deep below the Gulf. They move up a continental shelf before traveling near the ocean’s surface, alongside the red tide algae.

And while the algae is already fed by nutrients in the Gulf, it finds more nourishment near the shoreline. Red tide is fed by wastewater leaks, spills or dumps, along with fertilizers and stormwater runoff.

So how does climate change affect red tide once it arrives at Manatee’s shoreline? Red tide often appears in late summer and then fades by early winter, but the cycle is changing.

“You’d have a bloom, it goes away, people forget about it — that’s it,” Landau said. “In my opinion, we’re at a point where we have to do something. If we don’t, some of these things are going to be long term.”

Cold water usually wards off the algae before tourists arrive, he said, but warmer temperatures made a suitable home for red tide. As a result, red tide bloomed in the fall of 2017 and then extended through 2018 and into this year.

“Red tide is impacted by climate change, not because the water is getting warmer, but because it isn’t getting cold enough,” Landau continued.

Little was known about the relationship between climate change and red tide. Facing a lack of information or support, Landau encountered a sense of hopelessness, but he ignored the naysayers and carried out his research.

Some ideas are overwhelming. For example, he said, it’s not clear how locals would address the flow of iron-rich dust clouds from Africa to Florida, which may feed red tide.

But other solutions are more realistic for Manatee County and its neighboring communities. Some organizations are working on new or refined technology, including Mote Marine Laboratory, in Sarasota.

In the meantime, residents can focus on voicing their concerns, reducing the use of fertilizer or curbing sewage and stormwater runoff. The ultimate goal is to starve red tide and lessen its impact.

“It occurs naturally,” Landau said. “We’re not going to argue with that. However, climate change is enabling it to be here year-round, and man-caused pollution is fueling it.”

“It occurs naturally,” Landau said. “We’re not going to argue with that. However, climate change is enabling it to be here year-round, and man-caused pollution is fueling it.”

Source: https://www.bradenton.com/news/local/article225072815.html

Newsom’s New ‘Water Tax’ Poses Test for California GOP

GOP activists say they will target vulnerable Democrats to prevent super-majority passage

California Republicans are gearing up to target several vulnerable Democratic state legislators in an effort to block Democratic governor Gavin Newsom’s proposed new tax on drinking water.

In his budget blueprint released two weeks into his tenure as governor, Newsom said he planned to create a “safe and affordable drinking water fund,” to help poor communities clean up contaminated water systems.

Supporters say the new tax would only cost each residential water customer 95 cents per month in an effort to raise $110 million a year for the fund.

Opponents counter that improvements for water systems in specific communities around the state shouldn’t require a new tax, especially when the state already has a $14.8 million budget surplus and has the highest state tax burden in the country.

Even though California Democrats won big at the polls in November, passing a new water tax is not a slam dunk in the legislature because state law requires a two-thirds supermajority vote to impose a new tax law, and recent efforts to levy new taxes across the state for water initiatives have failed.

Former governor Jerry Brown tried to push the water tax through the legislature last year, but the effort sparked protests from segments of the agricultural community and the Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA).

The ACWA represents more than 400 water districts. Brown tried to turn the program into a voluntary tax, but that effort also failed.

Democrats regained the super-majority in the legislature by stacking up big wins in November, making it easier to pass new taxes. Still, in that same election, California voters rejected an $8.9 billion proposed water bond expected to generate a $500 million fund for clean drinking water.

California Republicans and conservative activists are girding to battle a number of new tax hikes with Newsom at the helm and a Democratic super-majority in the state legislature.

Already, they helped put a halt to a proposed tax on text messages in the state that angered Silicon Valley. They are also beginning to fight an expected Democratic effort to repeal the state’s decades-old Proposition 13, which would dramatically increase property taxes.

Carl DeMaio, a radio talk show host and the chairman of Reform America, a conservative group that unsuccessfully targeted the state’s latest gas-tax hike last year, said the new water tax may appear as a modest new tax on consumers, but it’s just one element of Newsom’s multi-pronged plan to raise a number of taxes on California residents.

“I warned you this was coming: Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed a massive water tax! Yes, in addition to the cost of water charged on your utility bill, you will now be taxes for wanting to drink water,” DeMaio told supporters in a recent email.

“We must fight this—or more bizarre tax hikes will surely be added,” he wrote. “The water tax is on top of the [texting] tax and gas-tax hikes. And Sacramento politicians are supporting a repeal of Prop 13 on the 2020 ballot to hike property taxes too.”

DeMaio said he plans to launch a campaign to stop the water tax by targeting several vulnerable state legislators in an effort to “bring maximum pressure to block this ridiculous tax.”

Newsom, during a budget press conference earlier this month, cited figures he said showed that roughly 1 million Californians don’t have access to safe drinking water.

A McClatchy investigation in 2018 found that 360,000 Californians rely on water that does not meet state standards for toxins and that 6 million Californians get their drinking water from water companies that have violated state standards at least one time since 2012.

“That is a disgrace,” Newsom said at a budget press conference.

He followed up with a visit to the Central Valley where he discussed the issue directly with residents who have experienced problems with their drinking water.

“We met with resident who cannot drink or bath with the water in their homes—while paying more for it than those in Beverly Hills,” Newsom tweeted Jan. 11th.

ACWA Deputy Executive Cindy Tuck tried to clarify that only a small percentage of California residents do not have safe drinking water, something she agreed was an “unacceptable reality.”

“ACWA believes that making access to safe drinking water for all Californians should be a top priority for the state,” she said in a statement. “However, a statewide water tax is highly problematic and is not necessary when alternative funding solutions exist and the state has a huge budget surplus.”

Tuck said she wants to work with Newsom, his administration and the legislature and other stakeholders on “finding a solution that does not impose a statewide water tax.”

The vast majority of Californians with unsafe drinking water are located in the Southern Joaquin Valley and Mojave Desert, the McClatchy investigation found.

Jon Coupal of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association also argues that any effort to address to improve drinking water for specific communities in California should draw on the state’s budget surplus.

Coupal has called Newsom’s proposal an example of “California’s knee-jerk reaction to default to a new tax whenever there’s a problem.”

Steve Frank, a candidate for California Republican Party chairman, said Republicans in the state need to drive home the message that Democrats are continuously looking for new tax revenue streams.

Even though the state’s Republican party collected $34 million in the last election cycle, the most money raised by any single state party, Democrat or Republican, California Republicans still lacked any type of coherent message, Frank said.

“There was none,” he said. “If you don’t have a message, you don’t get the people to vote.”

Newsom’s new flurry of new tax proposals should help spur Republicans into action if they are serious about regaining their footing and resurrecting their organization and focusing their messaging, he added.

“Are you aware that Gavin Newsom wants to tax you on your water?” Frank asked in a recent interview with the Ventura County Reporter. “That’s just one example of the overreach of the Democrat party, and that the Republican party needs to point out to folks. Every time they see a bottle of water, they should be seeing a Democrat and a tax, and that’s our responsibility.”

Source: https://freebeacon.com/politics/newsoms-new-water-tax-poses-test-for-california-gop/

This reformed ‘club rat’ has raised millions for clean water projects

Scott Harrison describes himself as the quintessential prodigal son.

At 18, he left his conservative Christian home in New Jersey for New York City, where he became a nightclub promoter. There, he led a life of excessive drinking and drugs, model girlfriends and Rolex watches.

“It led to a life that looked good on the outside, but was rotting on the inside,” Harrison tells CNN’s Poppy Harlow in a recent episode of Boss Files. “There had been a betrayal, a departure from any sort of spirituality or morality or virtue that I had held onto as a child. And I thankfully had this moment, at 28 years old, where I came to my senses and said ‘Oh my gosh, I’m the worst person that I know.’”

Harrison — who is now 43 and the founder and CEO of charity: water which has raised more than $360 million for clean water projects — says it made him think about his legacy.

“If I continued down this path, there was a good chance that I would die before 40. I mean, if I had just partied like this, I may not make another 12 years. My tombstone might actually read: ‘Here lies a club rat that got a million people wasted.’”

That’s when he had an epiphany: What if he sold everything and just started over?

Harrison decided to spend a year volunteering and submitted applications to the Peace Corps, UNICEF, American Red Cross, Oxfam International and other organizations. But he didn’t have the proper experience and was denied by all of them.

So he paid $500 a month to join Mercy Ships, a nonprofit that operates floating hospitals and offers health care and other services to communities in need.

Harrison joined Mercy Ships on a trip to war-torn Liberia and ended up spending two years in West Africa as a photojournalist, documenting the work of the organization’s doctors, surgeons and nurses in the field.

“I would go into the villages, I would see kids drinking out of swamps. There’s really no other way to say it: green, algae filled, disgusting standing water. And children would leave their homes with these buckets, or these jerrycans and they would fill them up, and I would watch kids drink water that I wouldn’t have let my dog drink,” Harrison recalls.

During this time, Harrison met Dr. Gary Parker, a surgeon who explained to him how much clean water could help the world. “He said… ‘water makes more people on this planet sick than all the wars, all the violence combined… sure, you can help us fund the next $50 or $60 million dollar ship, or you could give everybody clean water.’”

Parker inspired Harrison to found charity: water, a nonprofit that brings clean water to millions of people in developing nations.

“There are 663 million people today living without clean water, effectively drinking disgusting dirty water that risks their lives and the lives of their children. That’s one in ten people alive, and we think that number should be zero… that’s the beauty of water, it’s a solvable problem,” Harrison says.

Getting the message out

Harrison launched charity: water at a nightclub on his 31st birthday.

“I lured my friends there with [an] open bar, and said, ‘On your way in, you’ve got to donate $20, and we’re going to go build a couple water projects and I’ll show you the proof of this.’ And that was really the start.”

Since its launch in 2006, more than one million people have donated to charity: water’s cause. The organization has funded more than 30,000 clean water projects in 26 countries, giving nearly 10 million people access to clean water.

The organization allocates 100% of public donations directly to fund clean water projects, says Harrison.

“I thought if we could promise that 100% of every donation would always go directly to help people get clean water, it would take the most common objection off the table,” he says.

Private financing and partnerships with businesses and foundations help pay for the organization’s operating costs like salaries and office space.

One key to charity: water’s success is the ability to tell its story via social media, Harrison says. The nonprofit uses crowdfunding to build and fix wells and broadcasts footage of the work it’s doing in villages on its web site and on Facebook.

Harrison’s work has caught people’s attention. In 2014, President Obama invited him to the National Prayer Breakfast and highlighted his life and work. “That’s the kind of promoting we need more. That’s the kind of faith that moves mountains,” Obama said.

“Regardless of whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat or an Independent, or you’re a Jew, a Christian, an atheist, a Muslim, a Mormon, it doesn’t matter what you might differ on religiously or politically,” Harrison says. “People can come together and agree on clean water.”

Harrison says he wants to continue to grow the venture. Last year, he launched The Spring, a subscription service for people who want to make regular donations of $60 a month.

Harrison also recently published a book, “Thirst: A Story of Redemption, Compassion, and a Mission to Bring Clean Water to the World.” Looking at what he’s accomplished so far, he acknowledges his experience promoting nightclubs actually helped him tell charity: water’s story today.

“I actually look at it like I’m inviting people to a party. I’m inviting people, um, to come past … There is no velvet rope. I had the doors open for anybody. But come to this party where you give of yourself generously and you see the impact of that gift,” he says.

Source: https://fox2now.com/2019/01/21/this-reformed-club-rat-has-raised-millions-for-clean-water-projects/

The Dirty Truth About Turning Seawater Into Drinking Water

As countries in the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere struggle to find enough freshwater to meet demand, they’re increasingly turned to the ocean. Desalination plants, located in 177 countries, can help turn seawater into freshwater. Unfortunately, these plants also produce a lot of waste—more waste, in fact, than water for people to drink.

A paper published Monday by United Nations University’s Institute for Water, Environment, and Health in the journal Science of the Total Environment found that desalination plants globally produce enough brine—a salty, chemical-laden byproduct—in a year to cover all of Florida in nearly a foot of it. That’s a lot of brine.

In fact, the study concluded that for every liter of freshwater a plant produces, 0.4 gallons (1.5 liters) of brine are produced on average. For all the 15,906 plants around the world, that means 37.5 billion gallons (142 billion liters) of this salty-ass junk every day. Brine production in just four Middle Eastern countries—Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates—accounts for more than half of this.

The study authors, who hail from Canada, the Netherlands, and South Korea, aren’t saying desalination plants are evil. They’re raising the alarm that this level of waste requires a plan. This untreated salt water can’t just hang around in ponds—or, in worst-case scenarios, go into oceans or sewers. Disposal depends on geography, but typically the waste does go into oceans or sewers, if not injected into wells or kept in evaporation ponds. The high concentrations of salt, as well as chemicals like copper and chlorine, can make it toxic to marine life.

“Brine underflows deplete dissolved oxygen in the receiving waters,” said lead author Edward Jones, who worked at the institute and is now at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, in a press release. “High salinity and reduced dissolved oxygen levels can have profound impacts on benthic organisms, which can translate into ecological effects observable throughout the food chain.”

Instead of carelessly dumping this byproduct, the authors suggest recycling to generate new economic value. Some crop species tolerate saltwater, so why not use it to irrigate them? Or how about generating electricity with hydropower? Or why not recover the minerals (salt, chlorine, calcium) to reuse elsewhere? At the very least, we should be treating the brine so it’s safe to discharge into the ocean.

Countries that rely heavily on desalination have to be leaders in this space if they don’t want to erode their resources further. And this problem must be solved before our dependency on desalination grows.

The technology is becoming more affordable, as it should, so lower-income countries that need water may be able to hop on the wave soon. While this brine is a problem now, it doesn’t have to be by then.

Red tide episode kills record number of sea turtles

Wildlife officials say manatee deaths are not far behind.

SARASOTA — A Florida red tide outbreak close to 16 months old has killed more sea turtles than any previous single red tide event on record, and manatee deaths are not far behind.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission attributed 589 sea turtles and 213 manatee deaths to this episode of red tide, which began in late 2017. It had killed 127 bottlenose dolphins as of Dec. 20, leading the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to declare an unusual mortality event.

Combine manatee deaths from red tide, human actions, cold stress and other causes was 824, according to a preliminary FWC report. A previous die-off killed 803 manatees in 2013 during another red tide bloom.

Preliminary data from FWC showed that the 824 manatee deaths in 2018 from both red tide, sickness and human-related causes surpassed the previous record of 803 set during another red tide outbreak in 2013.

Because of the partial U.S. government shutdown, NOAA has not provided updates for dolphins on its UME website. Dolphin strandings spiked in August and November, but have begun to slow down as red tide shows signs of weakening along the Southwest Florida coast.

Few experienced the gruesome first-hand effects of red tide more than turtle patrol participants, who wore masks and scarves to check turtle crawls following hatching during nesting season, May through October.

Don MacAulay of Englewood said he felt the effects of the airborne toxins — a nearly 150-mile by 20-mile wide bloom at its peak — driving over the bridge to Manasota Key. His throat and eyes burned from the aerosolized red tide toxins carried miles by the sea spray.

The stench of the carnage hung on the summer humidity.

“We were wearing snorkel goggles and respirators to do the job,” said MacAulay, a volunteer since 2016. “It was just horrible. Everywhere you stepped, you couldn’t go down to the shoreline. It was lined all the way with dead fish. … The bugs were worse.”

Turtle patrollers — doctors, dentists, anglers, kayakers, teachers, outdoors people from all walks of life — donned military-grade gas masks or wore scarves over their face on mile-long walks to check for fresh turtle crawls. Later on, they cleared a path through piles of rotting fish to make way for hatchlings racing to the sea.

“The turtles barrel through the dead fish and still nest,” MacAulay said. “We had to go each day regardless of the stench and the toxins in the air. We tried to protect ourselves the best we could. It’s kind of extreme when you’re walking down the beach like you’re in chemical gear in a lab somewhere.”

MacAulay, and many others who signed on for the previously leisurely strolls to check nests — before sunrise and before beachgoers or tides could erase evidence of the crawls — didn’t quit the thankless job.

“We protect every single nest on the beach from predators and whatever,” MacAulay said. “If we miss a day, it’s pretty bad. Even during hurricanes people try to go out before it gets bad.”

In September, an exasperated MacAulay posted a photo of a deceased dolphin on Facebook. It’s jawbone was exposed and it appeared to have been dead for a while.

“Red tide is wiping everything out,” MacAulay told the Herald-Tribune after the discovery.

Fellow Manasota Key patroller Emily Rizzo, whose asthma makes her more prone to red tide sickness — the itchy throat, watery eyes and coughing — continued her duty walking a half-mile stretch despite the symptoms.

“I love sea turtles; I feel an obligation,” said Rizzo, who lives in Venice. “Frankly, if I could have found someone to take my place, I’d be happy to let them do it, but we are short of volunteers. It was tough, but I thought I had to do it.”

The turtle hatchlings needed the support. Coyotes have become very active on Manasota Key in the past few years, according to Rizzo.

“We were very, very worried about our babies,” she said.

Suzi Fox, the director of Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch & Shorebird Monitoring, said 2018 was a highly successful nesting season on Anna Maria Island thanks to about 89 walkers. They reported that an estimated 35,000 hatchlings came from 534 nests on the island.

She suspects there could be a dip in nesting next year after several record seasons.

“People don’t come to Anna Maria Island to visit a high rise,” Fox said. “They come for the wildlife. These people are dedicated to wrapping their arms around the wildlife and protecting it.”

It could be decades before the impact of red tide on the hatchlings is known. Sea turtles take about 20 to 30 years after hatching to reach sexual maturity and mate, according to NOAA.

The data patrollers provided to local and state groups will be vital to studying the long-term impact of red tide on the area’s endangered sea turtles.

“The sea turtle patrol were some of our biggest help during this,” said Gretchen Lovewell, strandings investigations program manager at Mote Marine Laboratory. “They were reporting animals to us every morning, often times collecting them in one area so we could one-stop shop. It was hard enough to pop over the dune and breathe again. They were breathing it in and coughing.

“The death and destruction was bad, but they helped get them out of the environment quicker.”

Mote performed more than 200 necropsies on sea turtles this summer.

The widespread effect of this year’s red tide outbreak made it more difficult to recover and treat marine animals, according to FWC veterinarian Martine DeWitt, who said the 2013 bloom that killed 277 manatees was more localized near Charlotte County.

DeWitt said the recent red tide took more coordination among local and state agencies and that manatees with suspected red tide toxicity are still being collected.

“The toxin can persist in the environment and still be in the sea grass,” she said. “It’s not over yet.”

So far, Manatee County has picked up 316 tons of dead fish from waterways — consuming 892.5 regular hours and 253.24 overtime hours. Cleanup has cost the county $210,543, the bulk of the costs incurred by contracting with a vendor ($154,482) to clear residential canals during the peak of the bloom.

Sarasota County removed 251 tons of red-tide related fish and marine debris from County managed properties at a cost of $231,991.57. About 4 additional tons of debris removed from the City of Sarasota were not included in the county cost.

Source: https://www.heraldtribune.com/news/20190115/red-tide-episode-kills-record-number-of-sea-turtles

FGCU researchers want to test Gulf of Mexico’s water quality

Researchers from Florida Gulf Coast University want to put sensors in several spots around the Gulf of Mexico’s floor to test water quality.

Researchers from Florida Gulf Coast University want to put sensors in several spots around the Gulf of Mexico’s floor to test water quality.

The team led by Dr. Mike Parsons is utilizing portions of grant money received in fall 2018 to place the sensors in specific locations to test oxygen, nutrient, temperature, salinity, and other levels. The data is expected to help better understand the timeline of red tide and the impact it had on oxygen levels in the water at some of its deepest points right off the southwest Florida coast.

“By getting these sensors out and putting really good measures on these conditions we can see how things are changing,” Dr. Parsons said. “Red tide is still out here, it’s calmed down quite a bit and it’s offshore but by continuously collecting this data we’ll be able to see how conditions change when it comes back.”

“We’re not sure if red tide would go all the way to the bottom to tap into those nutrients,” Dr. Parsons said of the limited data available, especially for impacts deeper in the Gulf.

Researchers from the university also are studying ciguatera toxin, which also involves a great deal of work diving to the bottom of south Florida’s largest saltwater bodies.

“We’re taking our expertise studying ciguatera,” Dr. Parsons said of the team’s dedication to diving deep into water quality issues and getting answers about what it means for our community.

“Just finding out what’s the best way for this region to be more productive economically and ecologically,” FGCU Master’s student and researcher Adam Catasus said. “[We’ll] collect data to show this is what’s happening over time, show the effects.”

Water collected on Thursday from several dive sites showed a high concentration of bloom, but thankfully not red tide. High levels of the diatom Asterionellopsis glacialis were in bloom, and a well mixed water column proved to be positive for the new bloom but not good for red tide blooms.

“These low oxygen issues are caused by a lot of bacteria breaking down organic matter,” Dr. Parsons said of the oxygen issues that plagued the southwest Florida coast all summer. “The big question I think out here is how were the low oxygen levels linked to red tide.”

Dr. Parsons also noted the potential that red tide fuels itself to grow by feeding of the fish kills that it causes.

“If we removed the dead fish biomass we’d remove one of the nutrient sources from red tide,” he explained. “Is there a way we can remove the fish before they wash up on the beaches and ruin our tourism?” Dr. Parsons wondered, noting the millions lost in southwest Florida’s economy from the summer’s water woes. “[This] will get us really high-resolution data.”

The university research team will pull the data from sensors on a monthly basis to collect information allow them to better understand the timeline and circle of red tides impact.

Source: https://www.nbc-2.com/story/39727682/what-is-the-water-quality-of-the-gulf-of-mexico

Polluted wells show need to tackle water quality woes

It seemed fitting that during the last week of ex-Gov. Scott Walker’s war on our environment, we should learn that an alarmingly high percentage of private wells tested in southwest Wisconsin are contaminated with bacteria and chemicals.

It’s also more proof that Wisconsin needs new funding and new rules to address water quality problems that have oozed across the state. The time is ripe to make this the era of clean water for all. In fact, it’s overdue, based on the latest news.

As reported last week by Steven Verburg of the Wisconsin State Journal, the first systematic study of well water in southwest Wisconsin found bacterial and chemical contamination at rates as bad as and possibly worse than areas in northeastern Wisconsin targeted by new state water protection rules. About 42 percent of 301 randomly selected wells tested in Iowa, Grant and Lafayette counties exceed federal health standards for bacteria that can come from animal or human waste or for nitrate and other toxic fertilizer residues.

The southwestern Wisconsin well tests are bad. Same goes for wide swaths of central Wisconsin, where levels of nitrate and other contaminants have steadily grown, causing some counties and municipalities to consider taking actions in lieu of state indifference under Walker. Well contamination is so bad in parts of northeastern Wisconsin that even Walker couldn’t ignore it. He signed legislation that will require new manure-handling rules for that area once the rules are finalized.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, hardly a leader on the environment, was quick to the draw after the latest news broke, announcing he would appoint a task force to study the issue. But for the thousands of citizens impacted by tainted water for years, the time for study is over. They want action. This isn’t complicated. Gov. Tony Evers can and should take the lead, moving forward with new mechanisms to assure all citizens have safe drinking water.

The current blend of state and federal funding to address the continuing degradation of our water quality falls well short of what’s needed. And despite weak claims to the contrary, the evidence is clear that by far the biggest source of contamination is agriculture.

Wisconsin can look to states like Minnesota and Missouri, which have dedicated portions of their sales taxes to help farmers invest in conservation practices that work. Minnesota’s Legacy Fund, for instance, has provided almost $1 billion for clean water work in a decade. Funds come from a three-eighths of 1 percent slice of the state’s sales tax. In addition to clean water, the fund supports other natural resources programs along with arts and culture in the state.

Minnesota’s approach may be a reach for a divided Wisconsin, where clean drinking water somehow became a partisan issue. But it’s time Wisconsin identifies its own innovative path to stem the steady decline in funding for water quality over the past few decades.

While we’re at it, Wisconsin should also beef up its action levels for requiring conservation practices. Minnesota, for instance, requires that farm operations close to municipal wellhead areas take steps to remedy contamination once nitrate levels rise to 5 parts per million in water, half of the federal standard. The program is designed to protect wellhead areas before nitrates and other contaminants reach levels that force municipalities to fund costly treatment options. Let’s remember, too, that contamination of residential wells violates the private property rights of homeowners.

Some will cry “regulation” if our rules are toughened. So be it. Maybe the old standards, or lack of them, worked in another era. But modern agriculture has changed the playing field. In total, Wisconsin farmers are applying more fertilizer and manure these days. Soil erosion has increased, reversing earlier progress. When soil erodes, it carries nutrients and chemicals on its way to ground or surface water.

Source: https://madison.com/ct/opinion/column/bill-berry-polluted-wells-show-need-to-tackle-water-quality/article_78c4e7ff-20af-56d1-90c7-64f0ea09bb3d.html

Democratized, distributed and digital 2019 will be transformative for water

A lot of grit and innovation spark local water treatment business’s success

By day, Mike Schuette helps run Merchandise Outlet, a long-time discount retail store in Mt. Pleasant. By night, he and his brother-in-law Josh Lauderman team up in a business that aims to cleanse industrial wastewater in a way that creates streams of income along the entire — no pun intended — pipeline.

GCI Wastewater applies the spirit of capitalism to the problem of what to do about oil field wastewater. Like a lot of successful entrepreneurs’ stories, it started in someone’s garage and through a lot of long hours and sweat equity now occupies physical space.

In fact, while the business has grown to be sustainable and poised for further growth, both men still work day jobs. Lauderman is a chemical engineering who works in Hemlock and Schuette co-owns Merchandise Outlet in Mt. Pleasant.

The space for GCI just happens to be Titusville, Pa., the home of the American oil industry. There is still a going oil industry where the nation’s first oil wells were sunk, and the small- to medium-sized producers who are chiefly there are GCI’s primary clients.

The story of why that is starts with how GCI does its thing.

It starts with barrels and barrels of filthy water created by drilling. The first is a grayish combination of muck and chemicals created when water is pumped into a well to help cool and lubricate a drillbit working deep beneath the ground. The second is water with an orangish hue. This is the water that comes back up with whatever is being pumped from the well, either natural gas or oil.

When that water reaches the surface, most of the desired product is separated out, leaving dirty wastewater.

GCI address the question of what to do about that wastewater, Schuette said.

Their primary means is an advanced oxydation process that helps make it easier to filter out volatile organic matter, radioactive waste, heavy metals and hydrocarbons, co-founder Lauderman said. Lauderman, a chemical engineer, is responsible for most of the business’s scientific and technical side. This separates out the chemicals, leaving only heavily-salted brine.

Some of the chemicals pulled out by this process are themselves valuable, Schuette said. One is lithium, which can be found in lots of modern electronics.

“That’s what’s interesting, the waste is valuable,” he said.

Another is the brine itself. In the past, the untreated wastewater has been sprayed on roads to melt ice in winter and keep the dust down in summer. Schuette said that as he leanred more about this, the more adamantly he felt about finding ways to keep hazardous chemicals off the roads. Spraying just the brine while removing the hazardous elements can achieve the same results without exposing people and the environment to toxins.

The next phase is about finding an economical way to remove the salt from that brine, leaving just clean water. Doing this economically is one of the great technological Holy Grails of our time. Schuette said that they are keeping track of some very interesting developments in which small-scale desalinization could become viable.

Once that is realized, just with being able to sell chemicals removed from the first phase of treatment, there is a market for the sodium, calcium and magnesium salts they remove.

While the two said they want to keep the actual technology they use a proprietary secret, what’s given them a leg-up in the competition isn’t a piece of technology they are selling. It’s how they are marketing it.

After the two started working on the business together, they realized that while the market was wide open there were vendors selling equipment similar to theirs. It’s just that the equipment is really expensive and operating it requires that a company hire people trained to operate it.

That leaves a lot of small- to medium-oil producers — some families going back generations — with few options besides going to big expense to ship it out of state. This is also why while the two live in Mount Pleasant, most of their business takes place in Pennsylvania.

Michigan’s wastewater disposal laws mostly just require that you put it down a deep hole. Schuette said that while they’d love to provide services in Michigan some day, there’s not really much space for them right now.

Pennsylvania has strict regulations, Schuette said. And they have only a few deep injection wells, which gives most producers the only viable alternative of shipping it out-of-state to Ohio and West Virginia. Those transportation costs for smalltime producers can be daunting.

GCI’s primary innovation isn’t in a new, novel way to treat water, but in modeling their business as a service rather than a selling of goods. Titusville was a good choice because it’s at the center of a network of wells owned by smalltime — sometimes family — producers.

GCI puts a treatment facility somewhere surrounded by operating wells, and producers pay them to take the water off their hands. But, since the proximity of that service facility is close, transportation costs are significantly cut, from $10 a barrel of water to $3.25. That is especially noticeable when the price of oil has plummeted to $40 per barrel. The difference is enough in some cases to let a family continue to operate a well and make a small profit.

So far, they have less than 1 percent of penetration in Pennsylvania’s oil industry. Given the openness of the market, they see tremendous room for growth. There’s also potential for growth outside of the oil and gas fields.

“The beautiful thing about water is that it’s in every industry,” Schuette said.

They see room for operations in Okalahoma in oil and gas production, and say they think they could help clean PFAS out of Michigan’s water.

These might represent big dreams for a company still largely in its infancy. They’ve got two employees at their Pennsylvania operation, so far, and much of the work is less technical and more traditional business building. This is Schuette’s specialty.

There are tremendous hurdles in raising capital and overcoming regulatory obstacles, he said. One thing they did early on was develop a good, working relationship with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. They are transparent with how they operate, which they said has helped smooth things with regulators.

As for raising the capital, that falls back on good old-fashioned sweat equity, Schuette said. And a little help from the Central Michigan University Research Corp. Actually, that’s quite a lot of help, Schuette said.

The CMURC, a business incubating program, helps small-scale entrepreneurs find money and make business contacts to help them realize their ideas. Schuette said that they have received critical assistance from the CMURC. In return, CMURC named GCI Water Solutions as the 2018 SmartZone Small Business of the Year.

“GCI Water Solutions came to CMURC while in the early development phase. By utilizing surrounding resources and funding opportunities, they progressed into a full-scale facility,” said Erin Strang, CMURC’s president and CEO, said in a press release. “The persistence and dedication of these entrepreneurs is why they were chosen for this honor.”

Source: https://www.themorningsun.com/news/local/a-lot-of-grit-and-innovation-spark-local-water-treatment/article_cb613a86-0ed2-11e9-a8ce-a337e1d7bb9e.html

Florida officials delayed telling residents about tainted water, emails show

It took about four months for state health officials to notify Ocala residents about potentially elevated levels of the chemicals, emails obtained by the Times/Herald show.

OCALA — Linda Lawson thought little of drinking the water from the decades-old well in her backyard, less than half a mile down the road from the Florida State Fire College in Ocala. That changed when her daughter-in-law answered to state workers knocking on her door one afternoon. They came to test the water, a worker said.

She only began to worry when Mark Lander, the head of the Marion County Department of Health, came by at 8:30 one evening in early November with word that she shouldn’t drink from the well anymore. The unlit dirt path to her Central Florida home almost never received visitors, especially at night, and her husband Tim even pulled out his gun with concern that Lander might be an escaped inmate from a nearby prison.

Lander, who declined to comment for this story, delivered a letter that night informing Lawson’s family that chemical levels in their well water were higher than deemed safe. He gave them a couple cases of water and told them to drink only bottled for the foreseeable future before he disappeared back into the night.

In August, the Department of Environmental Protection confirmed that flame retardants containing perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) had been used at the Fire College in the past. In early September, the college was told to only drink bottled water.

Lawson’s home was one of three well sites — a Marion County fire station and Texas-based mining company Lhoist North America were the others — where preliminary tests indicated the water had elevated levels of the chemicals, which early studies have suggested can be carcinogens. Other impacts in humans include high cholesterol, thyroid disorders, adverse reproductive and developmental effects and some types of cancer.

It took about four months for state health officials to notify Lawson and others in the community about potentially elevated levels of the chemicals, emails obtained by the Times/Herald show. In September state health officials began discussing means of informing the Fire College, but it wasn’t until late October that they discussed notifying the rest of the nearby community. While state health officials debated for months how to word messages to those affected and put off informational open houses because of Hurricane Michael, neighbors bickered with local health officials asking when their water would be tested. Some preemptively began buying cases of water each week, fearing their own wells might be contaminated.

Recently, six former employees of the Fire College joined a class-action lawsuit against flame retardant manufacturers, alleging their exposure to toxic chemicals caused serious medical conditions including thyroid disease, breast cancer and kidney cancer — the same chemicals found in Lawson’s drinking water.

Les Beitsch, a former deputy secretary in the Florida Department of Health, speculates that health officials delayed notifying Lawson and the two other well users because of the impending election. He was effectively fired in November, he said, because he pushed back against the idea of any delay in notifying well-water users of the problem.

Gov. Rick Scott’s office rejected the suggestion that political considerations played any role in the notification timeline and directed reporters to the Department of Health for comment.

Through a spokesman, the Department of Health said it “immediately notified well owners of results” and have “worked diligently to obtain the necessary permissions to conduct additional private well sampling.”

“Any assertion that this was not done as quickly as possible is false and irresponsible,” said Nick Van der Linden, the department spokesman.

The department notified residents on Nov. 5 — two months after the Fire College started using bottled water and three days after tests results showed contamination in their wells.

Water contamination near the Fire College was made known to officials in early September after results came back from testing done by the state’s Department of Environmental Protection. Of the 80 to 90 wells in a mile radius around the college, 17 wells were tested. According to emails obtained by the Times/Herald, levels of chemicals in the water at the college were found to be between 250 and 270 parts per trillion, more than three times higher than the advisable 70 parts per trillion for drinking water.

On Sept. 9, the Fire College was given supplies of bottled water from the Department of Environmental Protection. On Sept. 12, the Fire College stopped using well water to prepare food in its cafeteria. During busy times of the year, about 50 students and 30 staff use the water on campus.

On Oct. 2nd and 3rd, the DOH collected samples from 17 nearby wells, including the Lowell Correctional Institution (a women’s prison), a convenience store/gas station, the mining company and seven residences.

An Oct. 16 open house was scheduled to allow members of the public and the Fire College community to ask questions and get information about what was happening in their water supply. The open house was rescheduled due to limited time and resources after Hurricane Michael. It eventually happened on Dec. 4 — three months after the Fire College started using bottled water.

On Nov. 2, the Department of Health got results back from the tests in early October and found four wells, including the Fire College, that showed elevated PFOS and PFOA levels.

On Nov. 5 —two months after the Fire College started using bottled water and three days after test results showed far higher levels of contamination in their wells — letters were sent to notify Lawson and the fire station. On Nov. 6, Election Day, the mining business was notified. The Department of Environmental Protection installed filters for their wells and is providing a regular supply of bottled water for drinking, cooking, bathing and other household activities.

Those letters were supposed to be sent on Nov. 13, Beitsch said, but pushback from him and some of his colleagues spurred the Nov. 5 delivery.

All Lawson could gather from the two-page letter was that the Fire College might be connected to the water problem.

“We’ve known the Fire College was there. It’s been there forever,” she said. “I knew they did testing back there — fire drills and stuff like that — but I assumed they did water or whatever. I didn’t even know they use a foam.”

The flame retardant that contained the perfluorooctane sulfonate and perfluorooctanoic acid particles came in the form of a foam mean to cool the fire and to coat the fuel, preventing its contact with oxygen.

Other residents in the area say that — despite requirements that additional wells be tested — they did not hear for far longer if their wells had been tested or if the same chemicals had been found in their water.

In 2002, the primary U.S. manufacturer of PFOS voluntarily phased it out of production because it was aware of the looming chemical exposure and health effects on the public. In 2006, eight major companies in the PFAS industry voluntarily agreed to phase out production for the same reason. But the chemicals are made up of compounds that don’t biodegrade, which allows them to remain in air, soil and groundwater for decades.

Though the health department began bringing Lawson’s family five-gallon jugs of water after the letter was delivered, their well water — which tested for levels of PFAS and PFOA at 932 parts per trillion — is still being used for showering and washing dishes. In addition to Lawson, her husband, and their sons’ families — eight people in total — they have used the bottled water for their five dogs: Jasper, Harley, Tennessee, Bama and Giz. Their aging horse, Cody, still drinks from the well.

Lawson hasn’t noticed any health effects, she said, but she worries about how it might affect her or the children. “Ten years down the line, after we’ve drank all this water and tea and stuff, what’s going to happen?”

When the mining operation received the notice, it stopped using the well water for drinking and notified employees, according to a written statement from the company. The test levels were 12,000 parts per trillion, about 170 times the advisable level.

According to Health Department emails obtained by the Times/Herald through a public records request, the mine’s safety manager, Stephen Henrick, requested his home in Ocala be tested shortly after. He declined to comment.

A spokesman for the fire station in Ocala declined to comment as well.

Lawson said she still keeps the letter with her at work, where she weighs trucks for a local limerock company as a scale house operator.

A few more nearby wells were tested on Nov. 8 — a horse breeder, North Marion County Middle School and a carrier company.

On Nov. 28, more workers from the state came to install a filter on Lawson’s well, though they were instructed to keep drinking bottled water for at least the next two months until more tests were conducted.

After Lawson heard from the state, she told some other residents. She also told one of her best friends, Miriam Flores, who lives just a few hundred yards from Lawson in a mobile home with her family.

At first, Flores said, she thought she would also hear from the state soon. But as days passed, Flores grew more and more worried. She warned two tenants in another mobile home on her property about the problem and advised them to buy bottled water. She began to call the Marion and Alachua County health departments, who both told her that they thought the issue was “nothing,” she recalled.

“I don’t think they care. They don’t want nobody knowing anything, and it’s scary,” she said at the time.

After the Times/Herald began inquiring about the testing, officials finally came to test Flores’ water Dec. 11 — a month after Lawson was first visited by health officials checking her well, and about three months after the department first learned of the problems in the groundwater surrounding the Fire College.

At Christmas, Flores and her family continued sipping from bottles of Zephyrhills water they had bought by the case: $5 each, two or three a week. Without answers, she increasingly worried about the water from the well her family has consumed for years, or even touching what comes out of the pipes.

She stopped letting her 5-year-old son, Fernando, brush his teeth with it. She even started washing the vegetables with bottled water. “Doesn’t it go into your body, into your pores?”

On Dec. 28, an environmental administrator with the Marion County Department of Health finally gave her an answer, she said. Her water did test for levels higher than those at the Fire College: more than 20 times the acceptable level for drinking water.

Her options now are limited, she says. Health officials dropped off two cases of water but gave her no specifics on when they might install a filter on her well or if she might potentially have to pay an additional $30 to $40 a month to tap into the city’s main water line instead.

Flores also can’t just leave the three acres of property she’s lived on for four years. Because of the elevated levels of chemicals, she worries the land is worth far less than what she paid for it.

“My property’s value just went to crap,” she said after she found out about the test results. “Not even the animals are supposed to drink it.”

According to scripts sent to health department employees, when residents ask about using alternative water until the test results come back, the employees they are to say “no.”

The script, obtained from the department by the Times/Herald, says employees are to answer:

“There is a very low risk of any effects from short-term exposure to PFOS and PFOA. There is no reason you need to change your daily routine and an alternative water supply is not necessary. If it is your personal preference, you may choose to utilize an alternative water for drinking, cooking or brushing teeth until your results are received.”

The former deputy secretary, Beitsch, said he was aware of discussions going on within the department on how and when to test. He said his boss, DOH Secretary Celeste Philip, made it “very clear” that they were not to do “anything right now” at a meeting on Nov. 2. Beitsch said his training as a physician called for “sharing news of this nature in person and immediately,” he said.

Beitsch, who is also a department chair at Florida State University’s College of Medicine, stepped into the deputy secretary role last fall at Philip’s request, he said. He retained his professorship at the university, which also covered his salary for the state government role.

“This absolutely crossed a line. It’s disregarding possible human health consequences for whatever reason,” Beitsch said. “To be doing it for reasons that are bad, like political process and elections, that would be intolerable, unacceptable and shouldn’t be permitted.”

Beitsch’s boss at FSU, College of Medicine Dean John Fogarty, said the news that Beitsch’s services were no longer required came “out of the blue.”

“Dr. Philip called me and said ‘Dr. Beitsch and I have had some disagreements and I think it’s time to sever that relationship,’ ” he said.

Fogarty said Beitsch is “not shy about expressing [his opinions],” but is “very experienced, very mature and has a pretty good worldview on problems and issues.”

Beitsch says he grew vocal to protect people like Flores, because “that’s what public health is supposed to be about.” He said it made him furious that people who don’t have neighbors like Flores were — and are — still drinking contaminated water. He compared the whole situation to the lead-contaminated water in Flint, Mich.

“This is about being sure that our government organizations and agencies can do our job, that it’s not politics governing science and it’s not interfering with what’s the right thing to do,” he said. “That’s been trampled on, overlooked.”

Almost a week after Flores found out her well tested for substantially higher levels of the chemicals, she said she still doesn’t know when officials will be back to address the situation. The well is supposed to serve her, her husband, her son and daughter, the two tenants, a friend and her baby who came to stay with them two weeks ago — but all of them will continue using bottled water until they hear otherwise.

Flores said she is frustrated it took nearly five months from when officials first suspected an issue at the Fire College for her to confirm that her water was contaminated. “They were trying to cover it up,” she worried. “Why should I have to look on the Internet for answers?”

Days after the New Year, she said officials still kept telling her — even after giving her the well results — that the water issue was “not a big deal.” She doesn’t know when or if she will be able to drink water out of her own faucets again, and that her weeks of pleas for assistance will continue to go unaddressed.

“They didn’t do what they’re supposed to do,” she said. “They’re supposed to help people but they’re not helping us. They messed up. They need to fix it.”

Source: https://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2019/01/03/florida-officials-delayed-telling-residents-about-bad-water/