When the COVID-19 outbreak swept across the U.S., toilet paper, hand sanitizer and Clorox wipes flew off store shelves. But shopping carts have also been full of something that most Americans get supplied straight to their home: water. Shoppers emptied store shelves of bottled water while stockpiling during the initial months of the pandemic. Even Amazon ran out of most brands of bottled water by mid-March. That month ended with an increase in sales of bottled water by 57 percent compared to the same time in 2019.
The novel coronavirus is not a waterborne pathogen. The World Health Organization says the virus’s “risk to water supplies is low.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) affirmed that “the virus that causes COVID-19 has not been detected in treated drinking water.” And the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which regulates public drinking water, recommends we continue to drink from our taps, as municipal water systems are require
Megan Guza | Tribune-Review
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Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority isn’t allowed to raise its rates to cover $500,000 it will invest into a compliance program as punishment for seven years of illegal sludge dumping into the Allegheny River from its Aspinwall plant, according to an agreement with federal prosecutors.
U.S. Attorney Scott W. Brady announced the agreement in November, and on Tuesday the plea was entered in federal court Downtown before Judge William S. Stickman IV.
PWSA pleaded guilty to one count of violating its pollutant discharge permit and one count of making false statements in written reports about the sludge discharge, according to Brady’s office.
The Oglala Sioux Tribe (“Petitioner”) filed a December 24th Petition for Review (“Petition”) challenging the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s (“EPA”) issuance of an underground injection control (“UIC”) Class III area permit and Class V area permit for the Powertech (USA) Inc. (“Powertech”) Dewey-Burdock Uranium In-Situ Recovery Project (“Project”).
The Project is located in Custer and Fall River Counties, South Dakota.
The federal Safe Drinking Water Act UIC program regulates six classes of injection wells. Each well class is based on the type and depth of the injection activity. Also addressed is the potential for the injection activity to result in endangerment of an underground source of drinking water. Note that:
> Scroll to see full table data In Massachusetts and Vermont, the MCL cannot exceed 20 ng/L, combined, for all of the PFAS substances regulated by each state.
What is an MCL and How Does it Impact Businesses?
MCLs set the maximum concentration of a given contaminant that can be present in drinking water. Publicly owned treatment works (“POTWs”) and drinking water systems are required to ensure that drinking water distributed to the public meets these limits. In order to do that, POTWs and state agencies often include discharge limits in the permits of upstream dischargers to ensure that the treatment facility can comply with the MCL.