A boy pushes a trolley with containers as Palestinians wait to collect water amid shortages, in Gaza City August 6, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA/CAIRO (Reuters) -Weakened by hunger, many Gazans trek across a ruined landscape each day to haul all their drinking and washing water – a painful load that is still far below the levels needed to keep people healthy.
Even as global attention has turned to starvation in Gaza, where after 22 months of a devastating Israeli military campaign a global hunger monitor says a famine scenario is unfolding, the water crisis is just as severe according to aid groups.
Though some water comes from small desalination units run by aid agencies, most is drawn from wells in a brackish aquifer that has been further polluted by sewage and chemicals seeping through the rubble, spreading diarrhoea and hepatitis.
COGAT, the Israeli military agency responsible for coordinating aid in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, says it operates two water pipelines into the Gaza Strip providing millions of litres of water a day.
Palestinian water officials say these have not been working recently.
Israel stopped all water and electricity supply to Gaza early in the war but resumed some supply later though the pipeline network in the territory has been badly damaged.
Most water and sanitation infrastructure has been destroyed and pumps from the aquifer often rely on electricity from small generators – for which fuel is rarely available.
COGAT said the Israeli military has allowed coordination with aid organisations to bring in equipment to maintain water infrastructure throughout the conflict.
Moaz Mukhaimar, aged 23 and a university student before the war, said he has to walk about a kilometre, queuing for two hours, to fetch water. He often goes three times a day, dragging it back to the family tent over bumpy ground on a small metal handcart.
“How long will we have to stay like this?” he asked, pulling two larger canisters of very brackish water to use for cleaning and two smaller ones of cleaner water to drink.
His mother, Umm Moaz, 53, said the water he collects is needed for the extended family of 20 people living in their small group of tents in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
“The children keep coming and going and it is hot. They keep wanting to drink. Who knows if tomorrow we will be able to fill up again,” she said.
Their struggle for water is replicated across the tiny, crowded territory where nearly everybody is living in temporary shelters or tents without sewage or hygiene facilities and not enough water to drink, cook and wash as disease spreads.
The United Nations says the minimum emergency level of water consumption per person is 15 litres a day for drinking, cooking, cleaning and washing. Average daily consumption in Israel is around 247 litres a day according to Israeli rights group B’Tselem.
Bushra Khalidi, humanitarian policy lead for aid agency Oxfam in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories said the average consumption in Gaza now was 3-5 litres a day.
Oxfam said last week that preventable and treatable water-borne diseases were “ripping through Gaza”, with reported rates increasing by almost 150% over the past three months.
Israel blames Hamas for the suffering in Gaza and says it provides adequate aid for the territory’s 2.3 million inhabitants.
QUEUES FOR WATER
“Water scarcity is definitely increasing very much each day and people are basically rationing between either they want to use water for drinking or they want to use a lot for hygiene,” said Danish Malik, a global water and sanitation official for the Norwegian Refugee Council.
Merely queuing for water and carrying it now accounts for hours each day for many Gazans, often involving jostling with others for a place in the queue. Scuffles have sometimes broken out, Gazans say.
Collecting water is often the job of children as their parents seek out food or other necessities.
“The children have lost their childhood and become carriers of plastic containers, running behind water vehicles or going far into remote areas to fill them for their families,” said Munther Salem, water resources head at the Gaza Water and Environment Quality Authority.
With water so hard to get, many people living near the beach wash in the sea.
A new water pipeline funded by the United Arab Emirates is planned, to serve 600,000 people in southern Gaza from a desalination plant in Egypt. But it could take several more weeks to be connected.
Much more is needed, aid agencies say. UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said the long-term deprivations were becoming deadly. “Starvation and dehydration are no longer side effects of this conflict. They are very much frontline effects.”
Oxfam’s Khalidi said a ceasefire and unfettered access for aid agencies was needed to resolve the crisis.
“Otherwise we will see people dying from the most preventable diseases in Gaza – which is already happening before our eyes.”
(Reporting by Ramadan Abed in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo and Olivia Le Poidevin in Geneva; writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)
More “plant destroyer” water mold species discovered in Minnesota
Scientists at the University of Minnesota say they’ve discovered more than a dozen different types of a mold known as “plant destroyers.”
At first, this rhodadendron plant just looks like it needs a little extra love. But through the microscope, you’ll see something more destructive.
“It’ll cause a wilting, or it’ll kill the tree or plant outright,” said Nick Rajtar, a researcher with the U’s plant pathology program. “It’s really species-specific, but basically mortality is the end goal for the pathogen, and it’s really good at what it does.”
It goes by the name Phytophthora, a water mold that can kill trees, plants, and crops.
Rajtar and his team found 22 different species in the state, 14 of which were previously undetected.
“Minnesota’s nurseries ship a lot of material in from a lot of other places around the country, be it Missouri, Oregon, Washington, where these phytophthora are a little more prominent,” he said. “And that’s a potential avenue for them to be introduced to Minnesota’s landscapes.”
Rajtar says phytophthora loves Minnesota’s recent wet weather, potentially helping them spread even faster.
If you suspect a plant or tree around your home is infected, you can get it tested at the university’s lab. If infected, the plant will need to be destroyed.
Raw sewage and industrial wastewater contaminated with metals and chemicals irrigate much of the nation’s food.
BENGALURU, India – In a small town in the suburbs of this booming city, K.V. Muniraju knows all too well the decade-old battle of securing water for his crops. With groundwater tables continuously falling, the middle-aged farmer once borrowed heavily to dig wells ever deeper.
If he was lucky, he found water. If he was unlucky, he didn’t. If he was really unlucky, he found a hint of water and proceeded to invest in the well infrastructure, only to see the well run dry and trap him in debt.
That happened to Muniraju in 1994 and 1995, when he was forced to direct water into his fields from nearby storm water drains.
Then came apparent salvation. In 1998 the nearby town installed a sewer system and discharged the untreated wastewater through the same storm water drains alongside his fields. In the 20 years since, Muniraju has had a secure water source to grow his crops.
The steady water supply, though it reeks, also contains high nutrient concentrations. That enables Muniraju to increase production while reducing input costs, such as fertilizers. His standard of living has increased – he built a stone house and sent his three sons and two daughters to school and college.
Across India, and particularly in the nation’s big metropolitan regions, countless numbers of farmers like K.V. Muniraju raise their crops with untreated wastewater. Medical specialists say farmers and their families risk serious disease from exposure to harmful sewage-borne microorganisms and metals. Scientists have measured unsafe levels of heavy metals and other toxic substances in Indian crops – posing a public health threat if consumed.
We are praying that the wastewater flows will last as long as it takes for our children to find other jobs so that they can support our family.” – K.V. Munirjau
Indian public health and safety authorities have displayed limited action in tackling the impending public health crisis. Just 30 percent of wastewater undergoes any sort of treatment before being discharged in a wretched stream of industrial effluent that contains heavy metals and toxic chemicals. To date there is no regulatory framework for testing primary products, such as vegetable and fruits, for toxic contaminants. The widespread use of untreated wastewater – particularly in urban and peri-urban areas – to grow a considerable portion of India’s food supply, coupled with current inaction from officials, has converged to produce, say some scientists, a toxic time bomb in a nation that soon will overtake China to become the world’s largest.
“It is a complex nexus,” said Sumit Kumar Gautam, an environmental scientist at the Center for Energy, Environment, and Water (CEEW) in New Delhi. “If surface water is contaminated with untreated effluent, farmers use this for irrigation. The farmer is exposed to all contaminants and is likely to experience diarrhoea, bronchitis, skin diseases, eye irritation etc. The contaminants enter the soil, the biomass and thus enter the food chain. The entire food chain is contaminated because of this untreated effluent.”
The motivation for farmers to use wastewater to raise their crops is plainly evident in a convergence of three primary nation-testing challenges – rapid population growth and urbanization, increasing demand for food, and seriously depleted reserves of clean water.
Driven by economic opportunities, India’s megacities are growing fast. A 2010 study by McKinsey estimated that urban expansion is projected to happen twice as quickly as in the past – unlike any urbanization India has seen before – with 590 million people living in cities by 2030, or 170 million more than today.
But the supply of clean fresh water to produce food is diminishing. Rivers and lakes are profoundly polluted, according to state and government studies. And groundwater reserves are shrinking fast from over pumping. Fresh water scarcity is made worse by deep and lengthy droughts that grip India with increasing regularity and ferocity. According to the latest assessment by the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI), 70 percent of the country’s fresh water – in the ground or on the surface – also is contaminated.
Fresh water, in sum, is in the worst condition in India’s history, according to the NITI report that was released in June by Nitin Gadkari, minister of water resources. India, said the study, was snared in “the worst water crisis” in its history. The report found that at least 600 million Indians – almost half the country – contend with high or extreme water stress.
The single water supply that is still plentiful, though, is a stream of treated and untreated municipal and industrial wastewater.
The Hindon River, once the lifeline in one of the most fertile and productive agricultural regions in northern India is now one of the most polluted stretches in the Ganga Basin due to the discharge of untreated, highly polluted industrial, municipal and agricultural wastewater. Key industries upstream include paper mills, sugar processing and associated alcohol distilleries, as well as dairies, textile factories, tanneries, and informal battery manufacturing units. While it is mandatory to treat industrial effluent, water pollution levels show that this is not adhered to, nor enforced.
Krishan Pal Singh, an environmental activist in Doula Village remembers when farmers could safely use surface water to irrigate. That was before the 1980s. Then industries settled in the region and abstracted groundwater and polluted surface water.
The cocktail of heavy metals and pesticides carried by the Hindon have accumulated in the river sediments and seeped into the ground. Now groundwater is polluted, too. A study in 2009 found manganese, lead, zinc, copper, chromium, iron, and elevated levels of cadmium in river sediments. The industrial wastes aggravate any potential measures to clean the Hindon and reverse the decades-old contamination.
If we use river water or not – we always lose.”
Downstream in Muzaffarnagar, an industrial city, the Hindon River is a pitiful sight. It looks more like a sewage canal than a river. Its stench is overwhelming. A mass of solid waste in the river forms a dam, limiting its flow. Dogs roam the landfill, happily picking up pieces of meat discharged by a slaughterhouse upstream. Along the river banks, farmers harvest corn. “The water is so polluted, we can only grow resistant crops,” said one farmer. “Half of our chili plants have diseases and at times the industries discharge acid, which damages the crops. If we use river water or not – we always lose.”
A bit further downstream, farmers transplant rice paddies, standing knee deep and without any protection in untreated wastewater. The head farmer explained that skin diseases are an issue at times. But he appreciates the fertilizing qualities of the untreated wastewater and the money he saves.
Further downstream, farmers from the village of Surana in the Bagpat district, said that surface water is of such bad quality that crops are of bad quality now, too. While they have no means of testing their water or crops for toxins, they realize that the quality of crops worsen with greater proximity to the river.
The farmers link the increased rate of diseases, particularly skin diseases, to the deteriorating water quality. “Kids are born healthy, but fall ill very quickly afterwards,” one farmer said. “Over time we realized that some crops are riskier to consume than others. Lentils seem to be less contaminated, so we eat them. Other vegetables, such as cauliflower, okra, and aubergine seem more contaminated. We believe they are unfit for consumption, so we don’t eat them. We sell them to the markets in Delhi.”
Bengaluru’s Foaming Lakes
Bengaluru was previously known for its beautiful lakes, which also served as lifeline for the city by collecting monsoon water and providing clean drinking water during the dry season when all rivers went dry. Today, the lakes are full of wastewater.
Bellandur Lake and Varthur Lake have gained international attention for frothing and catching fire as a result of untreated wastewater discharges. The wastewater contains nitrogen, phosphorus and carbon. It also contains sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium. The chemistry causes foam to form and accumulate.
Like a giant, smelly bathtub, big balls of snowy white suds roll across the water. The suds sometimes grow to be 30 to 40 feet high and, in a blizzard of bubbles, have even stopped traffic on the decaying bridge that spans the river. The suds are a soup of detergents and surfactants from the city upstream.
The lakes also catch fire. The water contains highly flammable compounds, namely hydrocarbon and organic polymers, as well as phosphates from detergents, from industries close to Bellandur Lake.
Vishwanath Srikantaiah, an environmental activist, said that the groundwater on which the city depends, has become harder to access as wells go deeper, and that people are using more detergent to wash their clothes – which then gets discharged untreated into waterways.
Circle of Blue followed the outflow of the lakes to the Koramangala-Challaghatta valley, where it is received, by grateful farmers, for irrigation and crop production for Bengaluru and its surroundings. Surresh, Shenkar, and Ramakrishna are farmers in their 30s and 40s in the village of Mugalur, downstream of Varthur Lake.
We use the little groundwater we have to grow our own food. The rest we sell to buyers who bring it to Bengaluru’s markets. We don’t eat it.”
When groundwater got scarce, the river became their lifeline. Until three years ago they could use it for their crops. Since then, water was mixed with foam and the quality and productivity of the crops went down – for rice even by 50 percent. ”Foam is in pipes, in the fields. It’s toxic, as at times when it foams badly, we can set the foam on fire. We use the little groundwater we have to grow our own food. The rest we sell to buyers who bring it to Bengaluru’s markets. We don’t eat it,” they said.
Their buyers, they said, know that untreated wastewater is used to grow the crops. But it does not concern them. Their crops enter the food supply unchecked.
It is well-documented in the scientific literature that water used for irrigation containing heavy metals is a crucial pathway for the toxic chemicals to enter the food supply chain and be absorbed by consumers. Various studies have shown that long-term irrigation with wastewater results in a build-up of heavy metals in the soil – even if the concentrations in the wastewater are low. That, in turn, results in toxicity to plants and food contamination. Metals also accumulate in the body, increasing in concentration over time, which can result in cancers, genetic mutations, and malnutrition.
Despite the scientifically proven pathways for contamination, and the prevalence of wastewater-irrigated agriculture, surprisingly few raw food sample tests have been conducted across India.
As part of a research project from 2000 to 2003, the UK Department for International Development tested heavy metal contamination in spinach from various markets in Delhi, including the wholesale market in Azadpur. Every sample exceeded the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s international CODEX safety standard for lead. Nearly three quarters of the samples – 73 percent — were found to exceed accepted PFA global public health safety standards for lead. Almost a quarter – 24 percent — contained twice the PFA standard. A fifth of the samples also had markedly elevated levels of zinc.
In a 2015 study, a team of Indian researchers assessed residues of cadmium, lead, zinc, and copper in vegetables in five markets in Delhi. They found that a significant proportion of vegetables contained levels of zinc, lead, and cadmium above safe concentrations.
In a third assessment, of 22 varieties of vegetables grown in the Delhi region, researchers found nickel and lead concentrations in excess of permissible limits.
Similarly, in Bengaluru, food samples from various markets showed that all tested food – including fruits/curd, root vegetables, and leafy vegetables – had at least one heavy metal residue that exceeded the Indian Food Standard. When applying international standards on food safety, the picture becomes even bleaker. Most samples exceeded all international thresholds for analysed heavy metal content.
In 2012, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), based in Delhi and one of India’s most renowned research organizations, assessed the health risks from eating crops grown on the banks of the Yamuna River, a tributary of the Ganga that flows through New Delhi. It found that the agricultural soil along the Yamuna contained levels of nickel, manganese, lead, and mercury above international standards. Treated and untreated wastewater discharged to the river was identified as the source.
TERI also found that vegetables grown in the Yamuna flood plain – a 22-kilometer (14-mile) stretch – had higher levels of heavy metals. TERI tested urine and blood samples from women and children in that area and found significantly higher levels of mercury, chromium, and lead than those of the rural population. Most strikingly, 23 percent of sampled children had blood lead levels above 10 micrograms per deciliter, a widely accepted international safety limit.
One more seminal question confronts Indian food growers – the safety of the country’s agricultural exports. India is the world’s 15th largest exporter of agricultural, fishery and forestry products. The United States is India’s top export market. Other important markets include Vietnam, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, China, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom.
The world is well aware of India’s wastewater-contaminated food exports. The United States ranks India among the three nations that most consistently violate American import safety limits. Food grown in India accounts for 60 percent of the items that United States Customs inspectors refuse to allow into U.S. markets.
Two years ago, the UAE barred Indian imports of chili peppers, mangoes, and cucumbers unless each shipment arrived with official residue analysis reports. The UAE is one of the top four global markets for Indian fruit and vegetables and one of the world’s biggest importers of Indian mangoes and onions.
The National, an important UAE newspaper, warned that the lack of regulatory oversight in the food sector, and the persistent failure to meet international quality standards, threaten India’s farmers and food companies. “An initiative is needed in the regulation of food exports. The introduction of better controls with clear guidelines for acceptable produce would dramatically help Indian’s agricultural industry. Time is running out for Indian farmers as consumers around the world have become more savvy and have options closer to home.”
Even knowing the risks from irrigating crops with untreated wastewater, most Indian farmers – especially in the peri-urban areas – have no alternative. Close to Bengaluru, farmer K.V. Muniraju projected that if wastewater started to be treated, it would be used for other purposes. It would not pass his farm anymore, he said.
“We are praying that the wastewater flows will last as long as it takes for our children to find other jobs so that they can support our family.”
PFASs — used in clothing, carpets, cookware, and more — contaminate wells across the United States.
The early 1990s were the start of a sizzling decade for ChemFab, a producer of specialized plastics. The company’s water-repelling, heat-resistant fabrics were everywhere. Beta cloth, an insulator, lined the payload bay of the Space Shuttle Columbia. The roofs of the Metrodome and Georgia Dome, professional sports stadiums in Minneapolis and Atlanta, were draped with fabric coated with PTFE, a slick polymer. BusinessWeek took notice, naming the Merrimack, New Hampshire-based firm a Hot 100 growth company in 1991 after profits climbed 185 percent in three years.
The good fortune kept going in 2000 when the French industrial giant Saint-Gobain, a world leader in plastics, purchased ChemFab. After the acquisition, the product line continued to impress. The Dallas Cowboys, self-proclaimed as America’s football team, now play home games at AT&T Stadium beneath 19,000 square meters of Saint-Gobain’s gossamer Sheerfill fabric, which covers the retractable roof.
In several New England states, though, the company’s shine has worn away in the last year. State officials identified Saint-Gobain’s Merrimack facility, along with sister production sites in New York and Vermont, as sources of chemical contamination of household wells and public drinking water supplies.
Perfluorinated alkyl substances, or PFASs, that were used in the manufacture of a number of consumer and industrial goods at the facilities were detected in groundwater above the level that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says is potentially damaging to human health. The contamination zone around the Merrimack facility spreads across 30 to 40 square miles, an area of nearly unprecedented size for groundwater pollution from a single site, according to Brandon Kernen, a hydrologist in the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, who is investigating water contamination.
Saint-Gobain’s chemical releases are part of a much larger problem. PFASs in groundwater have been traced across the country to military bases, fire stations, landfills, hospitals, and schools — large institutions that use foams, waxes, or cleaners that contain the chemicals. In fact, the closer regulators and scientists look at drinking water supplies, the more PFASs they find.
“It’s not another contaminant du jour,” Kernen says, noting the ubiquity of PFASs in household and industrial products and the tenacity with which they remain in the environment. “It’s something we’re going to be dealing with for quite a while.”
In short, the miracle compounds of 20th-century chemistry are causing an ecological, legal, and regulatory mess today. Like PCBs and pesticides, authorities are discovering how deeply another chemical that contributed to the ease and convenience of contemporary life has embedded itself in rivers, lakes, aquifers, and soils — as well as in human bodies.
In February, 3,500 residents sickened by the chemicals in Parkersburg, West Virginia, won a $US 671 million lawsuit against DuPont, which contaminated local water sources with PFAS waste for decades. Similar class-action lawsuits are being pursued against Saint-Gobain by residents of Hoosick Falls, New York, and Bennington, Vermont, and against firefighting foam manufacturers and military bases that used the foams by residents of two eastern Pennsylvania counties where wells have been tainted. Meanwhile, Lake Elmo, Minnesota, is suing chemical manufacturer 3M to recover millions of dollars the city spent on a new well and pipes after PFASs were found in an existing well.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, noted in a January 2017 report that the Defense Department will likely incur significant costs to clean up PFASs at military bases. Navy officials said that the price tag for cleaning up the chemicals at active and closed bases could be billions of dollars.
A Modern Problem
When chemists began producing them after World War Two, perfluorinated compounds — long chains of carbon bonded to fluorine atoms and other elements — were the industrial equivalent of a wonder drug. The compounds repelled water, stains, and dirt like invisible armor. They were strong, durable, and flexible. For a go-go society with a consumer economy set to boil, the chemical properties were a perfect match.
The market for PFASs cracked wide open. Sold under brand names such as Teflon, Gore-Tex, Scotchgard, and Stainmaster, PFASs were incorporated into a dazzling range of household products: nonstick skillets, water-repelling jackets, stain-resistant carpets, floor cleaners, waxes, paints, and insect traps. High-tech industries added them to circuit boards and semiconductors, automotive wiring and solar panels. Food packaging companies put them on pizza boxes, burger wrappers, and microwavable popcorn bags, to reject grease. Fire departments used them to put out oil fires.
Today, PFASs are earning a new reputation — as a health risk and a menace to drinking water.
Because the carbon-fluorine bond is one of the most stable in chemistry, PFASs do not easily break down. They linger; then, if consumed, they accumulate in the blood, liver, and kidneys. Human studies show that PFASs harm the development of a fetus, resulting in low birth weight and hormonal disruption. In studies of laboratory animals, they are also associated with cancers of the thyroid, liver, and pancreas.
Many of the human health effects are derived from a study of some 69,000 people in Ohio and West Virginia who lived near DuPont’s Washington Works production facility in West Virginia, and were exposed to PFOA in drinking water. PFOA is the perfluorinated compound used to make Teflon.
The C8 study — named for the eight carbon atoms in PFOA — found links between elevated PFOA levels in blood and a number of ailments: kidney cancer, high cholesterol, colitis, and thyroid disease.
Military Bases and Congressional Representatives on Notice
Industrial plants such as the DuPont Washington Works facility and 3M factories in Oakdale, Minnesota, and Decatur, Alabama, were among the first sites to be scrutinized. Military bases are a more recent target. Groundwater contamination at bases is widespread due to a certain type of foams — class B aqueous film forming foams — that are used to put out petroleum fires. James Brindle, a Defense Department spokesman, told Circle of Blue that the department does not yet have cleanup cost figures that it can release publicly.
Air Force officials answer questions from local media at Fire Station One during a roundtable at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado, on November 2, 2016. The officials were visiting Peterson AFB to discuss perfluorinated compound contamination in the aquifer that Fountain, Security, and Widefield use for drinking water. Photo by U.S. Air Force / Rob Bussard
Brindle said that as of last November department officials had identified 356 active military installations and bases slated for closure that have one or more areas of suspected PFAS contamination due to firefighting foams. He said the contaminated areas are in various stages of assessment and response.
Members of Congress have taken up the cause. In March, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a first-term Republican from Pennsylvania, asked the House committee that controls the Defense Department’s budget to fund a national health study and a cleanup of public and private wells contaminated by military bases. In his eastern Pennsylvania district, 22 public water supply wells and more than 140 household wells have been shut down because of PFAS contamination linked to two naval air stations and a National Guard air station.
New York’s Democratic senators, meanwhile, introduced legislation three days earlier to require the EPA to set maximum levels in drinking water for PFOA and PFOS, the best-known of the roughly 3,000 perfluorinated compounds on the market.
Alan Roberson, executive director of the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators, said that Congress, given that it passes only a fraction of the bills that are introduced each session, probably will not force EPA action on PFASs. That is unless public outcry becomes so fervid that lawmakers cannot ignore it: “Unless something explodes, unless PFASs become the new Flint,” Roberson told Circle of Blue.
No Federal Regulation
Federal authorities offer guidance to local officials for responding to evidence of contamination, but the EPA does not regulate PFASs in drinking water, nor has the agency listed the chemicals under federal statutes for hazardous waste cleanup. In May 2016, the EPA significantly lowered a non-binding health advisory for PFOA and PFOS, saying that a combined concentration in drinking water above 70 parts per trillion is dangerous to health, especially for women who are breast feeding.
The EPA also has proposed the Saint-Gobain facility in Hoosick Falls for Superfund designation. And the agency worked with industry to phase out production of PFOA and PFOS. In their place companies are using shorter-chain compounds, which are supposed to break down more easily but critics claim they have not been properly vetted.
The lack of federal standards, meanwhile, is confusing water providers. John Lovie, vice president of Whidbey Island Water Systems Association, a group of Washington state water utilities that is dealing with PFAS contamination of wells near Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, understands that the EPA is under difficult circumstances, but thinks that the health advisory did not provide enough guidance.
“People don’t know how to react,” he told Circle of Blue.
Certain firefighting foams used to put out oil fires have been linked to PFAS contamination of groundwater near fire stations and military bases. Photo by Tech Sgt Brian E. Christiansen, North Carolina Air National Guard Public Affairs
For the hundreds of small water systems on Whidbey — all but three of which serve fewer than 1,000 people — deciding whether to act is often a matter of dollars. “The money is just not there,” Lovie said. And, as seen in the thousands of PFAS chemicals, there is a universe of unregulated but potentially dangerous chemicals that will pose severe hardship if small systems must pay for treatment without financial assistance.
“It’s hard enough dealing with regulated contaminants,” Lovie said. “This foreshadows the issues that small systems are going to have with unregulated contaminants.”
The grey area between regulated and unregulated complicates the cleanup process, argue Jeff Kray and Sarah Wightman, lawyers at Marten Law, a firm that handles environmental cases. Without national standards “it will remain unnecessarily difficult for drinking water suppliers, owners of contaminated land, and others concerned about the potential public health consequences of PFASs to address the sources of PFAS contamination and recover cleanup costs from responsible parties.”
In the absence of federal rules, state leaders are on their own to set standards. A few have.
On February 16, a New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection science advisory body endorsed a 14 parts per trillion standard for PFOA and submitted the recommendation to the department’s commissioner. A decision whether to accept that standard and begin the rulemaking process is expected soon, according to Larry Hajna, department spokesman. The state is also developing a separate PFOS standard.
New Jersey has been sampling drinking water systems for PFASs for a decade. State officials, aware of several DuPont facilities within their jurisdiction, were spooked by the West Virginia C8 investigation, Hajna said. From 2006 to 2016 the state tested more than 1,000 water samples from 80 public water systems. PFASs were found in samples from 60 percent of the systems. Still, only now is the state acting — and the regulations affect drinking water providers not the chemical manufacturers.
If adopted, New Jersey’s standard would follow the lead of Vermont and New Hampshire, both of which operate under state-approved PFAS limits. New Hampshire has a groundwater standard that matches the EPA’s 70 parts per trillion health advisory, while Vermont’s is stricter, at 20 parts per trillion.
Blowing in the Wind
One of the most rigorous PFAS investigations today is taking place in New Hampshire. Just over a year ago, after the Saint-Gobain facility made headlines, the Department of Environmental Services used hazardous waste records and data on fire stations and landfills to identify about 20 sites in the state most at risk for PFAS contamination. Their findings to date reveal a dispersed but significant problem.
The Saint-Gobain site, for one, is unusual. When the PTFE-coated fabrics that were the source of the PFAS contamination were dried in the facility’s blower stacks, chemicals were lifted into the air. Once airborne, the particles eventually settled onto the ground where they dissolved in rain and were absorbed in the soil, eventually flowing downward into groundwater.
This sort of air deposition “blows up the traditional approach to investigating groundwater contamination,” which typically involves a land-based source with a defined flow pattern, Kernen said. “The wind blows every which way. It complicates the issue.”
Other tests showed the diversity of pollution pathways.
The Kingston Fire Department, for example, wanted to open its well to citizens during last summer’s drought as emergency water source. But state tests found the well exceeded the 70 parts per trillion standard for PFOA and PFOS, as did three private wells in the neighborhood. Firefighting foams are the suspected contamination source.
But that’s not all. Other wells near the Kingston fire station showed hundreds of parts per trillion of unregulated PFAS compounds, Kernen said. That presented an uncomfortable situation for state authorities when they explained the test results to the homeowners and could offer no recommendations for how to act. “We had to say ‘You meet drinking water standards, but we detected all this other stuff at these levels and we don’t have any health information for you,’” Kernen recalled.
At another site, near a car wash, testing of a monitoring well showed more than 9,000 parts per trillion of unregulated PFAS compounds. The car wash, not connected to a sewer, had a permit to discharge wastewater to groundwater. Officials told some 800 waste sites — landfills, hazardous materials, and facilities with groundwater discharge permits — to include PFAS sampling in their routine groundwater monitoring.
The state also collected voluntary samples from private well owners. Kernen noted one important trend: a relatively high number of positive detections from schools and health care facilities. The state has not done a scientific analysis, but Kernen’s hypothesis is that these places mop the floors every day and then dump the suds either down the drain, where they flow into a septic tank that percolates into the groundwater, or outside, where they also soak into groundwater. PFASs are a component of high-strength floor cleaners and waxes.
The cost of addressing the contamination is still unknown, partly because new problem areas keep emerging. New Hampshire has spent roughly $US 30 million on remediation projects, half of which went to the Saint-Gobain site. Some 500 homes whose wells were polluted were connected to a public water system. At least 600 homes have been put on bottled water. The state is trying to recover its costs from Saint-Gobain. A company spokeswoman would not comment on the financial details but noted that Saint-Gobain will fund the design work to extend public water to 61 properties in the town of Bedford.
Cities above and below the equator rely on the fruits of urban agriculture, literally. According to a new report, many farmers use human sewage to irrigate that agriculture. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) estimates that 800 million people grow and eat food produced in cities. But times are changing: the climate is unpredictable, and water is scarce. While farmers on the outskirts of the world’s metropolises feed many, they now struggle to irrigate their crops. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) predicts that in twenty years at least two-thirds of the world’s population will live in cities, making access to clean water for urban agriculture more crucial than ever.
As water supplies dwindle and water itself becomes a commodity, new research asks the question: how can low-income urban farmers ensure safe water for their produce? The report, released for World Water Week in Stockholm, reveals that millions of farmers across the globe currently resort to water saturated with human sewage for irrigation. While irrigation with raw sewage delivers unexpected benefits, it also presents tremendous health risks for farmers, consumers, and the environment.
Conducted by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), the report — Drivers and characteristics of wastewater agriculture in developing countries — covers more than 53 cities across Asia, Africa and Latin America. It explores why so many farmers use wastewater, as well as how the quality of such water impacts the food they grow.
Waste not, want not As growth in cities outpaces the capacity of urban infrastructure, many mid- to low-income farmers — for whom clean freshwater is either unavailable or too costly — turn to untreated wastewater as a solution, write study authors Liqa Rachid-Sally and Priyantha Jayakody. They note “the close relation between wastewater use and physical water scarcity.” Agriculture comprises over 70 percent of freshwater use worldwide. Of this percentage, at least 200 million farmers irrigate 20 million hectares (approximately 50 million acres) with wastewater.
There are benefits to doing so. Urban wastewater — made of domestic and industrial effluent, and run-off — actually contains nutrients that nourish food crops. The wastewater contains fertilizing nutrients, like nitrogen and phosphorus, most farmers cannot afford. The application of wastewater is also a simple way to prevent some surface water pollution.
In Colombo, Sri Lanka, wastewater and natural streams converge in the city center. The report shows that many residents — who lack access to treated water — rely on polluted run-off for their daily water needs.
In cities from Africa to Asia, wastewater provides poor families with financial security. It allows them to grow a variety of fresh and nutritious foods, improving their health. They sell the food in urban centers, which provides them with much needed income, as well as a chance to improve their livelihoods. Many of the 26 developing countries studied lack the infrastructure to transport and refrigerate produce. Informal urban farming that takes advantage of free and readily available wastewater for irrigation provides a local, affordable alternative.
But is it safe? Although it does produce significant benefits, wastewater irrigation undeniably puts the health of many who cannot afford medical care at risk. “While wastewater has the potential to serve as a hitherto untapped water and nutrient source for agriculture; where treatment is limited it also has the potential to affect human health and pollute large volumes of freshwater rendering them unfit for human uses,” the study states.
Substituting highly available and cost-free wastewater for exceedingly scarce and expensive fresh water seems to be a sustainable alternative, but just how safe is wastewater irrigation for those consuming the produce it saturates? IWMI’s latest research determines that the true risks remain unknown.
Parasites and pathogens thrive in feces, easily infecting those exposed through irrigation or consumption of unwashed produce.
In low-income countries with developing infrastructure, many farmers use untreated wastewater rich with raw sewage — which poses higher health threats to both growers and consumers. Parasites and pathogens thrive in feces, easily infecting those exposed through irrigation or consumption of unwashed produce. Aside from basic hygiene practices, urban farmers surveyed for the study demonstrated little direct knowledge of how untreated wastewater can impact human health. Consumers surveyed indicated that while they do wash their produce, it is often in the same untreated water.
Untreated wastewater not only directly threatens urban populations. It potentially adds elements to the soil that are harmful to people, elements which food crops then absorb. Such use can contribute negatively to watersheds, facilitating the transport of salt or polluting the surface and groundwater with microbiological contaminants.
The urban farmer’s way forward Yet, not everyone is unaware. Urban farmers from Burkina Faso to Nepal, Vietnam and Indonesia store untreated wastewater in tanks and ponds, allowing sediment to settle before use. They use their five senses to detect whether the water is pure enough. In Cambodia, farmers dilute dirty water with clean water. Chilean farmers in Santiago choose to grow crops that do not easily absorb specific pollutants.
Leaving such solutions up to the will of their citizens, few developing countries have outlined responses to deal with some of the risks of using wastewater to irrigate crops near and in urban centers. Of the 26 countries surveyed, only 12 say they follow guidelines to regulate wastewater use. Even where such use is forbidden, government offices rarely enforce regulation. In water-scarce Faisalabad, Pakistan use of untreated wastewater is banned, yet authorities auction off the polluted resource for great profits during dry seasons. In Nam Dinh, Vietnam the government pumps wastewater out of the drainage system for irrigation.
Major findings in the surveyed cities
Few people link exposure to wastewater with spreading diseases
Urban farmers who water crops with sewage earn more
Eight out of ten cities dump waste into waterways
Wastewater irrigates crops in least 80 percent of the cities
The health risks of using human waste in food production remain unknown
While water pollution poses a serious threat, treated wastewater could solve urban farmers’ irrigation dilemma. Tunisia, a country located in drought-fraught North Africa, integrates wastewater treatment into its national water resources management strategy. More than 62 plants treat Tunisia’s wastewater, which is then re-used to irrigate agriculture. While treated water still costs more than conventional water, the government subsidizes it to ensure that farmers can afford it.
For the millions who utilize free untreated wastewater to feed burgeoning cities, outlawing use does not sound like a realistic option. “From a livelihoods perspective therefore it must be remembered that extreme responses to minimizing risks from irrigated agriculture, like banning the use of polluted water, could have important adverse effects not only on farmers but also other sectors of the economy and society and urban food supply unless alternatives are made available,” the report concludes.
IWMI recommends that cities follow guidelines set out by the World Health Organization and FAO, which encourage safe use of wastewater — use that connects policy with improved sanitation. They also recommend separating domestic and industrial discharge. Rather than creating sophisticated agricultural infrastructure, they suggest taking better care of that which is already available.
The researchers conclude that, in the end, “a research gap clearly exists.” No one yet knows quite what the risks are. More research is needed to determine the actual impact untreated wastewater visits upon the millions of people worldwide who consume the produce it affords.
Sarah Haughn is a Circle of Blue staff writer and researcher. Reach her at circleofblue.org/contact.
EPA publishes a report on drinking water affordability and a status update on the health of the nation’s wetlands.
Congress funds the federal government and includes $100 billion for disaster relief.
White House report highlights federal opportunities to help communities who decide they want to move people away from climate risks or contaminated sites.
President Biden signs a bill to allow “Good Samaritans” to clean up abandoned hardrock mines without legal liability for the pollutants.
GAO assesses cloud seeding technology.
Federal judge orders Washington state dairies to address nitrate pollution of groundwater.
And lastly, the White House updates the country’s climate goals under the Paris climate agreement.
“The Biden-Harris administration may be about to leave office, but we’re confident in America’s ability to rally around this new climate goal, because while the United States federal government under President Trump may put climate action on the back burner, the work to contain climate change is going to continue in the United States with commitment and passion and belief. That’s not wishful thinking; it’s happened before.” – John Podesta, senior adviser to the president for international climate policy, announcing the country’s updated greenhouse gas emissions target.
By the Numbers
61 to 66 Percent: Range of greenhouse gas emissions reductions, compared to 2005 levels, that the United States intends to achieve by 2035. The pledge counts as the country’s “nationally determined contribution” under the Paris climate agreement. The White House believes the lower end of the range can be achieved without additional effort from the Trump administration. A senior administration official described the pledge as “ambitious…but realistic.”
News Briefs
Congress’s Last Acts The House and Senate avoided the hard decisions, passing a stop-gap bill to keep government operations funded through March 14, 2025, by maintaining current spending levels.
Avoiding a government shutdown was the main goal, but the bill contains other sweeteners, namely disaster relief and a one-year farm bill extension.
For disaster relief, some $100 billion will be distributed to various agencies to continue the federal response to drought, hurricane, and wildfire calamities from the last three years.
That amounts to $29 billion for FEMA’s disaster fund, and $20.8 billion for the U.S. Department of Agriculture to compensate farmers who incurred losses in 2023 and 2024. That includes Texas farmers who were hurt by Mexico’s insufficient deliveries of water to the Rio Grande. Farmers will be eligible for an additional $10 billion in economic aid.
In other action, Congress passed the Water Resources Development Act, the bill that authorizes Army Corps water projects like dams, ports, and environmental restoration.
A program to help endangered and threatened fish in the Upper Colorado and San Juan river basins was reauthorized as part of a defense spending bill.
And President Biden signed a bill to quicken the pace of abandoned hardrock mine cleanups by allowing “Good Samaritans” to do so without incurring legal liability for the pollutants.
Nitrate Contamination of Groundwater in Washington State A federal judge ruled in favor of the EPA in the agency’s legal battle with Washington state farmers over nitrate contamination of groundwater in the Yakima Valley.
The valley, a high-value agricultural region, is home to numerous dairies. Thomas Rice, a judge from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington, granted the EPA’s preliminary injunction.
The injunction orders dairy operators to test household well water in the affected area and provide alternative water to those whose wells are polluted with nitrate above the federal standard; monitor groundwater for nitrate; and prevent manure lagoons from leaking pollutants.
Fourteen dairy operations or people who own property where manure is spread are named in the lawsuit.
Stored in lagoons and spread on fields, these animal wastes contain nitrogen that seeps into shallow groundwater that is used as a drinking water source by homes with private wells. Water with high concentrations of nitrate can be deadly to infants. Recent research has connected lower levels of nitrate with a risk of certain cancers and babies born prematurely.
The EPA first took action against some of these dairies in 2013, after the agency found nitrate levels in household wells in the Yakima Valley above the federal drinking water standard. The lawsuit alleges that the dairies failed to stop polluting and that nitrate “hot spots” persist near farm fields and manure lagoons.
Water Affordability Between 12.1 million and 19.2 million U.S. households do not have affordable water services, according to an EPA report. It is the agency’s first national assessment of drinking water and wastewater affordability.
Ordered by Congress, the report also estimated the amount of household water bills that are unaffordable. The national total for that is between $5.1 billion and $8.8 billion.
The report notes various factors that influence water service affordability – how rates are set, how utilities are funded, infrastructure needs and operations costs – but it points out that a national water affordability program funded by taxpayers is one tool for addressing the problem.
Wetland Health The EPA’s latest report card on the nation’s 81 million acres of wetlands showed mixed results for the biological, physical, and chemical health of these essential water bodies.
Most wetlands are in poor condition for the 13 indicators tracked in the report.
Some of those indicators are stable. There was little change over a five-year period for vegetation and non-native plants.
A few are improving. Wetlands rated in good condition for nitrogen increased by 8 percentage points.
But many are stuck in an unsatisfactory place. Detections of microcystin, a liver toxin produced by cyanobacteria, jumped. Some 82 percent of wetlands are in poor or fair condition for their physical integrity. This relates to damage from water diversions, dredging, pavement, and removal of plant cover. Such actions have been made easier following the Sackett decision, a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that reduced federal wetlands protections.
The report card is based on measurements taken in 2021 and 2022.
Climate Migration The White House published a report on federal opportunities to assist “community-driven relocation,” which happens when a community decides it wants to move people or assets away from areas threatened by climate risks – flooding, erosion, wildfire – or contaminated sites.
The report views the federal role as one that facilitates and funds, providing technical and planning support as well as financial assistance. It aims to be proactive, responding before situations reach the crisis stage.
Traditionally, the federal government has aided relocation through property buyouts. But agencies are also being more forward-thinking. Since November they have provided $135 million to 11 Indian tribes and Alaskan Native Villages to pursue relocation of infrastructure assets and people.
Make It Rain The federal government has little involvement in cloud seeding, the act of inducing rain from clouds typically by injecting particles of silver iodide. Nonetheless, the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, assessed the technology and offered policy options.
Nine states use cloud seeding while 10 states have banned the practice or are considering a ban, the GAO found.
The report outlines ways for the federal government to become more involved. That could be through research and development, monitoring and oversight, permitting, and education.
Circle of Blue director J. Carl Ganter attends a session on water stewardship at the 2013 World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden. Click image to enlarge.
STOCKHOLM, Sweden — It’s one of the world’s greatest failings. How do we bring safe water, sanitation, and health to the billions of people around the world who live on the edge of basic survival?
Here at World Water Week, the annual summit of summits on water, the conversation is about partnership and moving toward systemic responses to the water and sanitation (WASH) crisis. But what will it take to really reach water and sanitation for all?
From Skoll World Forum, here are provocative perspectives from six preeminent do-ers in the field.
At an April press conference, the president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, held up a handwritten number and announced, “2030. This is it. This is the global target to end poverty.” That historic moment also served to underscore some of the dilemmas [that] actors in the WASH sector grapple with. How do we establish audacious, yet realistic goals? How do we announce an ambitious goal, such as full water and sanitation coverage in a number of countries and have confidence that we have a reasonable chance of achieving it?
The agency will evaluate the hazards from agriculture’s primary water pollutant.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, reversing a Trump-era decision, is restarting a human health assessment of nitrate and nitrite, a move that has potentially far-reaching regulatory implications for one of the country’s most pervasive drinking water contaminants.
The EPA suspended its nitrate assessment in December 2018. It was one of nine chemicals that the Trump administration deemed no longer a priority for evaluation by the agency’s health assessment division known as the Integrated Risk Information System, or IRIS.
That changed in June when the EPA quietly reinserted the nitrate assessment into the IRIS agenda “to address an agency priority.”
The decision to take a closer look at the chemical comes at a time of increased scrutiny and public concern over nitrate exposure and human health. Nitrate forms when nitrogen is exposed to oxygen in the air. An exponential increase in the use of synthetic, nitrogen-based fertilizers since 1950 supercharged the production of corn and soybeans. The number of large livestock feeding operations — and the amount of manure they produce — also increased rapidly.
Nutrients are essential to crop production. But the convergence of high rates of chemical fertilizer use and immense manure production led to well-documented risks to human health and the environment. In addition to generating heat-trapping greenhouse gases, over-application of nitrogen-rich fertilizer and manure contributed to steadily rising levels of nitrate in streams and groundwater, particularly in the 11 Corn Belt states across the Great Lakes and Midwest, California’s Central Valley, North Carolina, and Washington’s Yakima Valley.
The federal environmental agency’s attention to the hazards of exposure to nitrate has been historically feeble. Evidence of widespread nitrate contamination in surface waters, and in groundwater used as a source for drinking, has been documented for decades by the U.S. Geological Survey, and many state health and environmental departments. The federal environmental agency has left it up to the states to oversee nitrate contamination, which is growing steadily worse.
One of the primary sources of nitrate pollution is large livestock feeding operations, which produce some 1.4 billion tons of liquid and solid manure annually, according to the most recent accounting by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Nitrogen-rich feces and urine, untreated, is spread across 19 million acres of farmland annually, where it drains into streams, rivers, lakes, and groundwater.
The EPA last proposed to strengthen regulations on livestock operations and waste management practices in 2008. Those rules were challenged by the American Farm Bureau Federation and other big agriculture trade associations and struck down by the federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2011.
In 2017, and again in 2022, state and national environmental and health organizations petitioned the EPA to more carefully regulate large livestock feeding operations to limit water contamination. In August, the agency denied the petition but pledged to form a federal advisory committee next year. The advisory group will be charged to study pollution generated by large animal feeding operations, and is expected to take 12 to 18 months to conclude its work.
The risks from exposure to nitrate are real. Studies conducted in Denmark and the United States have shown nitrate in drinking water to be associated with higher rates of birth defects, pre-term birth, and low birth weight, as well as a number of cancers and thyroid disease in adults. Those associations are present at nitrate concentrations both above and, in some cases, below the federal health standard for nitrate in drinking water of 10 parts per million that was set in 1962 by the Public Health Service and later codified under the Safe Drinking Water Act in 1991.
The restarted IRIS nitrate assessment, last updated more than three decades ago, is a direct result of this accumulated evidence of harm. IRIS initially agreed to re-evaluate nitrate in 2015 at the request of EPA Region 5 and the Office of Water, which wanted updated health information to inform its periodic reviews of federal drinking water regulations. IRIS reports provide the scientific foundation for federal regulation. Nitrate and nitrite will be evaluated together because they are chemically and metabolically related.
Last year, the Office of Water, Region 5, and the Office of Children’s Health Protection re-nominated nitrate for an IRIS assessment, the agency’s press office told Circle of Blue.
Though important, don’t expect the assessment to arrive quickly, says Ila Cote, a former EPA senior science adviser in the office that oversees IRIS. Under a fast track, the process of drafting, reviewing, responding to comments, and finalizing an assessment can take four years, Cote told Circle of Blue. Controversial assessments, as the nitrate assessment will be because it affects such a powerful industry, can take longer.
“It’s so laborious you can’t hardly believe it,” she said.
IRIS is currently in the early stages of the nitrate assessment. The agency expects to release a “systematic review protocol” by the end of the year. Cote said this is an outline of methods and key studies that will be considered. The agency has not set a date for completing the assessment, which will focus on five nitrate compounds that represent main sources of exposure through drinking water and food.
A Broader Analysis
IRIS last reviewed nitrate toxicity in 1991. That assessment resulted in an “oral reference dose,” or the amount of a substance that a person can ingest without harm. The oral reference dose was based only on blue baby syndrome in infants, not on other health problems.
The updated assessment will widen the scope. It will examine both the cancer risk of nitrate and the effects on the reproductive system, metabolism, development, thyroid, and blood.
Cote said that new data generally results in more conservative estimates of how much of a chemical a person can be exposed to before being harmed.
In its study plan, the EPA noted challenges with conducting the assessment. Nitrate is a complex contaminant to evaluate because exposure comes not just from drinking water but from food, especially green, leafy vegetables. What’s more, the damage from nitrate is indirect. It is converted in the body to nitrite, which can then react to form harmful nitroso compounds. These conversions are affected by an individual’s diet.
Another obstacle is that relatively few nitrate studies have been published, said Leslie Stayner, a professor emeritus of epidemiology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Researchers prefer to have a large sample from which to draw conclusions about causality.
Despite the analytical complexity, the implications of the nitrate assessment point squarely at the federal drinking water standard.
The nitrate standard was set at 10 parts per million to protect infants from suffocating due to blue baby syndrome. Exposure to high levels of nitrate in the first months of life impairs the blood’s ability to carry oxygen. The skin of ill infants, deprived of oxygen, takes on a bluish pallor. The nitrate standard protects against blue baby syndrome, but it does not address chronic effects from long-term exposure or outcomes to newborns from exposure in the womb.
That’s a problem, Stayner said.
“There’s growing evidence of adverse effects in children exposed in utero and among adults,” Stayner told Circle of Blue. His research in Denmark, based on a million child births, found nitrate exposure while the mother was pregnant is associated with higher risk of reduced birth weight, preterm births, and birth defects of the eye and central nervous system. These associations are present when exposures are below the current EPA standard.
The nitrate standard remains one of the most violated federal drinking water rules. And nitrate is one of the most widespread contaminants in drinking water. An EPA analysis found that nitrate was detected in 70 percent of public drinking water systems, at a median concentration of 2 to 3 parts per million.
The updated IRIS assessment will not automatically lower the federal drinking water standard. That requires a separate rulemaking process that weighs the cost of installing equipment to remove nitrate against the potential to reduce health risks and the public health benefit of a stricter standard.
The Nepalese government plans to improve sanitation access to combat water-borne diseases, while the monsoon season further complicates health problems in the country.
Twenty people have died from water-borne diseases while more than 400 cases of acute watery diarrhea have been recorded so far this year in Nepal, according to IRIN.
While the South Asian country has the second largest freshwater resource in the world it suffers from limited drinking water sources due to pollution and disease. Roughly 15 million people, about half the population, face drinking water shortages, while another 5 million don’t have access to safe drinking water, according to the Federation of Drinking Water and Sanitation Users Nepal, an organization that monitors water and sanitation. And with monsoon season in full effect–it runs from about mid-April to mid-October–major drinking water problems are worsening. In 2009, Nepal recorded 370 deaths and 67,000 cases of AWD during the six-month period, according to the Nepal Red Cross. Women, children and the elderly are often the most effected.
To combat these illnesses, the Nepalese government intends to expand access to toilets from 14.4 million to 19 million people by 2011, the The Himalayan reports.
Flooding, unsanitary dumping, agriculture and political confrontation have lead to further pollution of ground and surface water as well as a damaged water infrastructure.
“With water sources drying up, erratic rainfall and poor management of water resources, the problems are worsening every year,” said Prakash Amatya the director of NGO Forum for Urban Water & Sanitation.
More than 80 percent of diseases reported in Nepal stem from unsafe drinking water and poor hygiene, according to a 2009 report released by Water Aid, an international NGO that strives to improve water access and sanitation for communities. The report, End Water Poverty, reveals that 10,500 children die before the age of five every year from diseases contracted from unsafe water, which includes dysentery, hepatitis and cholera.
“This situation could affect a large number of families who have already been reeling under the immense water shortage situation over the last many years,” Ajaya Dixit, director of the Nepal Water Conservation Foundation, a non-partisan NGO that researches water issues in the Himalaya-Ganga region, told IRIN.
Meanwhile communities higher up in the Himalayas have limited access to the five tributaries of the River Ganges that serve as Nepal’s main water sources. These people live on less than 5 liters of water per person per day, according to a 2004 report from the University in Kathmandu.
Water deficiencies contribute to political turmoil both within Nepal and the region itself, according to Dan Smith, the secretary general of International Alert, an independent peace building organization that works in more than 20 countries.
Nepal is embedded between India and China, which also have large agriculture demands that consume a majority of the Himalayan water. A recently proposed Indian dam project on the trans-boundary Kosi River that is a tributary of the Ganges river, has caused political and social uproar within Nepal, reports The Himalayan.
Summary:Zooplankton like copepods aren’t just fish food—they’re carbon-hauling powerhouses. By diving deep into the ocean each winter, they’re secretly stashing 65 million tonnes of carbon far below the surface, helping fight climate change in a way scientists are only just starting to understand.
Each year, swarms of tiny zooplankton dive deep and silently trap millions of tons of carbon in the ocean’s depths, a natural climate solution we’ve barely noticed until now. Credit: Shutterstock
A groundbreaking study has revealed that small but mighty zooplankton — including copepods, krill, and salps — are key players in the Southern Ocean’s ability to absorb and store carbon.
Led by an international team of researchers, and published in Limnology and Oceanography, the study quantifies for the first time how these tiny creatures collectively enhance carbon sequestration through their seasonal, vertical migrations.
The Southern Ocean is a key region for carbon storage. Traditional thinking is that the carbon storage in the Southern Ocean is dominated by gravitational sinking of detritus produced by large zooplankton grazers, such as krill.
This new research concerns another more recently described process called the ‘seasonal migrant pump’. This process sees zooplankton migrate each year from surface waters to depths below 500m, storing carbon via their respiration and mortality during this deep overwintering phase.
This figure shows the traditional view of how zooplankton transport carbon to depth (left panel) by eating phytoplankton in surface waters in summer, whereby their waste material (Particulate Organic Carbon, POC) sinks passively to great depth, thereby storing the carbon for thousands of years. This new study shows that a winter process known as the ‘seasonal migrant pump’ also leads to a substantial deep carbon storage (right panel). The zooplankton migrate downwards in autumn to overwinter below 500m where their respiration and death directly inject around 65 million tonnes of carbon annually into the deep ocean.
The team first built a big database of zooplankton collected in thousands of net hauls from around the Southern Ocean, dating from the 1920s to the present day. From these they quantified the extent of the zooplankton’s annual descent to overwinter at great depths, where they respire CO2 — directly and efficiently injecting carbon into the deep ocean.
Key Findings:
65 Million Tonnes of Carbon Stored Annually: The seasonal, vertical migration of zooplankton transports roughly 65 million tonnes of carbon to depths below 500 meters.
Copepods Dominate the ‘Seasonal Migrant Pump’: Mesozooplankton (mainly small crustaceans called copepods) account for 80% of this carbon flux, while krill and salps contribute 14% and 6%, respectively.
Climate Implications: The Southern Ocean is a critical carbon sink, but current Earth System Models overlook this zooplankton-driven process. As warming shifts species distributions (e.g., declining krill, increasing copepods, changing food sources), the carbon storage dynamics may change dramatically.
Why does the ‘Seasonal Migrant Pump’ matter:
The Southern Ocean absorbs approximately 40% of all human-made CO2 taken up by oceans, yet the role of zooplankton has been underestimated. Unlike sinking detritus, which removes both carbon and essential nutrients like iron, migrating zooplankton efficiently inject carbon into the deep ocean while recycling nutrients near the surface. This ‘Seasonal Migrant Pump’ could become even more important as marine ecosystems respond to climate change.
Dr Guang Yang, first author and Marine Ecologist from Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, said: “Our work shows that zooplankton are unsung heroes of carbon sequestration. Their seasonal migrations create a massive, previously unquantified carbon flux — one that models must now incorporate.”
Prof. Angus Atkinson MBE, co-author and Senior Marine Ecologist at Plymouth Marine Laboratory, added: “This study is the first to estimate the total magnitude of this carbon storage mechanism. It shows the value of large data compilations to unlock new insights and to get an overview of the relative importance of carbon storage mechanisms.”
Dr Katrin Schmidt, co-author and Marine Ecologist at the University of Plymouth, said: “The study shows the ‘seasonal migrant pump’ as an important pathway of natural carbon sequestration in polar regions. Protecting these migrants and their habitats will help to mitigate climate change.”
Dr Jen Freer, co-author and Ecological Modeller at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), added: “Krill are famous for their role in the Antarctic food web, but we find that copepods significantly dominate carbon storage overwinter. This has big implications as the ocean warms and their habitats may shift.”
This research stresses the urgent need for updates to climate models to include zooplankton-driven carbon fluxes. It also highlights the necessity to manage and protect Southern Ocean ecosystems, where industrial fishing and warming threaten krill populations — a key species that supports both carbon export and Antarctica’s unique biodiversity.
This international study was a collaboration among scientists from China, UK, and Canada, and leverages a century’s worth of data on zooplankton biomass, distribution, respiration and mortality across the Southern Ocean.
