The United States abstains from declaring safe water and sanitation as a basic human right.

To much to loose?

Today is a day worth noting in human history. I have long been an advocate for declaring safe water as a basic human right; along with the other two necessities for sustaining life- safe food & safe air. It’s the trinity of survival; Air, Water, Food; everything else is non-essential. I believe that as a species this trinity of survival should be an inalienable right for all human beings; regardless of cost or degree of challenge.

41 county’s chose to abstain. I am eager to hear the reasoning behind the decisions. I would venture to make an educated guess and preempt the coming disclosures as being politically motivated on behalf of the citizens. They will proclaim inadequacies and lack of clearly defined rolls and responsibilities governments. The reasons will be relative to potential liabilities, costs and burdens. What you won’t hear is how they don’t want to loose their rights to sell water or relinquish control of it for profit and power.

UN record of vote and comments:

Introducing a draft resolution on the human right to water and sanitation (document A/64/L.63/Rev.1), the representative of Bolivia said that human right had not been fully recognized, despite

The Truth About Fracking (By Brita Belli)

Hydrofraking is ruins water supplies sources at the expense of communities. Loopholes must be closed. Which side of the fence will Obama land on? Does our government have the power to control big oil.
The Truth About Fracking (By Brita Belli)

AP
Www.AskAquaPro.com, www.AquaProSolutions.com, www.AquaEnvvi.org, www.H2oEasy.com

ENVIRO-NEWS

EPA Water Headlines; week of July 12, 2010

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Makuch, Joseph" <Joseph.Makuch@ars.usda.gov>
Date: Jul 13, 2010 10:27 AM
Subject: [ENVIRO-NEWS] EPA Water Headlines for the week of July 12, 2010
To: <Enviro-News@ars.usda.gov>

-----Original Message-----
From: Amy Han [mailto:han.amy@epamail.epa.gov]
Sent: Monday, July 12, 2010 7:01 PM
Subject: [waterheadlines] Water Headlines for the week of July 12, 2010

Water Headlines for the week of July 12, 2010

Water Headlines is a weekly on-line publication that announces
publications, policies, and activities of the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency's Office of Water

In This Week's Water Headlines:

1) New Consumer Campaign Kicks off: We're for Water
2) Drinking Water Strategy Web Dialogue: A New Framework for Addressing
Contaminants as Group(s)
3) EPA Seeking Public Comment and Input on Requests to Revise the
Performance Standards for Marine Sanitation Devices
[deletions]

1) New Consumer Campaign Kicks off: We're for Water
EPA's WaterSense(r) program will kick off the new multi-year We're for
Water campaign July 14, 2010 to educate consumers about water-saving
behaviors and WaterSense labeled products.

We're for Water shows consumers that saving water can be as easy as
check, twist, replace.
1.      Check toilets for silent leaks, which can waste enough water
each year to fill a backyard swimming pool.
2.      Twist on a WaterSense labeled bathroom faucet aerator to save
water and energy at the tap without noticing a difference in flow.
3.      Replace old, inefficient showerheads with WaterSense labeled
models that use less water and energy, but provide a shower with power.

Consumers are encouraged to adopt one or all of these water-saving
behaviors and take the "I'm for Water" pledge on the WaterSense website.

Follow Flo, the We're for Water "spokesgallon," as she takes a road trip
across the country to launch the campaign and educate people about water
efficiency at www.epa.gov/watersense/wereforwater or
www.facebook.com/epawatersense .

2) Drinking Water Strategy Web Dialogue: A New Framework for Addressing
Contaminants as Group(s)
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator,
Lisa P. Jackson, has outlined four principles to provide greater
protection of drinking water, one of which is to address contaminants as
group(s).

On July 28-29, EPA will hold a web dialogue focused on addressing
contaminants as group(s). EPA welcomes your input on approaches EPA
should consider when developing a framework to group contaminants.  This
dialogue will provide an opportunity for participants to exchange
information and share ideas. EPA will consider the feedback from this
Web dialogue and information from this exchange as it develops the
agenda for the upcoming Drinking Water Strategy stakeholder meeting and
the framework for addressing contaminants as group(s).

Register for the July 28-29 web dialogue at
www.webdialogues.net/epa/dwcontaminantgroups

For more information on the four principles of the Drinking Water
Strategy, visit www.epa.gov/safewater/sdwa/dwstrategy.html

3) EPA Seeking Public Comment and Input on Requests to Revise the
Performance Standards for Marine Sanitation Devices
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) received a petition and
another separate request (collectively, "rulemaking requests") to revise
its regulations establishing performance standards for marine sanitation
devices (MSDs) (devices that treat vessel sewage) pursuant to the
Agency's authority under section 312(b)(1) of the Clean Water Act (CWA).
The rulemaking petition also requests that EPA establish monitoring,
recordkeeping and reporting requirements under the CWA to ensure
compliance with the performance standards.

EPA published a Federal Register (FR) Notice to make the public aware of
the issues raised in the rulemaking requests and to obtain the public's
input, in the form of comment and relevant information, to help EPA
determine appropriate action in response to the requests.  EPA has not
made a decision on whether to grant or deny either rulemaking request,
and is not making any changes to the MSD performance standards at this
time.

The FR Notice is titled "Clean Water Act Section 312(b): Notice Seeking
Stakeholder Input on Petition and Other Request to Revise the
Performance Standards for Marine Sanitation Devices", and is posted at
http://www.epa.gov/owow/oceans/regulatory/frnotice_marinesanitation.html
.

Comments in response to this FR Notice must be received on or before
November 9, 2010.
[deletions]

***********************************************
Enviro-News is a service of the Water Quality
Information Center at the National Agricultural
Library.  The center's Web site is at
http://www.nal.usda.gov/wqic/.

The Enviro-News list facilitates information exchange.
Inclusion of an item in Enviro-News does not imply
United States Department of Agriculture(USDA) agreement,
nor does USDA attest to the accuracy or completeness of
the item. See
http://www.nal.usda.gov/wqic/environews.shtml#disclaimer
You can contact the list owner at
owner-Enviro-News@ars.usda.gov.
***********************************************

BP's Oil is in our food chain!

It's time to pay close attention to where your seafood comes from.
One very troubling aspect of the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico is that the direct and indirect environmental effects will be felt all over the world and for decades to come. Only two months in and we are seeing the oil entering our food chain!




This is a bottom up scenario and humans are at the top. This problem alone could have devastating effects on our economy and health. What we are witnessing in the lower ranks of the food chain will become our experience as we continue to see the oil penetrate into every aspect of our food and water sources. Today as they again try to cap this well it is to late to prevent what will surely be devastating to marine life. Ohhhh the shame of it; but does BP care, and will they be held responsible? Not likely unless we  make it so! I have little faith that our government will hold BP fully accountable.
What do you think?   


AP
AquaPro@AskaquaPro.com  

ENVIRO-NEWS: EPA Arsenic Research

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Makuch, Joseph" <Joseph.Makuch@ars.usda.gov>
Date: Jul 1, 2010 11:27 AM
Subject: [ENVIRO-NEWS] EPA Arsenic Research
To: <Enviro-News@nal.usda.gov>

From: Peggy Heimbrock [mailto:heimbrock.peggy@epamail.epa.gov]
Sent: Thursday, July 01, 2010 8:30 AM
Subject: [nrmrl] NRMRL News - July 2010

From Lab to Consumer-EPA Research at Work

Some environmental scientists never see the end result of their work;
typically, their findings become a piece of a larger puzzle. But for
drinking water specialists at EPA's National Risk Management Research
Laboratory, the effort to discover the best available technology for
arsenic removal in small communities can be readily traced from the
laboratory studies to the actual adoption by local water utilities.

Background

Arsenic is an odorless, tasteless element that enters ground water
drinking sources (wells) through erosion of natural deposits or from
human-made sources such as agricultural and industrial runoff. Arsenic
is a human carcinogen. Chronic exposure to low levels of arsenic has
been linked to skin, kidney, lung and bladder cancers, as well as
neurological and cardiovascular effects. The 1974 Safe Drinking Water
Act lead to an EPA allowable limit for arsenic in drinking water of 50
parts per billion (0.05 milligrams per liter). By the 1990s,
increasingly sophisticated detection techniques and health effects
research had established a need for more stringent controls. A new,
lower level of 10 parts per billion, established by EPA in 2001,
impacted around 5,000 water systems, the majority of them small systems
serving fewer than 10,000 people.

Out of the Lab . . .

Recognizing the technical and financial burden the new standard could
impose on small drinking water systems, EPA, with additional
Congressional earmark funding, conducted a technology demonstration
program to test a variety of arsenic-removal technologies in small
systems across the country. Beginning in 2003, EPA drinking water
specialists worked with communities at 50 sites in 27 states to select
an optimum removal technology. The selection depended on variables such
as the quality of the local source waters, the estimated capital and
operating cost, the quantity and type of waste produced and the disposal
options available.

Into the Field. . .

The majority of the sites were located in the northern and western
states; they varied from the very small (treating 10 gallons per minute)
to the largest (treating 640 gallons per minute). Because it is simple
and cost effective to operate, the most commonly selected technology (55
per cent) was adsorptive media in which arsenic adsorbs to media for
subsequent removal. Other technologies selected included
coagulation/filtration, iron removal, reverse osmosis, ion exchange and
point-of-use. With 10 different media products selected for study, the
total number of technologies evaluated amounted to around 20.
The demonstration projects lasted from one year to as long as five
years. While local utilities handled the actual operation of the
selected test systems, EPA researchers and contractors:

*       Contributed advice and support during equipment installation,
shakedown and operation

*       Analyzed water samples collected weekly or monthly through the
whole treatment train(s) and from the distribution system receiving the
treated water

*       Evaluated long-term performance data on the technology
*       Developed long-term cost and operational data used to support
management decisions

*       Developed detailed project reports for each test site (60-plus
reports)

*       Made more than 50 presentations at training courses, conferences
and meetings with government permitting agencies, water utility
officials, technology vendors, and other stakeholders

And Beyond. . .

Concurrent with the full-scale, "real-world" testing of the arsenic
demonstration program, NRMRL researchers conducted lab and pilot studies
on ways to reduce costs and improve the performance of the technologies.
In one example, lab and pilot testing of onsite regeneration of the
media led to substantial reductions in the operational cost of the
adsorptive media process. Following the successful testing, which showed
that regeneration works, the State of California approved the technique
for a full-scale demonstration at Twentynine Palms, CA. Success at this
site led to a second full-scale test at a demonstration project in New
Hampshire. Other utilities have now expressed interest in the process.

In another example, pilot testing of a pretreatment system to remove
iron and oxidize arsenic III to arsenic V in a one-column system led a
vendor to modify its proposed adsorptive media system to include the
pretreatment system. At an EPA demonstration site in Utah, the
pretreatment step proposed by NRMRL researchers has been extremely
effective and found to extend the life of the adsorptive media treatment
system, thereby reducing operational costs. In many cases, adoption of
the demonstrated technology has speeded the state permitting process by
as much as two years.

These projects are unique in that they show EPA researchers at work-not
only in the laboratory, but also in the on-site application of research
results and their real-world impacts on communities.

For more information, please go to the Arsenic Research website <
http://www.epa.gov/nrmrl/wswrd/dw/arsenic >.

Contact
Jane Ice <mailto:ice.jane@epa.gov> , NRMRL Office of Public Affairs
(513) 569-7311

[deletions]

***********************************************
Enviro-News is a service of the Water Quality
Information Center at the National Agricultural
Library.  The center's Web site is at
http://www.nal.usda.gov/wqic/.

The Enviro-News list facilitates information exchange.
Inclusion of an item in Enviro-News does not imply
United States Department of Agriculture(USDA) agreement,
nor does USDA attest to the accuracy or completeness of
the item. See
http://www.nal.usda.gov/wqic/environews.shtml#disclaimer
You can contact the list owner at
owner-Enviro-News@ars.usda.gov.
***********************************************

Yahoo! Answers: Aqua Pro sent you a question

Hi,

Concerned about conditions in the Gulf of Mexico

Should we leave FL? This oil is going to ruin our lives!?

Aqua Pro

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