North Carolina has water safety problem

March 27, 2006

North Carolina reportedly is not adequately protecting the state's residents from unsafe drinking water containing arsenic, bacteria or other contaminates.

Jessica Miles, chief of the North Carolina Public Water Supply Section's 98 employees, says she has been overwhelmed trying to monitor safety tests required of nearly 7,000 public water systems, the Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer reported Monday. She said thousands of small systems are not performing testing and the state has been unable to force compliance.

North Carolina has more public water systems than any other Southern state and double the national average, the newspaper said, noting most are small mom-and-pop operations serving a few dozen to a few hundred people in rural areas.

Miles says more than 40 percent of North Carolina's 6.5 million public water system customers drank water last year that had not been properly tested for various contaminants or, if the water was tested, it flunked.

Miles told the News & Observer she has confidence in the large public water systems, but if she were on the road in a rural area she might not drink from a water fountain.

Copyright 2006 by United Press International

3.4 /5 (5 votes)  

Rank 3.4 /5 (5 votes)
Tags

Relevant PhysicsForums posts

More news stories

Land and sea species differ in climate change response: study

(Phys.org) -- Marine and terrestrial species will likely differ in their responses to climate warming, new research by Simon Fraser University and Australia’s University of Tasmania has found.

Space & Earth / Environment

created 7 hours ago | popularity 3.8 / 5 (4) | comments 5 | with audio podcast

Yale study concludes public apathy over climate change unrelated to science literacy

Are members of the public divided about climate change because they don't understand the science behind it? If Americans knew more basic science and were more proficient in technical reasoning, would public consensus match ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created 9 hours ago | popularity 4.8 / 5 (5) | comments 20 | with audio podcast

10 million years needed to recover from mass extinction

It took some 10 million years for Earth to recover from the greatest mass extinction of all time, latest research has revealed.

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created 9 hours ago | popularity 4 / 5 (4) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Sophisticated simulations predict future warming

The chances of our planet being hit by a global warming of 3 degrees Celsius by 2050 is as likely as it being hit by an increase of 1.4 degrees, new research shows. Presented in the journal Nature Geoscience, the British study ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created May 22, 2012 | popularity 3.8 / 5 (11) | comments 51

Aliens don't want to eat us, says former SETI director

Alien life probably isn’t interested in having us for dinner, enslaving us or laying eggs in our bellies, according to a recent statement by former SETI director Jill Tarter.

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created May 25, 2012 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (15) | comments 41


Stunning image of smallest possible five-ringed structure

Scientists have created and imaged the smallest possible five-ringed structure – about 100,000 times thinner than a human hair – and you'll probably recognise its shape.

'Unzipped' carbon nanotubes could help energize fuel cells, batteries

Multi-walled carbon nanotubes riddled with defects and impurities on the outside could replace some of the expensive platinum catalysts used in fuel cells and metal-air batteries, according to scientists at ...

Change in developmental timing was crucial in the evolutionary shift from dinosaurs to birds: study

At first glance, it's hard to see how a common house sparrow and a Tyrannosaurus Rex might have anything in common. After all, one is a bird that weighs less than an ounce, and the other is a dinosaur that ...

Computer model used to pinpoint prime materials for efficient carbon capture

When power plants begin capturing their carbon emissions to reduce greenhouse gases – and to most in the electric power industry, it's a question of when, not if – it will be an expensive undertaking.

T cells 'hunt' parasites like animal predators seek prey, study shows

By pairing an intimate knowledge of immune-system function with a deep understanding of statistical physics, a cross-disciplinary team at the University of Pennsylvania has arrived at a surprising finding: T cells use a movement ...

Scientists develop ultra-sensitive test that detects diseases in their earliest stages

Scientists have developed an ultra-sensitive test that should enable them to detect signs of a disease in its earliest stages, in research published today in the journal Nature Materials.