Big Berkey Water Filters

With a new report released last week, the Environment Integrity Project unveiled more evidence that waste from coal-fired power plants is contaminating drinking water across the country. The report, Risky Business, lists 19 new sites near coal ash ponds and landfills where groundwater testing revealed arsenic or other contamination at levels that violate the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Coal Ash Contaminates Groundwater

“The Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) has been collecting evidence of groundwater contamination near coal ash ponds and landfills for several years, and the more we look, the more we find,” the group writes. “Since 2010, EIP has identified 90 coal ash ponds and landfills with groundwater contamination that have been overlooked in reports prepared by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).”  Coal ash contamination is a serious ongoing issue that we continue to cover.

Coal ash is a very fine dust that gets caught in the pollution control equipment of coal-fired power plants. Coal ash contains a number of toxic heavy metals, including arsenic, lead and mercury, as well as cancer-causing dioxins and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) compounds.

Federal Coal Ash Waste Regulation Pending

EIP is one of many groups that has been asking The Environmental Protection Agency to better regulate the disposal and recycling of ash, which is often stored as sludge in holding ponds near power plants. A disastrous collapse of the dam holding a pond owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority dumped somewhere between 525 million to 1 billion gallons of coal ash sludge 6 feet deep over 400 acres of homes and farmland and into the Emory River.

Arial Footage of 2008 TVA Coal Ash Spill

So far, the federal government has left regulation of ash disposal to the states but EPA has been working on a set of federal regulations for several years. In 2010, the agency began taking comments on proposed rules but the outcome is far from certain. Earlier this year, the U.S. House of Representatives voted on a bill that, if passed by the Senate and signed into law, would block any such regulations.

“We already have here a clear and present danger to America’s public health; it is no solution for Congress to hand authority for addressing the problem permanently to states that have refused to enforce common-sense standards for the past 30 years and hope that the whole problem then somehow goes away,â€� said EIP’s Coal Combustion Waste Initiative Director Jeff Stant.

Report Identifies 20 New Sites of Coal Ash Water Contamination

By state, the sites identified in the report are:

• Illinois (7): Dallman Power Station, Joliet Station, Joppa Plant, Meredosia Power Station, Pearl Station, Powerton Station, and Waukegan Station;
• South Carolina (3): Cross Station, McMeekin Station, and Winyah Station;
• Iowa (2): Fair Station and Prairie Creek Generating Station;
• Texas (2): Coleto Creek Station and W.A. Parish Station;
• Florida (1): Plant Crist;
• Georgia (1): Plant Yates;
• Indiana (1): soil at an urban rail trail in Bloomington;
• Kentucky (1): Paradise Fossil Plant;
• Nevada (1): North Valmy Station; and
• Tennessee: (1) Allen Fossil Plant.

For the full text of the report, check out the Environmental Integrity Project website.

Water utilities nationwide may have to test drinking water for 28 additional contaminants, including perfluorochemicals (PFCs), currently unregulated by federal law according to the Environmental Protection Agency plans. A complete list of contaminants is expected to be published next year and the tests are planned to start in 2013.

PFC’s - What Are They?

On the EPA’s list there are six perfluorochemicals (PFCs). PFCs are used in the production of fluoropolymers - these are toxic industrial chemicals widely used by various industries for over 60 years to make products resistant to stains, oil, grease and water. They are commonly used in non-stick cookware, grease-resistant coatings (e.g. fast food wrappers or microwave popcorn bags) in stain-resistant textile coatings and some other industrial applications. Some of these products are made of chemicals breaking down into PFCs in the environment and inside human body.

Perfluorochemicals can be also found in carpet and furniture treatments, sprays for leather, paints and cleaning products and in shampoos and floor waxes.

Perfluorochemicals do not occur naturally in the environment – they are all man-made. Wastes from the PFCs production as well as from other processes in which these chemicals are involved have been placed in several disposal sites across the country.

Perfluorochemical Contamination and the Environment

PFCs are very longstanding in the environment. They can easily enter groundwater and move long distances. Some scientists suggest that PFCs can travel in air, lay down on soil and leach into groundwater.

There has not been a comprehensive survey conducted on the scale of PFC pollution nationwide, but water agencies, scientists, and environmental organizations has recorded pollution of drinking and source water in PFCs in 11 states. It is still not clear if PFCs can be released from products when being used.

The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention have detected traces of PFCs in blood of almost all Americans over 12 years old. People get exposed to PFCs though food, water, products or from the environment. Environmental Working Group tests carried on new-born babies have confirmed the presence of perfluorochemicals in the serum, meaning they had been exposed to PFCs in the womb. Some PFCs can stay in a human body for several years.

PFC Research Studies Point to Definitive Health Risks

Currently, PFCs are a subject of intense research and very little is known on their impact on human health. Laboratory studies on animals indicate that PFCs in high concentrations can harm liver and other organs. Exposure to PFCs during pregnancy led to development problems in the offspring of mice. One of the PFCs - perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) is linked to causes of human cancer.

Since 1951, DuPont plant near Parkersburg, West Virginia has released PFOA into the air and the Ohio River. In 2001, local residents filled a lawsuit against DuPont declaring health problems occurred as a result of drinking contaminated water. The lawsuit was settled and the company agreed to fund a research project to investigate if PFOA exposure can cause measurable health changes.

Researchers from London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine have found that the level of concentration of PFOA among local people exposed was much higher than the country average. Another finding was that children with high concentration of PFCs in blood reach puberty about 4 to 6 months later than their peers.

As a result of a long campaign and pressure from environmental groups and health advocacy organizations, in 2006 the Environmental Protection Agency and six major PFOA makers agreed to eliminate the chemical from the production and use by 2015.

This was a great success, but PFOA is still used in factories abroad, particularly in China, and products containing PFCs are still entering the U.S. market.

Drilling for natural gas by pumping a slurry of sand, water, and chemicals deep into the ground to crack the bedrock, a process known as hydraulic fracturing or “fracking”, has been officially linked to groundwater contamination according to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report issued December 8th.

EPA: Hydraulic Fracturing Caused Drinking Well Contamination

EPA found at least 10 compounds known to be used in fracking fluids in test wells they drilled near the town of Pavilion Wyoming. While the drilling company EnCana contested preliminary data release two weeks ago, saying that contamination of local wells was from naturally occurring sources, EPA ruled out that among alternative explanations: “The presence of synthetic compounds such as glycol ethers … and the assortment of other organic components is explained as the result of direct mixing of hydraulic fracturing fluids with ground water in the Pavillion gas field,â€� the draft report states.

Fracking Report Based on Years of Research and Tests

EPA first found traces of contaminates in drinking water wells around Pavillion in 2008. After additional testing in 2010, EPA warned residents not to drink their water and to ventilate their homes when bathing and showering, to prevent explosions from the methane seeping into wells. Their draft report on all the tests and analysis to date concluded that the contamination was caused by both the fracking process itself and by leaking pools of fracking waste.

“…the EPA said that pollution from 33 abandoned oil and gas waste pits – which are the subject of a separate cleanup program – are indeed responsible for some degree of shallow groundwater pollution in the area. Those pits may be the source of contamination affecting at least 42 private water wells in Pavillion. But the pits could not be blamed for contamination detected in the water monitoring wells 1,000 feet underground.

“That contamination, the agency concluded, had to have been caused by fracking,” reported Propublica

EPA Hydraulic Fracturing Report Contradicts Company Rhetoric on Safety

The report directly countered many arguments by drilling companies about the safety of hydraulic fracturing, including:

1. that pressure from fracking forces fluids down, not up
2. that the geologic layers are watertight and no chemicals can migrate toward the surface
3. that fracking did not cause the problems with cement and steel barriers on gas wells that may have allowed methane to escape into residential wells.

One of the scariest things for residents near fracking operations is not knowing what chemicals might be in their water. As we’ve discussed in previous posts, gas companies are very secretive about what lubricants and chemicals they are using in tracking fluids.

EPA Fracking Report May Tip the Debate on Gas Drilling Safety

Opponents to fracking are declaring the report to be a smoking gun that will tip the debate on fracking safety. But proponents say not so fast: EPA did not go so far as to conclude that fracking in other parts of the United States had or could cause similar contamination. The hydrology, geology and drilling practices examined are unique to the area and EPA only extended their conclusions to the area surrounding Pavillion, Wyoming.

What does caffeine consumption have to do with water quality? Well according to researchers in Canada, your morning coffee could provide a red flag to alert officials of a sewage overflow and likely bacteria contamination in local waterways.

About 3 percent of the caffeine consumed in coffee, tea, chocolate and other foods and beverages ends up in the sewer system. Scientists at the University of Montreal found a direct correlation between levels of the chemical in rivers and other water bodies near urban areas and contamination by fecal coliform bacteria.

Environmental chemist Sébastien Sauvé and colleagues were looking for alternative makers for coliform contamination, because the bacteria isn’t always that easy to detect. The scientists considered medications, especially the anti-seizure drug carbamazepine because it breaks down slowly in the environment, but caffeine proved to be the winner. “[I]t’s probably very difficult to find one home or two homes where there isn’t one person taking coffee, tea, Coke, chocolate, or some medication that contains caffeine or energy drinks,” Sauvé told LiveScience.

Across the United States and Canada, urban sewer and stormwater systems are aging and in need of repair. Monitoring for caffeine in the waterways could alert cities to breaks in sewer lines and prevent outbreaks of illness caused by sewage contaminated water.

In cities like Montreal or Syracuse, NY, which we highlighted in our post on green infrastructure, combined sewer and stormwater systems routinely overflow into rivers and streams during periods of heavy rainfall.

Fecal coliform is itself an indicator bacteria of bigger contamination problems. While the most abundant bacteria in sewage, it rarely causes disease. However, contaminated water supplies can transmit E. coli, cholera, typhoid fever, shigellosi, salmonellosis, and gastroenteritis, which is caused by several different pathogens.

While Berkey customers can rest easy that these contaminates are filtered out of their drinking water, it’s still possible to come in contact with pathogens from sewage by swimming in contaminated water bodies. Caffeine could improve early detection methods for health officials to close beaches and alert the public to potential risks.

Atrazine, one of the most widely used weed-killers in the United States and more than 60 other nations, causes reproductive problems in a variety of animal species including amphibians, fish, reptiles and mammals, according to new study in the Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Animals and people far from the fields should be concerned about this scientific review because atrazine is commonly found in groundwater, rivers and lakes, and rain.

Atrazine Causes a Wide Variety of Problems in Many Species

A team of 22 researchers from around the world set out to figure out exactly how much we should worry. Their paper describes how the chemical disrupts the normal reproductive development and functioning of males and females. Among their findings, “atrazine exposure can change the expression of genes involved in hormone signaling, interfere with metamorphosis, inhibit key enzymes that control estrogen and androgen production, skew the sex ratio of wild and laboratory animals (toward female).”

“The most robust findings are in amphibiansâ€�, said University of Illinois comparative biosciences professor Val Beasley, a co-author of the review. “At least 10 studies found that exposure to atrazine feminizes male frogs, sometimes to the point of sex reversal,â€� he said.

Atrazine Contaminates Drinking Water in U.S. Farming Regions

A full 75 million pounds of atrazine is applied to corn and other U.S. crops annually. In 2010, the Natural Resources Defense Council issued a report on atrazine contamination of drinking water sources in the Midwest and Gulf states and found:

1. Approximately 75 percent of stream water and about 40 percent of all groundwater samples from agricultural areas tested in an extensive U.S. Geological Survey study contained atrazine.
2. Atrazine was found in 80 percent of drinking water samples taken in 153 public water systems.
3. All 20 watersheds NRDC looked at showed detectable levels of atrazine, and 16 had average concentrations above 1 part per billion (ppb)—the level that has been shown to harm plants and wildlife.
4. Eighteen of those watersheds were intermittently severely contaminated with at least one sample above 20 parts per billion (ppb). Nine had a peak concentration above 50 ppb, and three watersheds had peak maximum concentrations exceeding 100 ppb.

Protecting People and Drinking Water from Atrazine Contamination

NRDC called for a complete phase-out of atrazine use, for farmers to reduce atrazine application without waiting for new regulations or a ban in the U.S. They also called for the Environmental Protection Agency step up monitoring in likely contaminated areas, and for people in contaminated regions, especially farming communities, to install and use a home water filter system. The new scientific review supports these recommendations and at least one of the authors echoes the call for a ban on atrazine.

“I hope this will stimulate policymakers to look at the totality of the data and ask very broad questions,” Tyrone Hayes, a professor of integrative biology at the University of California at Berkeley and lead author of the review, told Science Daily. “Do we want this stuff in our environment? Do we want — knowing what we know — our children to drink this stuff? I would think the answer would be no.”

Atrazine Water Filter

The good news for Berkey customers is that atrazine is one of the compounds that the black berkey filters remove to below a detectable level. You can find out more about what the berkey water filters remove here.

A new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council documents progress around the United States in protecting some of the nation’s most polluted rivers and lakes by installing green infrastructure in urban environments. Instead of directing rainwater off streets and rooftops into sewers and storm drains, and ultimately area waterways, green infrastructure captures rainwater where it falls for irrigation and other uses.

Green Infrastructure Prevents Water Pollution

This is good news, especially in cities with what’s known as combined sewerage overflow systems. In cities such as Syracuse, NY, and Washington, DC, storm drains direct rainwater into the same pipes that carry household sewage to treatment plants. During major rainfalls, the system overflows, raw sewage and all, directly into local rivers.

Green Infrastructure Relieves Overburdened Sewer Systems

Green infrastructure prevents overflows with landscaping enhancements such as replacing concrete and blacktop with semi-pervious surfaces to allow rainwater to reach the ground below sidewalks and driveways. It means rooftop gardens and green roofs which capture rainwater and grow plants, which also help clean the urban air and capture climate-changing carbon dioxide emissions. And, it means repurposing rainwater for other uses like landscaping irrigation, rainwater collection systems, and in Syracuse, hockey rink ice.

Green Infrastructure Example: Syracuse NY

NRDC’s report Rooftops to Rivers II documents green infrastructure practices in a dozen U.S. cities. The video below describes just one city’s experience.

Anyone Can Install Green Infrastructure

While major projects such as those described by Syracuse NY and Onondaga County Executive Joanie Mahoney in the video above are quite large in scale, just about anyone can implement green infrastructure enhancements on their property.

• A Rainwater collection system is readily available for purchase at home and garden stores or on online. Rain barrels enable homeowners to disconnect one or more of their roof downspouts from the storm water system and use that water for plants and landscaping during dry periods. It can also been used for drinking water as long as you purify the water with a system like a berkey water filter.

• Even without the barrel, homeowners can plant rain gardens and use rooftop runoff to enhance their yards. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has published a downloadable manual on rain gardens for homeowners.

• Though requiring professional installation, green roofs are becoming more popular on individual houses.

• And when renovating driveways and sidewalks there are more and more alternatives to traditional impermeable concrete and asphalt. Innovations such as interlocking concrete tiles provide the ease of traditional driveways while allowing the rainwater through.

For more information on green infrastructure and how individuals might install it, check out NRDC’s report or the Environmental Protection Agency’s website.

Many of us have seen the movie ‘Erin Brockovich’ with Julia Roberts, depicting the story of the residents of Hinkley village in California who won $333 million settlement from Pacific and Electric Co. in 1966. The company contaminated their tap water with chromium 6 (hexavalent chromium), which resulted in numerous cases of cancer.

High concentration of chromium in water was also recorded in Cameron (Missouri). The residents believed it was caused by contaminated fertilizer that was distributed to farmers for free. The contamination caused several cases of brain tumors in the town and the lawsuit is still on.

Recent drinking water tests have shown that the problem of contaminated drinking water with chromium 6 is much more widespread. Laboratory tests carried out in 2009 have revealed the presence of chromium-6 in tap water in 31 out of 35 cities in the United States. The highest levels were recorded in Norman (Oklahoma), Honolulu (Hawaii) and Riverside (California).

Chromium 6 (hexavalent chromium) is a highly toxic form of metal chromium that occurs naturally on the earth. Pulp and steel mills, leather-tanning facilities and metal-plating factories can pollute water with hexavalent chromium. Cooling towers disposed before 1990 can also contain the contaminant. Chromium 6 can also get into water through erosion of rock and soil. Chlorine, a commonly used solution for disinfecting tap water, can convert safe trivalent chromium into the harmful hexavalent form.

Experiments carried out on animal models have shown that exposure to chromium 6 in drinking water may lead to anemia, damage to liver, kidneys, gastrointestinal tract and lymph nodes and teeth damage. It also increases significantly risks of gastrointestinal cancer. Present in high amounts, chromium 6 can cause birth defects, respiratory problems and infertility.

Children and babies are particularly vulnerable as they are more sensitive to carcinogenic substances. People with less acidic stomach have difficulties transforming hexavalent chromium-6 into chromium-3 (nutrient form of chromium) and are therefore more exposed to the risk of cancer. Those suffering from mucolipidosis type IV, pancreatic tumors and some autoimmune diseases are also in the higher risk group.

Despite the mounting evidence of chromium presence in drinking water resources and its harmful effects on human health, the problem has not been fully recognized by the state and federal regulatory bodies. Presently, California is the only state that requires water facilities testing for hexavalent chromium. The state officials set a target for chromium 6 at 0.02 part per billion (ppb) in order to prevent residents from the risk of cancer.

In response to the growing public concern, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has established a regulatory limit for total chromium to 100 ppb as a precautionary measure of protection against skin reactions or irritation (‘allergic dermatitis’). The total chromium includes both the essential for human health trivalent chromium (it regulates metabolism, insulin and blood sugar level) and the carcinogenic chromium 6. It is worth to mentioning that in the tested wells, the majority of the total chromium was in the hexavalent form not the beneficial trivalent chromium.

According to some environmental watchdog organizations, the limit set by the EPA is too high and does not protect communities from exposure to chromium in their drinking water and against the risk of cancer. Recently, the US National Cancer Institute estimated that 41% of Americans will be diagnosed with a tumor during their lifetimes and 21% of them will die of cancer. In 2009 alone, about 1.5 million people were diagnosed. In face of such statistics, California health officials do not seem to be overprotective with their efforts to minimize the residents’ exposure to carcinogenic agents.

To check if chromium has been recorded in your water tap you can contact your local water utility. If your water contains high level of chromium the best way to protect you and your family is to install a water filter tested to remove the contaminant. Berkey Water Filters are a high quality water filter system tested to remove total chromium from tap water at the 95% level.  You can have peace of mind with the berkey water filter knowing that it is not only removing chromium 6 from your water, but many other contaminants including fluoride.

A couple months ago a product calling itself as the “Alternative” to Berkey came onto the market. They directly compared their product to the berkey water filter product line and made many claims that piqued our interest. Some have heard the buzz around this new product and it has resulted in some existing and potential customers asking for our opinion and feedback on this new “Alternative” gravity water filter system vs the berkey.

We strongly believe in the berkey water filter products and in an attempt to shed some light and provide some clarification, we think many will appreciate the information below.

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There is a “New� filter calling itself the “Alternative Choice� to the Big Berkey water filter system so we thought we would put this “new� system to a couple of what we consider to be critical tests. The first test we conducted was a flow rate test. This is what we found:

Berkey vs “Alternative” Flow Rate Test

A fully configured four element Big Berkey water filter system can produce up to 7 gallons per hour of purified water.[1] By comparison this fully configured “alternate� system only holds three filter elements (the large diameter of the elements precluded the test system from accommodating more than three elements).[2][3] The “Alternative� system when full only produces 80 ounces per hour. However, the flow rate rapidly decreases as the water level declines. For example, when 70% full, the flow rate declines to approximately 62 ounces per hour. At 50% full the flow rate declines to about 44 ounces per hour and at 1/3 full the flow rate drops to a trickle of about 26 ounces per hour (Approximately 5 hours to produce a gallon of water). Averaging out the above rates, one would expect a typical run cycle to produce an average of 53 ounces per hour. This is an average of one gallon of water produced every 2 1/2 hours.

Let’s do an economic comparison. Assuming the “Alternativeâ€� system is topped off continually, it can produce about 15 gallons per day (based on extrapolated data from testing as company does not have this data available) whereas a fully configured Big Berkey water filter system can produce about 168 gallons per day. Therefore it takes over eleven (11) of the “Alternativeâ€� systems to produce as much water as one Big Berkey water filter system equipped with 4 black berkey filters. Here’s an economic breakdown if we were to base our purchase upon the system flow rate.

Cost of “Alternative� system: $239 X 11 = $2,629.00
Cost of Big Berkey water filter equipped with 4 black berkeys: $358.00
Big Berkey system savings: $2,271.00

Berkey vs “Alternative” Chemical Removal Test

The second test we conducted was designed to validate the claims that the “Alternative� filters have a lifespan equal to that of the Black Berkey purification elements. This test is designed to overwhelm the elements with a chemical contaminate in order to determine at what point a chemical breakthrough occurs. [7] We added chlorine (Clorox) to the water but found that we could not complete the test because after approximately 1-1/4 cups of Clorox had been filtered through the “Alternative� filters, they began to break down. After 1-1/4 cups of Clorox had been purified through the Black Berkey elements, they continued to maintain their effectiveness.

We then decided to compare their respective performance filtering the same water. To do this we inserted both of the test elements, side by side, into a Berkey Light water filter housing and added an additional cup of Clorox to the pre-filtered source water. We also quarantined the water from the “Alternate� filter element from that of the Black Berkey purification element by inserting a canning jar under the effluent stem of the “Alternate� filter. Below is what we found:

Early In The Berkey vs “Alternative” Test

The “Alternative� filter excreted black inky solution (above)

A Close Up of The Black Ink-Like Solution (above)

The “Alternative� filter is having a hard time keeping up with the flow rate of the Black Berkey purification element. Note how the Black Berkey purification element is filling up the entire diameter of the lower chamber while the “Alternative� filter element is only filling up the jar.

Midway Through The Berkey vs “Alternative” Test

As the water level in the upper chamber declined, the flow rate of the “Alternative� began losing more and more ground to the water level, produced by the Black Berkey purification element, inside the larger diameter housing.

End Of  Berkey vs “Alternative” Test

The Black Berkey element continued to purify the contaminated water whereas the “Alternative� filter ran slow and continued to excrete a black inky solution.

"Alternative" Filter on the Left (Black Drip Forming); Black Berkey on the Right (above)

"Alternative" Filter Black Ink Drip Releasing on the Left; Black Berkey on the Right (above)

Which Water Filter System Would You Choose?

Final Test Results (above)

"Alternative" Filtered Water on Left; Black Berkey Filtered Water on Right (above)

The above pictures again highlight both the difference in flow rates and the quality of water produced by the “Alternative� (Left) filter and the Black Berkey purification element (Right) after approximately two cups of Clorox had been filtered through the elements. During an emergency, such as Katrina, in which source water may be laden with heavy chemical contamination, which water filter system would you choose?

ADDITIONAL OBSERVATIONS AND SUMMARY:

• The Berkey water filter system can be primed, set up and begin purifying water in about 20 minutes; whereas the “Alternative� system must be conditioned for two days prior to use. [4]
• The 2 day conditioning process cannot be accelerated by priming the “Alternative� filter elements. When we attempted to do so, the filter broke, causing the element to explode.
• The wall thickness of the Black Berkey elements is approximately 60% greater than the wall thickness of the “Alternative� element.
• The Black Berkey purification elements remove viruses whereas the “Alternative� filter element does not.
• The flow rate of the system is only about 1/11th of the flow rate of a BK4X4BB. [5]
• When performing a Chlorine test, the elements began excreting a black inky solution.
• The claim is made that the new system is NSF certified, yet NSF has no record of their certification. [6]
• Relevant test data is not available for the “Alternative� system.
• Rather than using the expensive plasma welding on the 304 stainless steel housing, which also gives Berkey systems their beautiful mirror like lustrous shine and longevity, the housings use a low cost deep drawn method that make a tinny sound when thumped.
• The foot ring on the bottom of the system is a low-cost plastic, instead of rubber, that falls off and does not snug tightly to the system.

If you purchased an “Alternative Choice” filter and are not satisfied with its performance, you may be able to return it for a refund. If not, there is no reason to fret because Black Berkey purification elements can replace the filters in the “Alternative” systems. Thus, you can upgrade your system with the power of authentic Black Berkey purification elements.

FOOT NOTES:

[1] Fully configured Big Berkey water filter water purification system contains 4 Black Berkey purification elements.
[2] Fully configured “Alternative� system contains “alternative� filtration elements.
[3] Literature and website claim expansion to 3 elements. System obtained for test purposes did not physically allow this expansion. The elements were too wide at the base of test system to allow claimed full expansion.
[4] Based on assembly instructions which stated: “…fill the upper container fully with cold or room temperature water. Allow all water to flow into the lower container. Open the spigot and
discard the water in the lower container. Let your system stand unused overnight. Refill upper chamber and repeat…� In other words, “alternative� system would not be available in an emergency situation until 48 hours after set-up.
[5] No flow rate is established on “alternative� website or literature.
[6] Claims NSF 42 certification – no such listing appears on NSF website using any combination of the “alternative� name or parent corporation.

[7] All tests were done in non-laboratory conditions.

Zion National Park in Utah eliminated 60,000 plastic bottles in the first year of its bottled water ban. According to documents received by the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), it appears that, perhaps without actually asking, Coca-Cola may have scuttled a similar ban that could have had even more of an impact in the Grand Canyon.

Apparently, barely two weeks before a ban on sales of bottled water within the Grand Canyon National Park was to take effect at the end of 2010, word came down from National Park Service headquarters that the ban was to be delayed, indefinitely. “Coca-Cola, which distributes water under the Dasani brand and has donated more than $13 million to the parks, had registered its concerns about the bottle ban through the foundation, and … the project was being tabled,” reports the New York Times

This was after the park service had spent $300,000 to install filling stations for reusable bottles along the parks trails and launched a public education campaign to encourage their use. Why? According to the National Park Service “litter associated with disposable plastic water bottles is on the rise along trails and walkways and is one of the biggest contributors to trash below the rim.” Bottled water also uses much more fossil fuel energy and creates much more climate change pollution than refilling a reusable bottle and the park service has committed to saving energy and reducing its contribution to pollution.

“Why in the world would the Park Service Director swoop down at the last minute to veto a common-sense conservation measure that a park had spent significant taxpayer dollars to implement?” asked PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch in a statement. “It would be outrageous if corporate contributions are influencing national park management decisions,” continued Ruch whose concern is heightened by efforts within The Park Service to encourage even more funding for park programs from big corporations.

Both Jarvis and Coca Cola deny that the company asked Jarvis to step in a stop the bottle ban or that Coca Cola’s funding for the National Parks Foundation, a non-governmental charity organization, was contingent on selling water in the parks.

However, Coca-Cola does not support bottled water bans: “Banning anything is never the right answer,� spokeswoman Susan Stribling told the Times, and she characterized the bottle ban as limiting personal choice. “You’re not allowing people to decide what they want to eat and drink and consume,� she said.

Interestingly there was no opposition to the ban from the vendor of bottled water in the canyon. Xanterra Parks & Resorts, an operator of lodgings, gift shops and general merchandise stores at the Grand Canyon and many of the national parks in the west actually campaigned for it. “We would like to see the ban of all petroleum-derived plastic water bottles in national parks,� Vice President for Environmental Affairs Chris Lane said told the New York Times.

Mr. Lane also told the Times that once the company accounted for a loss of $50,000 in bottled water sales and an increase in $25,000 in reusable bottle sales, they definitely lost money on the bottled water ban in Zion, but Lane is still a believer. “Revenue or no revenue, something’s got to be done about bottled water,� Mr. Lane said.

In 31 U.S. states, the natural gas industry employs a controversial drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which involves injecting chemical-laden water deep underground to fracture the bedrock and release natural gas trapped beneath. The process is largely unregulated by the states and this fracking debate has been heating up for years as a result. In 2005, President George W. Bush signed an energy bill that exempted natural gas drilling from the requirements of The Safe Drinking Water Act.

For an entertaining overview of the issue, take a look at this video from Studio 20 NYU and ProPublica:

EPA to Look at Fracking Impact on Drinking Water, Regulate Wastewater

Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a few long-awaited details about its study of the drinking water implications of fracking.

“The new EPA study will look at the entire water lifecycle of hydraulic fracturing in shale deposits, beginning with the industry’s withdrawal of huge volumes of water from rivers and streams and ending with the treatment and disposal of the tainted wastewater that comes back out of the wells after fracking. Researchers will also study well design and the impact of surface spills of fracking fluids on groundwater,” reports the Associated Press.

EPA also began the process of regulating wastewater from fracking operations, which in many cases is stored on site it large lagoons and in others runs off into rivers or is pumped through municipal wastewater treatment, which may not be equipped to deal with drilling contaminants.

The regulatory process is likely to take years and complete results of the study won’t be ready until 2014.

Fracking Contaminates Drinking Water

In the mean time, communities around the country are accusing gas companies of contaminating well water with solvents, chemicals, and escaped natural gas. In the case of Dimrock, Pennsylvania, a company has been providing bottled water to residents since January 2009 because of widespread well contamination in the community linked to drilling. In another case, a house outside Cleveland Ohio exploded when methane seeped into the house through the plumbing.

You may have seen this clip from the move Gasland:

The industry claims their operations are safe, “[b]ut a string of documented cases of gas escaping into drinking water — not just in Pennsylvania but across North America — is raising new concerns about the hidden costs of this economic tide and strengthening arguments across the country that drilling can put drinking water at risk,” reports ProPublica, an independent journalism organization.

Secret Fracking Fluid Formula Obscures the Risk

The industry has long claimed that the exact composition of the solvents injected into the ground to extract gas is a matter of trade secret. In order to study whether fracking fluid is contaminating well water, the EPA was forced to subpoena the ingredient lists from companies so they’d know what chemicals to test for.

In 2010, two companies admitted to a committee before the U.S. Congress that diesel fuel is among the ingredients in their fluids A report to Congress in April 2011 revealed more than 750 chemicals are involved, including several that Berkey Filters can remove below detectable levels.