Water

Secret tests conducted in 1984 by the DuPont chemical company found a Teflon-related contaminant (C8) in the tap water of the Little Hocking Water Association in Ohio, just across the river from the company’s Teflon plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia. But the company never told the community, its water utility or state regulators about the tap water testing program, which continued through at least 1989, or about the positive findings.

On Dec. 10 the Environmental Working Group and the Environmental Law Foundation released the results of tests on water purchased from 274 Glacier vending machines in California. Analysis of the samples found that water from more than a third of the machines failed California standards for trihalomethanes (THMs) in vended water.

"Contamination of drinking water supplies by the toxic industrial chemical perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA, or C8) is a continuing concern to the residents of Parkersburg and surrounding areas of Wood County near the source of the pollution, DuPont’s manufacturing operation in Washington, West Virginia."

First-ever nationwide assessment of chlorination byproducts in tapwater finds 137,000 U.S. pregnancies at higher risk of miscarriage, birth defects

Sources of drinking water for more than 7 million Californians and unknown millions of other Americans are contaminated with a chemical that disrupts child development and may cause thyroid cancer, but is unregulated by the state or federal government, according to an investigation by Environmental Working Group (EWG).

The state has almost never ordered cleanup or assessed fines for the thousands of underground gasoline storage tanks leaking MTBE and other toxic chemicals into California’s water and soil, even when the leaks have been known for more than 10 years, according to a study by Environmental Working Group (EWG).

Half of major industrial water polluters in California are operating with expired pollution permits, according to state and federal data analyzed by Environmental Working Group (EWG) and Friends of the Earth (FOE).

At the heart of the nation’s Clean Water Act is a system of permits that determines how much pollution every factory, machine shop, electric utility, sewage treatment plant or other polluter can dump into the nation’s waters. These permits, which set the terms for all of the nation’s water pollution, are tailored to the size of the polluter, the toxicity or threat of the pollution, the technology available to clean it up, and the quality and size of the waterway receiving the discharges.

Across Ohio, small and large businesses have polluted public drinking water supplies with impunity. An Environmental Working Group analysis of Ohio EPA data and an internal, unpublished report from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (Ohio EPA) shows that industries have contaminated at least 54 public water supplies, but have been held responsible for contributing toward cleanup in only three cases.