EU introduces more efficient monitoring of drinking water quality

New EU rules to improve the monitoring of drinking water across Europe come into force, improving access to wholesome and clean drinking water in Europe. As a first step following the European Citizens’ Initiative Right2Water, new rules adopted by the European Commission today provide flexibility to Member States as to how drinking water quality is monitored in around 100,000 water supply zones in Europe. This will allow for more focused, risk-based monitoring, while ensuring full protection of public health.

This new monitoring and control system will allow member states to reduce unnecessary analyses and concentrate on controls that really matter. This amendment of the Drinking Water Directive is a response to calls by citizens and the European Parliament to adopt legislation ensuring a better, fair and comprehensive water supply. It allows for an improved implementation of EU rules by Member States as it removes unnecessary burdens. Member States can now decide, on the basis of a risk assessment, which parameter to monitor given that some drinking water supply zones do not pose any risk for finding hazardous substances. They can also choose to increase or reduce the frequency of sampling in water supply zones, as well as to extend the list of substances to monitor in case of public health concerns. Flexibility in the monitoring of parameters and the frequency of sampling is framed by a number of conditions to be met, to ensure protection of citizens’ health. The new rules follow the principle of ‘hazard analysis and critical control point’ (HACCP), already used in food hygiene legislation, and the water safety plan approach laid down in the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Guidelines for Drinking Water Quality. Member States have two years to apply the provisions of this new legislation.

In order to effectively manage sampling and monitoring data at over 100,000 water supply zones water utilities and other stakeholders will need access to software like Locus EIM Water to organize complex water quality management information in real time and automate laboratory management programs and reporting. Locus EIM has been in use by numerous water utilities in the United States.

New Environmental Monitoring Technology Keeping the Air We Breathe Under an Unprecedented Level of Scrutiny

A recent article in the Los Angeles Times discussed advances in environmental monitoring technologies. Rising calls to create cleaner air and limit climate change are driving a surge in new technology for measuring air emissions and other pollutants — a data revolution that is opening new windows into the micro-mechanics of environmental damage. Data stemming from these new monitoring technologies coupled with advances in data management (Big Data) and Internet of Things (IOT) as discussed in my article “Keeping  the Pulse of the Planet: Using Big Data to Monitor Our Environment” published last year, is creating all new industry and bringing much needed transparency to environmental degradation. Real time monitoring of  radioactive emissions at any point around globe or water quality data are slowly becoming a reality.

According to the article author William Yardley, “the momentum for new monitoring tools is rooted in increasingly stringent regulations, including California’s cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gas emissions, and newly tightened federal standards and programs to monitor drought and soil contamination. A variety of clean-tech companies have arisen to help industries meet the new requirements, but the new tools and data are also being created by academics, tinkerers and concerned citizens — just ask Volkswagen, whose deceptive efforts to skirt emissions-testing standards were discovered with the help of a small university lab in West Virginia.”

“Taking it all into account, the Earth is coming under an unprecedented new level of scrutiny.”

“There are a lot of companies picking up on this, but who is interested in the data — to me, that’s also fascinating,” said Colette Heald, an atmospheric chemist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “We’re in this moment of a huge growth in curiosity — of people trying to understand their environment. That coincides with the technology to do something more.”

The push is not limited to measuring air and emissions. Tools to sample soil, air emissions, produced water, waste management, monitor water quality, test ocean acidity and improve weather forecasting are all on the rise. Drought has prompted new efforts to map groundwater and stream flows and their water quality across the West.

Two of key issues that need to be addressed are validity of data stemming from new instruments and sensors for enforcement purposes and where is all (big) data be stored and how accessible it will be. The first question will be answered as new hand-held data collection instrumentation, sensors, and devices undergo testing and accreditation by governmental agencies. The second issue, a big data, has already been solved by companies like Locus Technologies that has been aggregating massive amounts of environmental monitoring data in its cloud-based EIM (Environmental Information Management) software.

As the article put it: “When the technology is out there and everyone starts using it, the question is, how good is the data? If the data’s not high enough quality, then we’re not going to make regulatory decisions based on that. Where is this data going to reside in 10 years, when all these sensors are out there, and who’s going to [manage] that information? Right now it’s kind of organic so there’s no centralized place where all of this information is going.”

However, the private industry and some Government organizations like Department of Energy (DOE) are already preparing for these new avalanches of data that are hitting their corporate networks and are using Locus cloud to organize and report increased volume of monitoring information stemming from their facilities and other monitoring networks.

California Lawmakers Approve Ban on Plastic Microbeads to Protect Water

California approves AB888, an important bill to prohibit the use of plastic microbeads in personal care products for sale in California by 2020. When someone uses a product – like a face wash, for example – that has microbeads, several things happen. First – they get a unique kind of cleanse in their face that beauty companies suggest they can’t get any other way. Second – the microbeads (tiny pieces of plastic) are washed down the drain with water. These microbeads do not get recycled. They do not get caught in filters before they hit the sea. They pollute.

With two just-released studies showing overwhelming levels of plastic pollution in San Francisco Bay and in Half Moon Bay’s marine life, it’s not an exaggeration to say that this bill will have a huge impact on the health of California’s waterways — and its people. Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, and Washington also tried and failed this year to enact bans on manufacture and sale, while Oregon’s legislature is considering similar bans.

Studies found that San Francisco bay is contaminated with tiny pieces of plastic in greater concentrations than other U.S. bodies of water — at least 3.9 million pieces every day. Many of those plastic particles are tiny microbeads, less than one millimeter in diameter, which can be found in personal care products like shower gels, facial scrubs and toothpaste.

AB888 will ban the beads by 2020. Product manufacturers can use other exfoliants that aren’t as environmentally destructive, and increasingly, states are demanding that they do so. Six other states have already passed legislation that bans or restricts their use.

In addition to the plastic polluting our waterways — there are 471 million microbeads released into the bay every day from wastewater treatment facilities, Gordon said — they also contaminate the fish that we eat. A recent study in the publication Scientific Reports found “anthropogenic debris” in 25 percent of the fish sampled at markets in California.

EPA Imposes New Limits for Toxic Pollutants Released into Water

The Environmental Protection Agency  (EPA) has imposed new standards for mercury, lead and other toxic pollutants that are discharged into the water bodies (rivers and streams) from steam-powered electric power plants.

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said the rules, the first national limits on pollutants from steam electricity plants, will provide significant protections for children and communities across the country from exposure to pollutants that can cause serious health problems.

The rule will remove 1.4 billion pounds a year of toxic discharge nationwide. More than 23,000 miles of rivers and streams across the US are polluted by steam electric discharges, which occur close to 100 public drinking water intakes and nearly 2,000 public wells across the nation, the EPA said.

Toxic metals do not break down in the environment and can contaminate sediment in waterways and harm aquatic life and wildlife, including killing large numbers of fish. Steam electric power plants account for about 30 percent of all toxic pollutants discharged into streams, rivers and lakes from U.S. industrial facilities. The pollutants can cause neurological damage in children, lead to cancer and damage the circulatory system, kidneys and livers.

The EPA said most of the nation’s 1,080 steam electric power plants already meet the requirements. About 12 percent, or 134 plants, will have to make new investments to do so. A water quality management software like Locus EIM can help utilities automate their compliance with this new rules and manage water quality across portfolio of their plants.