Water Filter and Health News

According to a recent study, Hudson Bayou is getting more and more polluted day by day. The main reason behind it, being that the rainwater from the 12 acre drainage system gets directly into the bayou. The water comes from single pipe to Alderman Street. The bayou has had a bad history of getting polluted, especially after a rainfall. The county is now taking steps for the betterment of the bayou. It is planning to install more filters to extract pollutants from the water.

It is assumed that the project will cost around $1.1 million. The South West Florida Management will be funding the installation of an underground “baffle box,” or screens to pull in pollutants before they get in to bayou. The filters will help catch up sediments. Nitrogen and phosphorus stick on to these sediment particles. Also these pipes with large diameters will prevent the chances of Burns Square flooding again and again. Due to these filters the nutrient runoff can decrease by 20 percent to 30 percent.

The funding cost of South West Florida Management will be around $130,000. The construction will start in April and would continue for six months. Construction will definitely affect the traffic; therefore the authorities are planning for construction work to take place at night.

To accelerate the startup of the Lake Region Water Treatment Plant in western Palm Beach, the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) has approved an emergency plan.

To help in completing the plant quickly by the end of the March, rather than August as originally planned, The SFWMD will provide $500,000 to Palm Beach County. The district will also assist Palm Beach County in getting operational certifications from various regulatory agencies, including the Department of Health, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the state fire marshal.

Currently, the plant which has total cost $50 million is 75 percent completed. After completion, the Lake Region Water Treatment Plant is to produce high quality treated water from the Floridian Aquifer, eliminating the need for Belle Glade, Pahokee and South Bay to pull drinking water from Lake Okeechobee.

Water drawn from the aquifer is to be treated using reverse osmosis filter to hyper-filtrate the water, removing impurities and improving the water’s color and taste.

SFWMD Governing Board Chairman Eric Buermann said in a news release, “When completed, the Lake Region Water Treatment Plant will bring significant environmental and public health benefits to the region.” He further added, “With a worsening water shortage hitting these communities particularly hard, it is imperative that the plant come online as quickly as possible to reduce their dependence on the lake. This agency is committed to accelerating this project to enhance quality of life in the lake communities.”

The South Florida Water Management District is providing about 21 percent of total funding with a contribution of $11.7 million toward the plant’s design in construction. Palm Beach County (provided $12.5 million in funding, or about 25 percent) Pahokee, Belle Glade and South Bay contributed the remainder.

New York, Detroit, Tampa and Atlanta are among those cities facing large increases in water and sewer bills as cities and towns try to repair aging pipes and accurate artificially low prices.

Many of the nation’s 70,000 smaller systems — from Monterey, Calif., to Charleston, W.Va. — are imposing major price hikes too.

Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the nation’s water and wastewater systems need an investment of up to $1.2 trillion over 20 years. Also, arid states such as Arizona, Texas and Utah, where water costs more to provide, have fast-growing populations.

The American Water Works Association, an industry group, reports that last year, the median residential bill was $278 for water and $276 for sewer service.

Doug Scott, a credit analyst at Fitch Ratings which evaluates the debt of municipal utilities, says, “The median rate increase was about 5%.” Average rate increases of that amount are enough to finance the industry’s capital needs, he added.

Because of the quirky pricing policy of water and sewer systems, many people will see much larger increases. And, some communities are getting scalded by price hikes of 50%, 100% or more.

The major problem is that many municipal owned systems have treated rate hikes like tax increases and avoided them for years. The Government Accountability Office estimates that 29% of water systems and 41% of sewer systems charge customers less than the cost of the service.

As a consequence, these money-losing systems have no way to finance expensive repairs without delivering a rate shock to customers.

“About the only time customers hear from water systems is when they want increases, and that makes people furious,” says Missouri Public Service Commission Chairman Jeff Davis.

According to the EPA, The USA has about 54,000 community water systems and 16,000 sewer systems. Local government supplies 88% of water and 80% of sewer service. City councils and county commissioners often vote on rates every year.

“You can get all the water you need for a buck a day,” DeBenedictis says. “But many cities are charging 25 cents. When they go to 50 cents, the headline is: ‘Mayor asks for 100% rate increase.”