It sounds like the stuff of nightmares, or a bad drug trip: turning on the faucet for a glass of water, only to have worms come wriggling out of it. Residents of one Texas subdivision claim they’ve been finding worms coming out of faucets and clogging up sprinklers, and have been showing up with water samples to prove it to local authorities. [More]
drinking water
City Officials Flushing 38 Million Gallons Of Water After Teen Pees In Portland Reservoir
By 4.17.14
The reason cranky adults yell things like “Get off my lawn!” at teenagers isn’t just to protect that lawn. No, we’ve learned in our wise old age that it’s just easier than yelling “Please think about your decisions and how they will affect those around you before you do something just because you think it’s funny!” Case in point: A 19-year-old who’s wasted 38 million gallons of drinking water just because he apparently thought it’d be hilarious to pee in it. [More]
Water, Water, Everywhere And Not A Drop To Drink (Unless You Like Swallowing Worms)
By 8.29.13
Residents of a northeast Oklahoma town are turning off the tap and reaching for bottled water after some unwelcome visitors decided to take a dip in the city’s filtering system: Little red worms have been found in the filtering system. As such, city officials are asking citizens not to drink the water or use it for cooking while the problem gets sorted out. [More]
Portland Residents Just Say No To Fluoride In Their Drinking Water
By 5.22.13
The mayor of Portland, Ore. is throwing in the towel in the fight to put fluoride in the city’s drinking water. He was a fan of the plan, but the fluoride proposal ultimately failed. Opponents of fluoride are over the moon, as voters had rejected it before it was finally approved in 1978 and then overturned two years later. [More]
Update: 41 46 Million Americans Drink Pharmaceutical Waste
By 9.13.08
If you weren’t one of the 41 million Americans drinking water contaminated with sex hormones and pharmaceutical waste, welcome to the club! Testing prompted by the AP’s damning investigation has revealed that another five million people, including residents of Reno, Colorado Springs, and Chicago, now sip the potentially dangerous pharmaceutical soup.
Drugs In The Water No Big Deal, Says NYC Official
By 4.8.08
In regards to a headline grabbing AP investigation that found the drinking water of major cities contained trace amounts of an array of pharmacopoeia, the deputy commissioner of New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection, “A person would have to drink one million glasses of water to get the dose of even one over-the-counter ibuprofen tablet or the caffeine in one cup of coffee…Even at eight glasses of water per day, this would take the average person over 300 years to consume.” So for those of you hoping to replace your medicine cabinet just by draining the Brita, sorry Charlie. However, there are no studies on the long-term effects to human of small exposure to a vast array of drugs, although, the Times notes, they have been shown to cause mutations in fish.
AP: 41 Million Americans Drink Water Contaminated With Antibiotics, Anti-Convulsants, Mood Stabilizers, And Sex Hormones
By 3.9.08
A soup of pharmaceutical waste spews from the faucets supplying drinking water to 41 million Americans, according to a disturbing study from the Associated Press. At least 24 major cities are affected, including New York, Washington, Boston Chicago, and Los Angeles.
Here are some of the key test results obtained by the AP:
