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> Credit: Associated Press The Jan. 11 fire at Carus in LaSalle, Illinois, heavily damaged the facility but resulted in no serious injuries. Afire at a Carus plant in LaSalle, Illinois, has temporarily shut down the only US producer of potassium permanganate and sodium permanganate and is raising concern about availability of the important water treatment chemicals. The Jan. 11 fire destroyed a warehouse and caused extensive damage at the facility, Carus says. The firm declared force majeure on Jan. 18, saying it will be at least 90 days before it can fulfill orders for permanganate chemicals. The company...

The Twin Ports Interchange reconstruction project through Lincoln Park soared $100 million over budget this month, forcing planners to defer indefinitely portions of the work scheduled for 2020-23. The $343 million project is scheduled to begin in May. Minnesota Department of Transportation figures released Monday at a regular public meeting about the project showed a $443 million price tag. "This is what happens with every big project," Duane Hill, district engineer based in Duluth, said Monday. "You have to manage it as you go along. We thought we did a good job initially coming up with a budget for this...

I took a boat through 96 million black plastic balls on the Los Angeles reservoir to find out why they're there. The first time I heard about shade balls the claim was they reduce evaporation. But it turns out this isn't the reason they were introduced. Huge thanks to LADWP for arranging this special tour for me. Next time let's put the GoPro on the submersible! The balls are made of high density polyethylene (HDPE) which is less dense than water so they float on the surface of the reservoir even if they break apart. They are 10cm (4 inches)...

Authorities say Shahroon Augustine entered the Eugene Sawyer Water Purification Plant with a duffle bag, containing a passport from Pakistan. He was charged with trespassing, then vanished. “If our water supply isn’t vigorously protected, we as a society could have real trouble,” says Richard Schak, a former Chicago Police official who launched the criminal justice program at National Louis University. He has studied municipal water systems.

CHATSWORTH, GA (WRCB) - Hundreds of people in one north Georgia town are not allowed to drink their water. The water treatment plant in Ramhurst is temporarily shut down after someone broke in and changed the chemical settings. It's affecting about 400 Murray County residents. Local, state and federal officials are investigating who's to blame. Officials with Chatsworth Water Works say the source of the problems is at the Carter's Lake Water Treatment Plant in the Ramhurst area. Saturday workers noticed someone had changed some chemical settings. First, officials issued a "boil advisory" but the Environmental Protection Department bumped it...

Strontium-tainted water leak suspected The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says about 45 tons of strontium-tainted water may have leaked out of a water treatment device, with a portion of it spilling out of the facility. Tokyo Electric Power Company says the water may contain high levels of radioactive strontium. Strontium causes internal radiation exposure. The company is trying to determine whether the water reached the sea. The utility said at about 11:30 am on Sunday a water leak was spotted in a device to remove salt from contaminated water from which radioactive material had already been...

Groundwater flowing into Fukushima nuclear plant TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Tuesday it suspects that 200 to 500 tons a day of groundwater might be flowing through pits and wall cracks into reactor and turbine buildings at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant crippled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. The suspicion is based on the fact that a decline in water levels in these buildings has slowed down. "The suspected groundwater inflow is now unlikely to cause problems as the plant is capable of treating nearly 1,000 tons of radiation-contaminated water," said an official at the...

Trouble continues at Fukushima nuclear plant's water treatment system Jul 24 07:15 PM US/Eastern TOKYO, July 25 (AP) - (Kyodo)—A desalination device that forms part of the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant's key water decontamination system halted for a number of hours Sunday in the latest glitch at the plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said late Sunday. The plant operator said it resumed desalinating decontaminated water to be recycled as coolant for troubled reactors with a backup device about seven and a half hours after the halt occurred around noon, while continuing to cool the reactors with water supplemented...

TEPCO repeatedly halts water treatment system due to alarm National Jun. 30, 2011 - 06:00AM JST TOKYO — Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said Wednesday that it was repeatedly forced to suspend operation of a newly installed radioactive water treatment system at its crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant after an alarm, warning of malfunction, sounded.

About 50 million people are affected in Bangladesh About 140 million people, mainly in developing countries, are being poisoned by arsenic in their drinking water, researchers believe. Speaking at the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) annual meeting in London, scientists said this will lead to higher rates of cancer in the future. South and East Asia account for more than half of the known cases globally. Eating large amounts of rice grown in affected areas could also be a health risk, scientists said. "It's a global problem, present in 70 countries, probably more," said Peter Ravenscroft, a research associate in...

Nasiriyah, Iraq – Iraq’s clean water supply country-wide has ebbed slowly for decades because of war, an antiquated pipeline network and co-mingling with sewage as a result of illegal line tapping. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Gulf Region South District is riding the waves of progress to get the people of southern Iraq the clean drinking water they need.In the Thi Qar Province, the $173 million Nasiriyah Water Treatment Plant has two scopes of work: one is to finish the construction on the partially completed plant, and the other is to run water pipeline from Ash Shatrah to Suk...

A Cockeyed Kennedy Perspective With the one-year anniversary of the Abu Ghraib scandal that gave liberals a hammer to hit President Bush with before and after the election, ethics-challenged Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy added his voice via a lengthy statement. Now while I go through some of this drivel, especially his reference to water torture, don’t forget his willingness to let a woman drown in his car so he could escape and get his story straight a few hours later. Politics does have its ironies. The images of cruelty, and perversion are still difficult to look at a year later....

Death of worker at treatment plant ruled a homicide The Associated Press PATERSON, N.J. - A woman whose body was found in a tank at a water treatment plant drowned and her death has been ruled a homicide, the Passaic County prosecutor said Monday. Geetha Angara had been doing water quality tests Wednesday when she disappeared. A search found her body about 100 feet from where she was working, but her two-way radio and clipboard were found directly below the work area, which had a protective grate to prevent falls, Prosecutor James F. Avigliano said. "That was where we think...

Those who go to sleep at night with the threat of terrorism on their minds might be surprised to learn that Muslim CEOs are running companies that watch over our safety. • Fuad El-Hibri is CEO of BioPort, the only U.S. maker of anthrax vaccine. • Houssam Salloum is CEO of Axiolog, a Detroit firm developing a high-tech system for tracking international cargo into vulnerable U.S. ports. • Nafa Khalaf is CEO of Detroit Contracting, which after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001 secured the five major treatment plants that supply water to 4.5 million residents of the Detroit area....