On Tap Magazine - Spring 2002

National Drinking Water Clearinghouse
West Virginia University
P.O. Box 6064
Morgantown, WV
26506-6064

News & Notes

Have a Glass of Iceberg with Dinner

If you’re one of the millions of people who buy bottled water, be on the lookout for the latest craze: iceberg water. In a March 2002 Atlantic Monthly article titled “The Iceberg Wars,” Wayne Curtis reports on the latest development in bottled water. “Although commercial harvesting began only in the past decade,” he writes, “iceberg products are rapidly evolving from a novelty to a commodity, and the business is gearing up for greater industrialization.” Plans include a floating plant that will both “harvest” the icebergs and bottle the water from them while at sea.

The current process of harvesting icebergs, developed by Iceberg Industries, involves a renovated barge with a large crane and an eight-claw grapple. Spotter planes identify icebergs that have drifted into coves, protected from the large ocean swells. Then, the barge, a former Great Lakes molasses ship, ties up to the iceberg and begins taking chunks out of it with the grapple. When the barge is loaded to its 1,200-ton capacity, it returns to the firm’s storage facility in Newfoundland, Canada. The harvesting season lasts from April through November.

Industry leaders tout the water’s purity. “Water in these icebergs fell on Greenland as snow 10,000 or more years ago and has been bound up in glaciers ever since, safely sequestered from modern contaminants,” writes Curtis about the industry’s assertions. Spring water, by comparison, is filtered naturally, while distilled water is mechanically processed. “A lot of people want pure water and they’ll pay the price,” says Gary Pollack, president of Canadian Iceberg Vodka Corporation in the article. “It’s great that a large inland city can clean its drinking water and strip out impurities. But 10 million people pee in it on a daily basis. And you know what? Nobody peed in mine. Isn’t that worth an extra 10 cents a bottle?”

For more information about water from icebergs (and other beverages made from this water), visit the Iceberg Industries Web site at www.icebergindustries.com/default.htm. For more information about the Atlantic Monthly, visit their Web site at www.theatlantic.com.

Help Conforming with the Total Coliform Rule

In November 2001, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a series of guides called “Simple Tools for Effective Performance (STEP).” The guides are designed with small drinking water systems (i.e., those serving 3,300 or fewer people) in mind.

The first guide in the STEP series is a workbook titled “A Small Systems Guide to the Total Coliform Rule.” The centerpiece of the workbook is the monitoring worksheets, which provide small system operators with a place to record monitoring results and determine what actions should follow. Step-by-step instructions are provided for completing the worksheet and interpreting the results.

“I believe that this new product will be of great use to small drinking water systems and their operators,” says William Diamond, director of EPA’s Drinking Water Protection Division. “As a drinking water system operator, your most important job is protecting the health of your customers. This guide will help you do that job by providing information about reducing the risk of waterborne disease; the importance of monitoring drinking water to ensure quality and protect public health; and monitoring under the Total Coliform Rule.”
To obtain copies of the guide, call the Safe Drinking Water Hotline at (800) 426-4791. Additional copies of the blank monitoring worksheets may also be requested separately: reference EPA 816-R-01-017A for the workbook and EPA 816-R-01-017B for the blank worksheets. The guide may be downloaded from EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Web site at www.epa.gov/safewater.

RUS Loans: Market4 Race Down; Others Unchanged

Interest rates for Rural Utilities Service (RUS) water and wastewater loans have been announced. The market rate is down slightly, while the intermediate and poverty rates are unchanged. RUS interest rates are issued quarterly at three different levels: the poverty line rate, the intermediate rate, and the market rate. The rate applied to a particular project depends upon community income and the type of project being funded.
To qualify for the poverty line rate, two criteria must be met. First, the loan must primarily be used for facilities required to meet health and sanitary standards. Second, the median household income of the area being served must be below 80 percent of the state’s non-metropolitan median income or fall below the federal poverty level. As of April 1, 2002, the federal poverty level was $18,100 for a family of four.

To qualify for the intermediate rate, the service area’s median household income cannot exceed 100 percent of the state’s non-metropolitan median income. The market rate is applied to projects that don’t qualify for either the poverty or intermediate rates. The market rate is based upon the average of the Bond Buyer index.
The rates, which apply to all loans issued from April 1 through June 30, 2002, are:
• poverty line: 4.5 percent (unchanged from the previous quarter);
• intermediate: 4.75 percent (unchanged from the previous quarter); and
• market: 5.0 percent (down 0.125 percent from the previous quarter).

RUS loans are administered through state Rural Development offices, which can provide specific information concerning RUS loan requirements and applications procedures.

For the phone number of your state Rural Development office, contact the National Drinking Water Clearinghouse at (800) 624-8301 or (304) 293-4191. The list is also available on the RUS Web site at www.usda.gov/rus/water/states/usamap.htm.

Water Fluoridation Debate Continues

Most water systems in the U.S. add fluoride to their treated water. Increasingly, though, this practice
is being challenged. Two researchers at the University of Toronto question the benefits of fluoridation. In an article in the November 2001 issue of the Canadian Dental Association Journal and reported in the Canadian Water and Wastewater Association Bulletin, Howard Cohen and David Locker write “Although current studies
indicate that water fluoridation continues to be beneficial, recent reviews have shown that the quality of the evidence provided by these studies is poor.”

The authors go on to claim that studies show only small differences in tooth decay between fluoridated and non-fluoridated child populations. Other studies suggest that there may be a link between fluoridated water and certain types of cancer. In 1989, a National Cancer Institute study, for example, found “equivocal evidence” that fluoride caused bone cancer in rats, and noted nationwide evidence of a rising rate of bone and joint cancer in fluoridated counties, but not in non-fluoridated ones. However, a 1993 report by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease found “studies in people have not shown fluorides to be carcinogenic, and the studies in animals are mixed.”

At about the same time the Canadian article was released, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report titled Promoting Oral Health: Interventions for Preventing Dental Caries, Oral and Pharyngeal Cancers, and Sports-Related Craniofacial Injuries, which strongly recommends community-based interventions to prevent tooth decay, including water fluoridation.

“This new report combines the best available studies of community water fluoridation and school sealant programs to inform a broad public health audience that show that these interventions are among the most effective means we have for preventing tooth decay,” says William R. Maas, director of CDC’s oral health program. Community water fluoridation involves adjusting the natural fluoride level in source water. Water systems that fluoridate their supply usually set the optimal level for fluoride at one part per million.

For more information about the Canadian Dental Association, visit their Web site at www.cda-adc.ca/ public/. The article “The Science and Ethics of Water Fluoridation” may be found at www.cdaadc.ca/jcda/vol67/issue10/578.html.

For more information about the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, visit their Web site at www.cdc.gov. The article “Promoting Oral Health” may be viewed at www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5021a1.htm.