Chemical Whack-A-Mole Here In Mesa's Groundwater + Drinking Water

Probably nobody likes what could be another potential public relations nightmare about a basic necessity and the most precious commodity here in The Salt River Valley/Watershed - water.
We already have the ongoing fraud-and-bribery jury trial of Mesa ex-legislator Gary Pierce using his public office on the Arizona Corporate Commission in a scandal to benefit Johnson Utilities in Queen Creek over the paltry sum of $350,000 and a bribe of $35,000. That amount pales in comparison to over $360,000,000 spent by the City of Mesa for water treatment and wastewater treatment.
The Environmental Protection Agency recently looked into substances called PSFAs and chemicals that are used in those processes.
Here's some more local details from previous posts on this blog
Dollar amounts (City Council Meeting in June 2017) 
4 Take action on the following contracts:

Item 4-a 17-0665 Three-Year Term Contract for Water/Wastewater Treatment and Pool Chemicals for the Water Resources and Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities Departments, and the Materials and Supply Warehouse (Citywide)

Not to exceed $4,7000,000 annually
This contract will provide the various chemicals Water Resources needs to treat raw water and wastewater, and the chemicals Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities needs to treat swimming pool water.
The Water Resources, Parks Recreation and Community Facilities Departments, and Business Services, and Purchasing recommend awarding the contract to the lowest, responsive and responsible bidders: A & M Corson's Aqua Value; AllChem Industries Holding Corp, dba AllChem Performance Products; BHS Marketing, dba BHS Specialty Chemical Products; Brenntag Pacific, Inc.; Chemrite, Inc.; DPC Enterprises; Evoqua Water Technologies LLC; Hill Brothers Chemical; Kemira Water; Leslie's Poolmart, Inc.; Norwalk Wastewater Equipment Co. Inc., dba Norweco Inc.; Pencco, Inc.; Polydyne, Inc.; Salt Works (a Mesa business); and Thatcher Company of Arizona, Inc.

10 August 2016

City of Mesa: Know Your H20?? Industrial Contamination Clean-Up?

 

Researchers find unsafe levels of industrial chemicals in drinking water of 6 million Americans

By Brady Dennis

August 9, 2016
As part of the study, which was published Tuesday in Environmental Science & Technology Letters, the researchers examined concentrations of six types of PFAS chemicals in drinking water supplies around the country. The data came from more than 36,000 samples collected by the Environmental Protection Agency between 2013 and 2015.

They also looked at sites where the chemicals are commonly found — industrial plants that use them in manufacturing, military bases and civilian airports where fire-fighting foam is used and wastewater treatment plants.
Source: The Washington Post

30 August 2017

PUBLIC RIGHT-TO-KNOW: 2.8M Arizonans Live Within Vulnerable Zones from Toxic Chemical Leaks

2.8 million Arizonans live within vulnerable zones from toxic chemical leaks
[Editor’s Note: This is part of an ongoing series of stories in which the ABC15 Investigators and the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting collaborated to explore how Arizona regulates the storage and transportation of hazardous chemicals across the state.]
By Brandon Quester, AZCIR | Lauren Gilger and Maria Tomasch, ABC15 

BLOGGER NOTE: This study was done in 2014 and needs some updating.Here in Mesa an additional facility needs to be added to the list of the four vulnerable sites farther on this post

23 August 2017

Problem Here In Mesa? Sites of Military Bases & Water Contamination

Military bases' contamination will affect water for generations
An article updated one day ago brings up possible problems here in Mesa where 2 Master-Planned Communities, Eastmark and Cadence @ Gateway are located.
 Other expansion of residential areas around former WW2 base Falcon Field may also be part of issues that are raised in this reporting.
Sites that the City of Mesa uses to monitor water quality might not provide the information that is needed to measure contaminants in the soil, where the testing for these PSFAs are not currently required.

19 March 2018

Background,Comments, Outlays Re: Item 5-e [Toxic Waste] Mesa City Council Meeting Mon 19 March 2018

 

^^^ HEADS UP ^^^Without the question raised at the Thu 16 March 2018 Study Session about Item 5e by District 1 Councilmember Mark Freeman, your MesaZona blogger may have taken less notice of this pending Ordinance - it made sense to pay more attention when a city official was in-place and ready to explain Freeman's inquiry on an item in District 6 with an immediate response on camera.
The City is investing over $150 million to construct the Signal Butte Water Treatment Plant, which will add an additional 24 million gallons per day (MGD) of pumping capacity to the area by Summer 2018.
In addition, a $200 million expansion of the existing Greenfield Water Reclamation Plant will also enhance wastewater capacity in the area by 14 MGD, bringing the total plant capacity to 30 MGD.
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Blogger Note: Please see farther on in this post for related content, including a report from the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting

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However, with all the public face-time staged in front of Mesa Channel 11's cameras coverage of city council meetings last week and during weeks for the extensive review of next year's FY19/20 Budget, some of the information is hard-to-swallow while at the same time it's good-to-know that the BIG ISSUE of an impending 18-Year Drought is now getting some attention simultaneously with more build-out of residential, manufacturing and industrial facilities, like data centers that consume huge amounts of both water and electricity in East Mesa.
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HERE ARE SOME UPDATES from previous posts on this blog
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The question now arises is - beyond any questionable actions known or un-known by "bad actors" -
how do we MANAGE THE PUBLIC HEALTH RISKS IN THE ENVIRONMENT? [These are man-made risks]
Way too often they get ignored until there's a crisis: Clean Air + Clean Water
Nearly every day HIGH POLLUTION alerts and advisories
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Here's something we all might have missed last week published by ProPublica:

Suppressed Study:
The EPA Underestimated Dangers of Widespread Chemicals

The CDC has quietly published a controversial review of perfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, that indicates more people are at risk of drinking contaminated water than previously thought.

by Abrahm Lustgarten, Lisa Song and Talia Buford June 20, 4:54 p.m. EDT

A major environmental health study that had been suppressed by the Trump administration because of the “public relations nightmare” it might cause the Pentagon and other polluters has been quietly released online.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published the controversial 852-page review of health dangers from a family of chemicals known as perfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS — manmade chemicals used in everything from carpets and frying pan coatings to military firefighting foams — on its website this morning, and will publish a notice in the Federal Register tomorrow . . .
All told, the report offers the most comprehensive gathering of information on the effects of these chemicals today, and suggests they’re far more dangerous than previously thought... The report also expanded the focus of research from the two most well-known PFAS . . .

chemicals to include 12 others.

As evidence of contamination mounts, the questions of what these chemicals do to people’s health and how much exposure they can tolerate have lingered, which is why the CDC’s report has been so eagerly anticipated. . . The CDC report only addresses a tiny fraction of the compounds produced, and the chemical industry uses new compounds to replace the old ones on a regular basis. “People call it chemical whack-a-mole,”

Read more >> https://www.propublica.org