-
When the Faucet Runs Dry
Grist, Sponsored by NRDCAugust 31, 2021 On the gritty streets of Detroit, community organizer Sylvia Orduño has been working to help the city’s most vulnerable residents for over twenty years. “There’s one family that sticks in my mind,” she says. “He was a disabled former police officer. He had so many health problems that they couldn’t keep up with the bills, so their water was shut off. His wife and daughter were hauling water in bottles to bathe him.” The story Orduño shared should be an isolated, tragic occurrence — but it’s not….
Continue reading -
Private Well User? Take the Survey to Help Us Help YOU!
Clean Water for NC is excited to get back on the ground and work to strengthen protections for our state’s 3 million+ well users To help us better understand community needs and concerns, we are inviting all individuals who rely on a private well for their drinking water source to participate in the survey below! The anonymous survey is divided into 2 sections: 1. Your well testing history 2. Potential barriers to testing your well TAKE THE WELL USER SURVEY! **All responses are anonymous and will only be shared with CWFNC staff to better inform their Well User Protection campaign…
Continue reading -
‘Bipartisan’ Infrastructure Plan is a Privatization-Promoting Disaster
By Food & Water Watch, June 24 2021 Today the White House announced that it had reached a bipartisan infrastructure ‘compromise’ with a group of Senators. The plan would rely on privatization schemes that will undermine public control and prove to be costly. The proposed financing mechanisms include “public-private partnerships,” “private activity bonds,” and “asset recycling.” Public private partnerships are privatization deals in which a private company takes control over the operation, and sometimes financing, of a public project. Private activity bonds give tax subsidies to debt issued by corporations to finance privatized projects. Asset recycling refers to schemes where a…
Continue reading -
Testing Before Real Estate Transfers to Protect Private Well Users!
It is estimated that over 3 million North Carolinians use private wells for their drinking water, and NC has the fourth highest number of private well users in the country. While there is no statewide database tracking the annual number of real estate transfers in NC, it would not be a stretch to state that tens of thousands of properties are bought or leased annually without the buyer or lessee having any information on the quality of their property’s private well. Because North Carolina law only mandates the testing of private wells that were drilled after…
Continue reading -
The International Challenge of World Water Day—March 22nd!
As Clean Water for NC and all of our members and allies continue to work for Safe, Affordable Water for All in our state, it’s crucial to keep in mind that much of the world lacks the water and wastewater management that we’ve MOSTLY been able to take for granted in the US. The theme of this year’s United Nations World Water Day is “Valuing Water,” calling on individuals and nations to assess the complex multiple values water holds in our lives, health, culture and economies and making decisions to protect, restore and manage it accordingly. A strong focus of…
Continue reading -
Environmentalists say Trump’s EPA fell far short in the fight against PFAS
By: Greg Barnes, Environmental Health News March 9, 2021 On the eve of his last day as president, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under Donald Trump sent out a glowing news release highlighting its numerous efforts to protect people from toxic “forever chemicals.” The news release was the last of many from the EPA that touted the agency’s successes in the waning months of Trump’s presidency. In it, the EPA trumpeted the suite of actions that will “continue the significant progress” it has made to combat per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances — or PFAS — found at elevated levels in drinking water in North…
Continue reading