Drinking Water

Colonoscopy: The very word sends shudders down the spine of anyone who has drunk "the drink" -- the concoction that cleanses the colon so the doctor can later examine it. I've enjoyed three different procedures with three different preps, and I've made it my mantra to minimize the misery: The appointment: Just pick up the phone. The test is far better than cancer would be. My first one was early, at age 45, because my mother died of colon cancer. Feel nothing but gratitude that such a preventive procedure exists.

WASHINGTON - The Interior Department proposed new rules to regulate hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas on federal land Thursday, drawing criticism from environmentalists that it had weakened an earlier draft to placate industry. Industry officials were not mollified, however, reiterating their objections to federal standards. Last year, they criticized the department's earlier draft rules as inflexible and onerous. "We are proposing some common-sense updates that increase safety while also providing flexibility and facilitating coordination with states and tribes," Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said.

So far there have been no dead bodies, no safes stuffed with soggy cash, no rusty stolen cars. The only things exposed by the receding water at Echo Park Lake have been shopping carts, 55-gallon steel barrels, a parking-enforcement "boot" and lots of skateboards. But who knows what is still hidden in the muck at the bottom of the 13-acre lake, soon to be dredged and outfitted with a leak-proof clay liner? Officials say that leaks once required them to replenish the lake with valuable drinking water.

POTOSÍ, Bolivia - A gentle breeze swept across Laguna Colorada, momentarily turning the magenta mineral lake water neon-orange as it rippled around the knobby knees of several dozen flamingos. Suddenly, a pair of frisky vicuñas trotted through the shallows, sending the flamingos aloft like a flock of hot pink pterodactyls. It was that kind of week. I tend to be lightheaded at altitude in the best of times, but road tripping across the Bolivian altiplano was downright psychedelic.

Uninvited visitors have wormed their way into Hawthorne's kitchens and bathrooms. A minor infestation of bloodworms--larvae of the gnat-like midge--is forcing the city to purge its municipal water system, which serves about half of Hawthorne's 12,000 households and businesses. The scarlet creatures, although unnerving to residents who have been finding them in their water glasses and bathtubs since last week, do not pose a health hazard, officials say.

State Sen. Sheila Kuehl's bill on requiring developers to guarantee water to residents of big developments is good (editorial, Oct. 1). But we apparently need much more than this, considering your Aug. 14 article saying one in three people on the planet will not have adequate drinking water in as little as 25 years. We need leadership and people with vision, right now. Our leaders need to educate citizens about how vital it is to start conserving, start planning, start trying to figure out ways of providing water to the world population.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced plans on Monday to overhaul its efforts to safeguard drinking water and to tighten restrictions on four waterborne compounds that can cause cancer. Officials said the steps would help regulators identify new contaminants faster and move quickly with new technologies to prevent harm to consumers. Environmentalists expressed hope that the moves will break a regulatory logjam at the EPA, which has not listed a new water contaminant for regulation in more than a decade.

Re "EPA Revokes New Arsenic Standards for Drinking Water," March 21: The new EPA standard for arsenic in drinking water of 10 parts per billion (ppb) was a solution in search of a problem that, even if proven, is too marginal to justify its exorbitant expense. The National Academy of Sciences 1999 report stated that epidemiological studies of arsenic and cancer all involve levels of at least several hundred ppb, and no study exists that shows arsenic at the old EPA standard of 50 ppb causes cancer or any other disease.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is beginning distribution of brochures summaries the quality of the drinking water it sells. Summaries will be included with bills by service area; the sample report below reflects service area A in West Los Angeles and in the San Fernando Valley. The DWP tests for numerous substances on a periodic schedule; state and federal regulations control the amount of chemicals allowed in drinking water.

State health officials are examining records and talking with Riverside County officials about testing done at a well next to a Crestmore Heights cement plant where regulators have discovered high levels of a cancer-causing toxin called hexavalent chromium. Area residents have used the well for drinking water for decades, and officials are now investigating where the residents now obtain their water. "We're taking this very seriously," said Ken August, a spokesman for the state Department of Public Health.

SACRAMENTO - Responding to complaints from businesses, Gov. Jerry Brown is proposing an overhaul of California's 26-year-old landmark clean water and anti-toxins law that he said is being misused by "unscrupulous lawyers" filing lawsuits. At issue is the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, or Proposition 65, approved by voters in 1986. It requires product manufacturers, retailers and property owners to post signs warning the public if goods or premises contain chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer or birth defects.

California has failed to spend $455 million in federal safe-drinking-water funds and isn't adequately managing the program that administers the money, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials said. "Nearly half a billion dollars that could be actively used today is being held and basically parked," said Jared Blumenfeld, EPA regional administrator. Blumenfeld's office on Friday sent a notice of noncompliance to the California Department of Public Health, warning that if the state doesn't take corrective action within 60 days, the EPA may suspend grant payments to the program.

There are a lot of people in this world, and it seems as if most of them were at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival last weekend. A logistical puzzle, certainly, and one that requires feedback in order to improve. The festival continues next weekend in Indio, so now's a good time for a mid-festival debriefing. What didn't work? What could be better? What follows are 10 modest proposals for promoter Goldenvoice that could add more sparkle to the festival. Expand the Yuma tent.

It is no wonder Florida Sen. Marco Rubio needed to grab a bottle of water in the middle of delivering the Republican response to President Obama's State of the Union address. The speech he was given to recite was like a hunk of stale, dry sourdough and it surely caught in his throat.  For 30 years, Republican aspirants to the presidency have been giving variations of the same speech. It sounded fresh and bold when Ronald Reagan first spoke the words as a candidate in 1980. At that point, the liberal era that began with Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 had pretty much run out of gas. Democrats had grown too comfortable with their seemingly permanent lock on the House of Representatives, while their ideas about the creative use of government had devolved into a system of doling out federal dollars to clamoring interest groups.

The Duchess of Cambridge turned down a glass of wine in favor of water at a state dinner in Singapore on Tuesday. And immediately the fashion world and media started examining her floral print dress for signs of a baby bump. [New York Daily News] Of course, she might have been drinking water because she is taking anti-malarial meds. [Examiner] Meanwhile, the duke said he would like for the couple to have two children. But he didn't say whether a bun is already in the oven.

KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. - As environmental disaster sites go, it doesn't look like much. A scattering of rusting wellhead covers and a machine noisily sucking hydrocarbon vapors from the earth scarcely hint at what has grown into a $50-million headache. But nearly 500 feet beneath this spot, a plume of aviation gas and jet propellant that leaked undetected for decades from an Air Force fuel depot has sunk into the aquifer, drifting toward wells that help supply Albuquerque's drinking water.

Re "Hayden Urges Faster Action on Health Threat," Aug. 22. I am amazed at the Department of Health Services' statement that any action to reduce the amount of chromium 6 in Los Angeles' drinking water would be economically devastating. Devastating to whom? To the Los Angeles citizens who will suffer miscarriages and stillbirths, multiple tumors, deaths and the rest of the horrible list of conditions known to be caused by traces of chromium 6. If Department of Health Services feels it needs more test data, it should look at what PG&E [Pacific Gas & Electric Co.]

Smokey Robinson refers to himself on his Twitter feed as "Singer, Poet, Philanthropist. " But when Pop & Hiss reached the soul-music legend Monday morning shortly before a rehearsal for his two-night stand this weekend at the Hollywood Bowl, we also found him to be sentimental, worldly and a prodigious user of first names. Forty years ago today, you played your final show with the Miracles in Washington, D.C. Does that seem like another lifetime to you now? It does and it doesn't, Mikael.

SACRAMENTO — Under pressure from state lawmakers and environmentalists, Gov. Jerry Brown's administration has agreed to write regulations for one controversial oil extraction method and reexamine rules for another that led to a worker's death last year. The administration is seeking money in the next state budget to regulate the booming oil industry and assuage public concern over hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking. " Officials plan to develop rules that would ensure the integrity of oil wells and establish reporting requirements for operators that inject chemical-laced water and sand deep into the ground to tap oil, according to a California Department of Conservation document released this week.