Rural Community Assistance Partnership

Practical solutions for improving rural communities
front-page-banner-img

ProPublica

Message from Mexico: U.S. Is polluting water it may someday need to drink

Posted Tue, 2013/01/29 - 10:29am by RCAP

by Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica, Jan. 25, 2013

Mexico City plans to draw drinking water from a mile-deep aquifer, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times. The Mexican effort challenges a key tenet of U.S. clean water policy: that water far underground can be intentionally polluted because it will never be used.

ProPublica: Poisoning the well: How the Feds let industry pollute the nation's underground water supply

Posted Wed, 2012/12/12 - 3:09pm by RCAP

by Abrahm Lustgarten ProPublica, Dec. 11, 2012

Federal officials have given energy and mining companies permission to pollute aquifers in more than 1,500 places across the country, releasing toxic material into underground reservoirs that help supply more than half of the nation's drinking water.

In many cases, the Environmental Protection Agency has granted these so-called aquifer exemptions in Western states now stricken by drought and increasingly desperate for water.

ProPublica: New study predicts frack fluids can migrate to aquifers within years

Posted Fri, 2012/05/04 - 9:19am by RCAP

 

by Abrahm Lustgarten ProPublica, May 1, 2012, 4:29 p.m.

A new study has raised fresh concerns about the safety of gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale, concluding that fracking chemicals injected into the ground could migrate toward drinking water supplies far more quickly than experts have previously predicted.