Drinking Water

It’s easy to appreciate the need to disinfect germs on surfaces, but have you ever wondered how germs exist on surfaces in the first place? Enter the biofilm. In recent years, scientists have increased their understanding of these dense colonies of bacteria that produce an extracellular material that binds a community of different microorganisms together... Read More »

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has made it easier for consumers to find out whether their drinking water meets Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) standards.  On May 16, 2011, EPA announced an update to ECHO , the Enforcement and Compliance History Online, an electronic tool maintained by the EPA Office of Ground and... Read More »

On March 11, 2011, Japan’s Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant withstood shaking from the fourth largest earthquake recorded worldwide in over one hundred years. However, the 19 foot-high seawall separating the facility from potential oceanic onslaughts could not withstand the tsunami that followed. The plant flooded, electrical power to the cooling system was lost,... Read More »

In September, 2000, world leaders gathered in New York to adopt the United Nations Millennium Declaration, a resolution to reduce extreme poverty by meeting a series of time-sensitive goals known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).  Included in these goals is the target of halving by 2015 the proportion of the world population that lacked... Read More »

This winter residents of El Paso, Texas experienced unusually cold weather.  Temperatures reached six degrees Fahrenheit in early February, the lowest recorded for the city in 120 years.  In short order, El Paso became a city of frozen and burst water pipes where businesses and daily activities were seriously disrupted. Faced with a significant water... Read More »