WARNING! NYC WATER ADVISORY!
I can't help but think "what is wrong with Pataki and Bloomberg" when I hear about this. I have never lived in a city in America where I had to boil the water. In Samoa, Estonia, Russia, Latvia I have boiled water, but not here. It blows my mind.
From the NYC Dept of Health:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/pr/pr068-05.shtml
DRINKING WATER ADVISORY FOR IMMUNE-COMPROMISED NEW YORKERS
NEW YORK CITY – June 30, 2005 – Following recent heavy rainstorms, higher than normal levels of particles have been detected in the City’s drinking water supply, which can interfere with the water chlorination process. These high levels were observed at approximately 2am today at the Hillview reservoir just north of New York City. While the affected water was diverted shortly thereafter, out of an abundance of caution, DOHMH is recommending that infants, the elderly, pregnant women and New Yorkers with conditions that compromise their immune systems– those with HIV/AIDS, especially those with CD4 counts less than 200; those with leukemia; and those who are post bone marrow transplantation - use either boiled or bottled water as a precaution for the next 24 hours (until noon Friday).
The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has requested that doctors increase testing for parasitic illnesses and immediately report these diseases as well as any increase in gastrointestinal symptoms, especially diarrheal illness.
The DOHMH and the New York City Department of Environmental Protection are working closely with the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to further assess water quality and are continuing to monitor for illness.
Recommendations
Anyone with severe diarrhea should see their doctor immediately. People with immune-compromising conditions are advised to:
Bring tap water to a rolling boil for one minute before use.
* To avoid a burn injury, allow water to cool before pouring into a clean, dry container.
* Boiled water should be use for ice cubes, brushing teeth, preparing salads, and mixing with concentrates.OR
Use point-of-use filters with an absolute pore size of less than or equal to one micron in diameter
* Safe filters include:
o those certified by the National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) for “absolute cyst removal of particlesBookmark/Search this post with:|
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Environment | New York City
Hmmm
Submitted by mole333 on 1 July 2005 - 7:39am.
I am unconvinced. I am happy they warn us (though again, I didn't hear it on NY1 until this morning) but I am not happy that it happens. Don't remember any such warnings in California except when an earthquake damaged a resivoir. Possibly, though, the overall drier climate makes a difference even when there are heavy downpours. The warnings you get in LA when there is a downpour is not to go to the beach because the strom drains get cleared out.
Unrelated, sort of, is the fact that I notice that NYC, despite being wetter and having lots of rain (same amount as Seattle, actually) is not built to handle the rain. Streets flood so readily here! Here in Park Slope the problem is so bad that if your building doesn't have costly pumps installed, the sewage backs up into your house when it rains hard because the sewers aren't upgraded to match the current population.
seriously, it's pretty normal for this to happen every once in
Submitted by puppeteer on 2 July 2005 - 10:55am.
an east coast city simply because the infrastructure is older. In fact, NYC has one of the best water systems of any pre-1900 city. and we've started to buy up lots and lots of the land in our drinking watershed to prevent things like this.
where i grew up in VA, we took our drinking water out of a pipe from the Potomac River above Great Falls which was then filtered & treated. required many more chemicals than NYC's and it tasted awful when the spring floods came because they had to add a bunch more chemicals.
in california cities (except San Francisco), the water & sewer systems were largely built around the turn of the century and were probably expanded greatly mid-century, giving them much more modern features (filtration of water supply, separate storm and sanitary sewers, etc.).
don't politicize this. If you must, note how the most progress on water tunnel #3 been made during the Bloomberg administration (and I'm no fan of him).
Easy there. New York City is
Easy there. New York City is just doing its job, and quite well at that. It's not at all unusual in highly populated areas for this kind of thing to happen - especially under these conditions: a long period of humid, swampy weather followed by some torrential downpours. we had to boil the water in Amherst one summer - and in Philly it is standard practice in summer to advise HIV/AIDS infected to do the same because of the presence of cryptosporidium. But the water is tested constantly there - and here as well - hence the advisory.
And it was in the newspapers and on the radio.