Waterworks Blog

Study: Are pharmaceuticals giving fish the munchies?

Back in 2013, we posted about a finding by Swedish scientists that showed drugs in water were affecting fish:  “Scientists in southern Sweden found that fish living near a sewage treatment plant have low levels of psychoactive drugs — benzodiazepines — in their systems. Further study has scientists speculating that these anti-anxiety drugs are having an…

Safely dispose of unwanted or unused medication Sept. 27

Dispose of your unwanted and unused medication safely on Saturday, Sept. 27 during the National Prescription Drug Take-Back Initiative. Flushing unused or old medications down the toilet can pollute our waterways. Wastewater treatment plants were not designed to remove these compounds. Throwing drugs in the trash or leaving them in the medicine chest can lead to unintentional use,…

In California, brown is the new green

We’ve written several times about the problems posed by watering a lawn as the heat increases and the summer wanes.   In California, the Santa Clara Valley Water District is taking it a step further. They’ve just introduced a new campaign called “Brown is the New Green.” The goal, organizers say, is to persuade residents “to…

World Water Week 2014 begins Sunday

  As August ends and summer draws to a close, World Water Week 2014 kicks off in Stockholm, Sweden.  Presented by the Stockholm International Water Institute since 1991, World Water Week serves as a platform for discussions about anything and everything that have an impact on our Earth’s water supply. The SIWS website says the annual…

Lake Meade levels paint a frightening picture

We’ve experienced drought in the Lehigh Valley: crops have shriveled, lawns turned brown, sometimes wells even went dry. But the drought in the Southwest is like nothing we’ve seen here; at least not in our lifetimes. They’ve had 14 years of a dry so severe it’s left Lake Meade – the largest reservoir in the…

40 years of the Safe Drinking Water Act

2014 marks an important date for the water coming out of your tap: Four decades of the Safe Drinking Water Act. Signed into law by President Gerald Ford in 1974, the Safe Drinking Water Act was, quite literally, a watershed moment for public health and safety. It set federally mandated standards regarding the quality of…