Friday Week Two

...updates on the WV water crisis...

1. How is the concentric flushing in the Charleston area progressing? Was there evidence of spill containment activities at Freedom Industries when the WVDEP arrived on Thursday Morning? What was the evidence? Why is this a problem for Freedom Industries? Why is it good that Freedom Industries was planning on putting $1 million into fixing the secondary containment wall? Why might this be a problem for them during future criminal and civil lega proceedings? How might (are) septic systems being damaged by in-house flushing? What is the difference between water that is safe and water that is safe*? Why does the post-flush water contain sediment?

2. The WVDEP issued five new violations to Freedom Industries related to what permit?

3. What did the city if Cincinnati do to protect their drinking water in response to what people are calling the Charleston Chemical Plume?

4. What is resilience? Why is resilience an important consideration at both at the individual level and the community level when dealing with crises such as the ongoing one in WV?

5. Is this a WV problem?

...regarding our own water delivery systems near and far?

1. Who provides our water in the city of Lexington? Is it a private company or part of the city government? Where is the water intake? Where is the water treatment plant? How is the water treated? What is a settling tank? What is a chemical flocculent? Why do we chlorinate our water supply? Why do we fluoridate our water supply? Where is our water water treatment plant (WWTP)? Where is our WWTP outflow pipe? Why is our WWTP where it is? Where did it used to be? Why did we move it? What are the advantages and disadvantages of its current location?

2. Where does our class get its water back home? How does this compare with the US as a whole? Are there any strong geographic trends in the percentage of the US population served by public supply water at the state level? Is there a trend between how urbanized a state is and what percentage of its residents get their water from a public source?

Slides from today are on Sakai. Your reading assignment for Monday is Understanding the Safe Drinking Water Act (PDF) (2004). The homework assignment should be up Sunday morning.