Midwest Droughts Varied and Far Reaching Effects

The severe drought now being felt in much of the Midwest segment of the United States is threatening to destroy a large portion of the annual corn crop (Drought, heat killing corn crop, The Columbus Dispatch -   http://tinyurl.com/84k8yvp ) At first glance, that would seem like an event that would have significant effects on food prices, and that those effects would be felt most close at hand and become more subdued the farther one travelled from the source of the event.  Evidently, that's not the case.  Here in the U.S., those commodities prices represent only a small part of the average food bill, so in the short term, those food prices should not see any big jumps.  That's according to a story in the Appleton, Wisconsin Post-Crescent - http://tinyurl.com/8yer9t9 .  And yet half a world away, The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that the withering U.S. corn crop will drive up commodity prices enough in that country that consumers will definitely feel the pinch at the local supermarkets (US Heatwave to send Australian food prices higher - http://tinyurl.com/7jukl5r ). It's a good example of the interconnectedness of the worlds commodities markets, and how water, or the lack thereof, can have far reaching effects.

CCR - Consumer Confidence Report or Confuse Consumers Report?

July 1st of every year marks the day by which community water systems across these United States are required to have mailed to their customers the previous year’s Consumer Confidence Report (CCR), more commonly known as the water quality report. If you haven’t received yours yet, then look for it in the mail shortly. If you still don’t see it, then it’s probably a good bet it was already delivered to you as a bill stuffer or stand-alone mailer that you summarily disposed of as junk. Hopefully you at least recycled it. If your curiosity about the report has been stimulated by this post, however, then never fear. You can go on-line to your water company’s web site and find an electronic version posted. Once you find it, however, you may find it somewhat difficult to decipher. Don’t blame your water company for that, at least not entirely. Federal regulations promulgated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have a great deal to say about what is and isn’t to be included in the CCR, as well as how it is to be organized and what verbiage to use, and we all know that the Federal Government is not always the best when it comes to communicating in a simple, easy to understand fashion. Just look to the tax code for a good example of that. For that reason, I thought I might try to explain a few of the more confusing bits, judging by the questions I get asked frequently around this time of year.

Although your water company tests for a great many elements, chemicals, compounds, molecules, particles, and life forms in your drinking water, the CCR is only supposed to contain those items that were detected in the water served to the public at concentrations above a defined level. There is a lot packed into that sentence that we should look at a little more closely, one piece at a time.

“Items that were detected” – in other words, if I tested for a hundred different things and didn’t find any of them, my CCR would be blank. So how do you know what the water company tests for and how often they test? You don’t, at least not based upon the information in the CCR. If you want to find out, you can try calling your water company and hope you can contact someone who knows the answer, but it’s a much more difficult and complex answer than you might imagine, given the ever growing extent of drinking water regulations. Or you could search the internet for a posting of your states drinking water regulations, although even if you find them you will then have to interpret them. Adding to the complexity is that not every item needs to be tested for every year. Some testing only needs to be done every other year, or every three, six, or nine years. And the frequency can vary depending upon the source of your water or other factors. The answer is complex, will be different for every water company, and could be different year to year for the same water company.

“Served to the public” – so if you’re looking to your CCR to give you some idea of what is in the local lake, river, or groundwater aquifer your water is drawn from, you’re probably out of luck. The CCR tells you what’s in the water you drink, so if your source water is contaminated with high levels of perchlorate, for example, but your water company treats that water to completely remove the perchlorate before selling it to you (which they had better!), then the CCR would not list perchlorate as a contaminant.

“Concentrations above a defined level” – huh? No analytical test can measure down to zero. They all have what’s referred to as a reporting limit. Above the reporting limit, you can confidently say that the item you are testing for is present at a measured level; it can be quantified. Below the reporting limit, you can’t really measure the level accurately, or even say whether it’s actually present or not with any real confidence. The Federal or State government sets the reporting limit for most items they require to be measured based on their estimation of what can confidently be reported by a majority of laboratories. If the reporting limit is set at 5 ug/L for example, it is not required of any water company to report in their CCR any test results less than that, even if the laboratory that does their analytical work has the capability of reporting lower levels with confidence. So if your water company tested samples at 4 ug/L of this compound, whatever it may be, they would not be required to report that in the CCR.

CCR’s contain a wealth of information, but unfortunately the rules governing how they are produced can make deciphering them a bit of a challenge. I’ve tried to shine some light on a few of those challenges in this post, although certainly not all – I’d need a few more pages for that. Feel free to contact me if you have any particular questions, and hopefully I’ll be able to answer them.