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Latest news about the Safe Drinking Water Team
Water advocates are demanding the exclusion of local wells in any sale of Nestlé’s North American water bottling portfolio, and instead return them to municipalities. This summer Nestlé announced it is considering the sale of most of its North American water bottling business. The intended sale of the Nestlé Pure Life business to Ice River Springs fell through last month because the transaction did not meet the Competition Bureau’s regulatory approval process.
There is also concern the changes that were made that allowed some of the advisories to be lifted were just temporary fixes. There are long-term, structural problems with the water treatment systems in many Indigenous communities that have not been addressed. Many of these places lack the proper equipment needed to remedy the operational issues with which they are confronted.
The drinking water of some 14 million Americans is contaminated with a cancer-causing industrial solvent called Trichloroethylene, or TCE, according to a new EWG analysis of tests from public utilities nationwide. EWG’s Tap Water Database, which aggregates test results from utilities nationwide, shows that in about half of the systems it monitors, average annual levels of TCE were above what some health authorities say is safe for infants and developing fetuses.
