Environmental Health News, Week 4: A New Infrastructure Plan & Dirtier Water

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The Trump administration released a new infrastructure plan that proposes "protecting clean water with greater efficiency." Although this sounds like something positive, the plan would essentially lessen the amount of regulations and agencies that protect US water. The EPA would have less say in these matters. According to the article, 16 million Americans already get sick from tap water each year. With this new infrastructure plan, there could be more risk for contaminated water from runoff from new highways, dams, or pipelines. More contaminated water would lead to the possibility of cities having to pay to clean the dirty water in order to make it safe to drink.

Water is such an essential resource; it's unfortunate that we have to worry about the quality of our water or if it is contaminated. Eliminating regulations on water should be avoided, and if anything, should be increased. Americans already get ill from water, and if we continue to lift regulations, it may only get worse.

http://www.businessinsider.com/drinking-water-could-get-dirtier-trump-infrastructure-plan-2018-2

Comments

  1. Ashley SubramaniFebruary 16, 2018 at 10:26 AM

    Having less restrictions on water is scary as we rely so heavily on water. Due to unknown contaminants in my sink water, I decided to add a PUR filter to it to add extra filtration to my water. We need stricter regulation on the quality of water. Water is suppose to support life, not cause harm to it.

    -Ashley Subramani

    ReplyDelete
  2. RaeMay 9, 2018 at 12:54 AM

    The EPA lessening restrictions is so frustrating. We have come so far from the industrial era and the decimation that followed environmentally from that time. I don't understand when the government will see that eventually we will have no more land to go to if we destroy it piece by piece. They may not even be able to clean the water, instead they will raise the allowable limit of x chemical for humans until the population is catastrophically sick.

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