Screenshot from the National Health Council series, "Drinking Health," from 1930
Readers often ask me, “How do you find stories?” and “Where do you get your information?”
The answer to the first question is tricky:
- A curious — some would say, nosy — disposition: In elementary school I used to go through the classroom trash to see if anything interesting had been tossed – true story — and my family often listened to the scanner at bedtime “for fun”
- A suspicious mind, undoubtedly honed by routine exposure to the scanner
- Stubbornness
- And a willingness to zig when others zag
The second question though, is easier to answer: I dig through a lot of databases, documents and records.
This is the secret sauce, and it’s available to anyone who knows where to look. Deciphering the data dumps requires patience and a high tolerance for tedium, but once you understand what you’re seeing, well, a whole world of knowledge opens to you.
And that knowledge should be shared – widely and freely.
In that spirit, this video is the first in a series of online tutorials that will show you how to navigate and make sense of environmental data– the same data I use in my work every day.
This tutorial deals with the state’s Drinking Water Watch database, where you can see how your utility is ensuring your drinking water is safe. That includes government-owned utilities, private entities, like Aqua North Carolina, and even smaller systems that serve mobile home parks.
In the tutorial, I go over the highlights of the database, but if you have detailed questions, you can contact the Public Water Supply Section.
Feedback, questions about the video? Contact me at lsorg@ncnewsline.com.
Here is a transcript of the tutorial.
And here are links to background material and sourcing used for the video:
The EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Act resources and FAQ page
Info on TTHM and disinfection byproducts
The EPA’s lead and copper rules
The state’s 2022 annual report detailing public water systems and their compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act. This document also contains a glossary.
You can sign up for a weekly email service from the EPA that sends you a compilation of environmental violations incurred, the type, the time frame and the violator. The emails usually are delivered on Sunday evening or Monday morning. They include Safe Drinking Water Act violations, which is how I monitor problems at mobile home parks. You can sign up based on a geography, such as a state, or by facility. I’ve found it incredibly valuable.
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