This year, 29 journalism students from 18 universities traveled across the country. They conducted hundreds of interviews, reviewed thousands of pages of state and federal statutes and other records and built databases and data visualizations documenting the issues surrounding water pollution.

To see the full News21 report on “Troubled Water” and view the 30-minute documentary, go to troubledwater.news21.com. Watch a preview of the project here:

News21 investigates drinking water in America from News21 on Vimeo.

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Troubled Water Trailer from News21 on Vimeo.

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A flag in the city of Waukesha is displayed downtown. (Photo by Rachel Konieczny/News21)

WAUKESHA, Wisc. – The city of Waukesha has a radium problem, and it’s looking to Lake Michigan for a solution.

Although talks of drawing water from nearby Lake Michigan began in 2002, Waukesha has struggled with radium contamination since the late 1970s when the Environmental Protection Agency lowered the acceptable limit for radium in public drinking water systems.

In 2010, Waukesha submitted an application to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources for an alternative water supply from Lake Michigan, citing its radium contamination, depleting aquifer and unsustainable water supply.

The more than $200 million proposal, known as the Great Water Alliance, will return 100 percent of the used water back into the lake. The city plans to draw 10-million gallons of water per day from Lake Michigan.

The Great Lakes Compact, the legally binding agreement crafted by the eight Great Lakes states and two Canadian provinces, details how the states and provinces regulate the Great Lake Basin’s water supply. Any community applying for a diversion must demonstrate it has exhausted all other options for getting water, according to the compact’s website.

Waukesha met the compact’s requirements, and the governments involved supported the agreement.

However, individuals have mixed feelings about the alliance. While residents mainly argue the project will hurt the city economically because water rates will increase, water advocacy groups cite the effect the diversion will have on the Root River carrying water back to Lake Michigan and on the lake itself.

Sandy Hamm, Waukesha resident, said he thinks the diversion of water from Lake Michigan to Waukesha is unreasonable. (Photo by Rachel Konieczny/News21)

Waukesha resident Sandy Hamm said the diversion is unreasonable.

“It’s just foolhardy to be pumping water from Lake Michigan 20-some miles out here and then pumping it back,” Hamm said.

Cheryl Nenn, riverkeeper at the nonprofit group Milwaukee Riverkeeper, said her organization also opposes the diversion.

Cheryl Nenn, riverkeeper at the Milwaukee Riverkeeper group, said her organization opposes the diversion of water from Lake Michigan to Waukesha. (Photo by Rachel Konieczny/News21)

“We’ve never thought the diversion was the best option for Waukesha. We always thought they were asking for a lot more water than they were currently using,” Nenn said, referencing the city’s average daily water use of 6 million gallons in contrast to the proposal’s 10 million gallons. Nenn said the city must be prepared to extinguish a fire with its largest facility out of service.

Nenn said the Root River, which will carry water back to Lake Michigan, could have increased algae blooms due to higher amounts of nutrients entering the river.

“When there’s lower flow (during the summer), the pollution is more concentrated in the river so that’s something we would be concerned about,” Nenn said.

However, Waukesha resident Chris Curren said he supports the project.

“Other than figuring out how to pay for it, I’m for it,” Curren said. “Those against it seem to be because they think it will open up a floodgate, allowing other cities to do the same.”

One of those residents, Laurie Longtine, said she thinks the city is setting a negative legal precedent.

“I can just see a scenario where another community within the Great Lakes basin decides to apply for water … to grow and keep expanding,” said Longtine, a board member of the Waukesha County Environmental Action League. “All of these other communities could all stick a straw in it at any time and withdraw.”

While officials said they believe the city’s aquifer is declining and cited that as one of the reasons for the diversion, residents say otherwise.

Like Longtine, Waukesha resident Steve Edlund agrees the aquifer is rising. He began researching the United States Geological Survey’s data on the city’s aquifer in 2013 and found it was no longer declining 5 to 9 feet per year, but rather increasing.

However, Dan Duchniak, Waukesha Water Utility general manager, said the aquifer levels frequently fluctuate, causing the aquifer to appear to be rising.

Dan Duchniak, Waukesha Water Utility general manager, said the Great Water Alliance will likely be completed by 2023. The alliance will divert water from Lake Michigan to Waukesha. (Photo by Rachel Konieczny/News21)

Edlund said the radium problem is practically a nonissue, citing the city’s reluctance to install radium filters on four of the system’s wells that he said would effectively eliminate the contamination.

Duchniak said the diversion is not just about radium. He also identified total dissolved solids, or saltwater, as an additional contaminant.

“If this was just about radium, it would have been an easy solution,” Duchniak said. “It’s not just about radium – it’s about a sustainable water supply because we have other contaminants that we’ll have to deal with, and there’s other emerging contaminants that are coming down the pipeline.”

Edlund said he is also concerned with the socioeconomic impact the diversion will have on the community.

“There is no public assistance for your water bill and that’s scary,” Edlund said. “This is going to have a huge impact, especially on people that are lower income or fixed income. They are not going to be able to afford to live in the city of Waukesha. They’ll be forced out of their homes.”

The diversion does not have a definitive route for the pipeline yet. However, the project is expected to be completed by 2023, Duchniak said.

To see the full News21 report on “Troubled Water,” go troubledwater.news21.com on Aug. 14.

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There are disparities between small versus large water systems in America. (Photo by Davide Restivo/Wikimedia)

In the U.S., it’s often a case of the bigger the system, the better the drinking water quality.

Most water systems in the U.S. are small and serve 3,300 people or less. These smaller systems may be numerous, but they only serve 7 percent of the population. The vast majority of Americans get their water from larger systems.

Smaller systems are more likely to violate the Environmental Protection Agency standards because fewer customers means less funding and in turn, they’re less likely to pay for upgrades and maintenance. Check out News21’s findings below and see why bigger is definitely better when it comes to water systems:

To see the full News21 report on “Troubled Water,” go to troubledwater.news21.com on Aug. 14.

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Queen Quet, chieftess of the Gullah/Geechee Nation, has advocated for clean well water on St. Helena Island, South Carolina. (Photo by Bryn Caswell/News21)

The majority of the 43 million Americans who rely on private wells for their drinking water also use onsite sewage disposal systems known as septic systems. Septic systems rely on the earth to sanitize the water, but they’re complicated. In fact, many Americans don’t understand how they work. News21 reporter Bryn Caswell explains what these systems do and how they can contaminate drinking water.

To see the full News21 report on “Troubled Water,” go troubledwater.news21.com on Aug. 14.

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Experts say Cape Cod’s sandy soils make the groundwater especially susceptible to contamination, a factor in Hyannis’ recent contamination that resulted in a 2016 drinking water health advisory. (Photo by Rachel Konieczny/News21)

HYANNIS, Mass. – When Hyannis officials discovered that unacceptable levels of contaminants from firefighting foam had leaked into the city’s water supply, they took action.

Officials immediately provided cases of water to 18,000 residents of the Cape Cod community and spent $6 million to install an activated carbon filtration system. Now, they are cleaning the contamination site.

Phil Brown, a professor of sociology and health sciences at Northeastern University, praised the response after the city discovered the contamination in 2007.

“The local government has been incredibly responsive,” Brown said. “They’ve done their best to use a filtration system, to educate people and to come speak to public forums to help people understand that they are doing a lot working to shut down (contaminated) wells in the community.”

Brown leads the university’s Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute and recently worked with the Environmental Working Group, a national organization specializing in toxic chemicals research, to create a national interactive map that cross references the locations of public water systems with known per- and substance contamination. These substances, man-made and toxic to humans, prove difficult to remove from the environment and are found in a variety of stain-resistant, waterproof and non-stick products.

The map combines federal drinking water data with documented cases of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance contamination from manufacturing plants, military air bases, civilian airports and fire training sites, according to the project’s website.

“A lot of (regulation) does have to be done at the local level because local water districts are where we’re measuring a lot of this,” Brown said. “We’re actually very pleased to see the level of interest by the local government.”

But some Hyannis residents hesitate to drink the tap water, which officials have deemed safe.

“After the whole Flint thing, I woke up one morning, and they said the Hyannis Water System is contaminated, too, so we have to lay off (the water) until they fix it,” resident Calvin Wiggins said.

Calvin Wiggins has lived in Hyannis, a community in Cape Cod, for 20 years. He buys bottled water for drinking because he doesn’t trust the water there. (Photo by Rachel Konieczny/News21)

Wiggins, who moved to Hyannis from Jamaica 20 years ago, said he continues to buy bottled water for drinking but uses the tap water for showering and washing dishes.

“It is a little expensive to buy bottled water. But at the same time, you’ve got to work it into your budget,” Wiggins said. “You’ve got to pay for the water anyway, so add a little more to it. I make sure I’m on the safer track.”

Wiggins said he moved to Hyannis to achieve economic prosperity. He relied on his tailoring experience in Jamaica and now owns and operates his own upholstery company while working as a part-time musician. Known as the “Capital of the Cape,” Hyannis leads Cape Cod’s commercial and transportation sectors while capitalizing on its summertime tourist industry.

Experts say Cape Cod’s sandy soils make the groundwater especially susceptible to contamination, a factor in Hyannis’ recent contamination that resulted in a 2016 drinking water health advisory.

“Cape Cod is a deposit of a glacier 15,000 years ago and basically comprised of sand outwash and a sandy deposit,” said Thomas Cambareri, director of water resources for the Cape Cod Commission. “It’s very porous, highly permeable sands that comprise Cape Cod.”

Cambareri, a hydrogeologist, said the county is trying to better understand the contamination and how to effectively clean it up.

The Silent Spring Institute first discovered these emerging contaminants on Cape Cod in 2009, but they didn’t reach unacceptable levels until the EPA raised its standards. The institute concluded the contamination in Hyannis came from aqueous film-forming foam, commonly used at military bases and firefighting academies. These findings helped researchers and officials determine the source of the contamination: the Barnstable County Fire and Rescue Training Academy.

Laurel Schaider, a research scientist at the Silent Spring Institute who has tested Hyannis water, said the contamination problem is twofold.

“When we talk about the firefighting foams getting into the wells, that’s related to environmental contamination. When the foams are used, they can run off into the soils and then ultimately percolate down into the groundwater,” Schaider said. “When we’re talking about household wastewater, we know that (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are used in many household items, such as stain-resistant carpets, furniture and nonstick cookware.”

Brown said researchers have a long way to go.

“There is a lot of work that needs to be done in green chemistry to find chemical alternatives that are safer,” Brown said.

In addition to finding chemical alternatives, Hyannis is exploring other ways to help ensure residents are drinking safe water.

“One approach is the trend toward more municipal water supplies,” said Mark Forest, chairman of the Cape Cod Conservation District.

While less than 20 percent of residents rely on private wells, Forest said they can better ensure their safety by hooking up to the municipal water supply.

Forest praised the Cape’s advancements thus far, highlighting one development being tested at the Joint Base Cape Cod military site.

Mark Forest, chairman of the Cape Cod Conservation District, praised the response to water contamination in the area. (Photo by Rachel Konieczny/News21)

“One innovative way of dealing with this (contamination) is called permeable reactive walls,” Forest said. “What the wall does is it sort of intercepts pollution as it moves along the surface or just below the surface of groundwater.”

According to the EPA, the walls will be introduced once data from the military site has been collected and analyzed.

Barnstable County Administrator Jack Yunits, who oversees the fire training academy, said the academy stopped using the foam in 2007 after learning of its potential harm. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said studies have suggested that exposure could cause cancer and low birth weights in infants.

“Now we’re in the process of cleaning up the site,” Yunits said. “We’ve removed a lot of the contaminated soils, and we have a treatment system out there where we try to grab the water before it gets to the wells and run it back.”

Yunits said he hopes the federal government better regulates these emerging contaminants.

“I just wish they’d deal with it like they did with the Agent Orange problem and start to address people’s concerns,” Yunits said. “I don’t think (these contaminants are) going to be an epidemic of proportion that Agent Orange was if we control it. But if it starts to become a problem for mothers and kids, then we’ve got an issue.”

In June, Barnstable County agreed to pay the town of Barnstable $2.95 million for reimbursement associated with the contamination from the chemicals used in the firefighting foam at the academy. The town of Barnstable, Hyannis’ neighbor to its north, owns the academy. Both the town of Barnstable and the county have filed separate lawsuits against the foam manufacturers, including industrial giant 3M. The lawsuits are currently in federal court, Yunits said.

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