APM Reports
[link removed]
[link removed]
When wildfires compromise drinking water, utilities lean on this professor's advice
[link removed]
In 2017, the Tubbs Fire in Santa Rosa, California, exposed a new threat to public health: Wildfires can contaminate drinking water with toxic chemicals that federally mandated testing is not designed to catch. Into that regulatory void has stepped Andrew Whelton, an engineering professor at Purdue University who has made it his personal mission to help water utilities recover after devastating fires.
During wildfires, damage to structures and demand for water can cause depressurization. This creates a vacuum in the distribution system that can pull contaminants into the service lines, water mains and connecting fixtures. Plastic pipes can also degrade at high temperatures, causing chemicals in the plastic to leach into the water.
Andrew Whelton has rushed from his home in Indiana to the side of utility managers from Colorado to Hawaii who were facing some of the most stressful infrastructure crises of their careers. He has clashed with California regulators over specific protocol, and recommended managers test for more contaminants than regulators there require. Last year, Whelton published a blueprint for how water utility staff can look for and decontaminate their systems. Utility managers say it provides a resource in an area where federal and state guidelines are lacking.
▻
[link removed]
Read the full story by Jennifer Lu
[link removed]
From Sold a Story
[link removed]
[link removed]
A window into America's high schools slams shut
For decades, the federal government has surveyed high school students — and repeatedly followed up with them as adults. Trump put an end to that effort as part of his quest to dissolve the Department of Education.
▻
[link removed]
Read
[link removed]
[link removed]
Lawsuit saves massive reading experiment
The Trump administration tried to kill the largest reading experiment ever funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s research arm — just months before the yearslong study was complete.
▻
[link removed]
Read
[link removed]
[link removed]
Nation's Report Card at risk
NAEP is one of the few education initiatives the Trump Administration has vowed to preserve. But the administration has slashed the staff, and the board overseeing the assessment has eliminated more than a dozen tests, citing “cost efficiencies.”
▻
[link removed]
Read
[link removed]
Preference Center ❘
[link removed]
Unsubscribe
This email was sent by:
American Public Media
480 Cedar Street Saint Paul, MN, 55101
