Millions of Indians are facing a new health risk. Increasing water scarcity is forcing farmers to grow vegetables and fodder using untreated sewage waste water across urban and rural cities.

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FAAI) has in the past issued several warnings on pesticide residues and crop contaminants, including aflatoxins, patulin and ochratoxin in Indian fruit and vegetables. These pesticides are known to adversely effect the nervous system and can result in lung damage and cancer

Ahmedabad: These tiny creatures love heavy metal. It’s not music we mean, but toxic metals like cadmium, mercury, chromium, lead and zinc: stuff that not only cause cancer but also trigger impairments in humans after they seep into our soil and groundwater. A five-year research at the Central University of Gujarat (CUG) has zeroed in on a special group of microbes — mainly bacteria, fungi and actinomycetes — that not only munch on these deadly wastes but also turn the land useful by a process of bio-cleansing.

A large population, especially children, in 27 of the 50 Madhya Pradesh districts are threatened by the fluorosis menace as people in these districts are being forced to drink water with excessive fluoride, much beyond the permissible limit. According to the latest information available from the state public health engineering department, the fluoride content in water is much beyond the prescribed norms of 1.5 mg per litre or 1.5 part per million (ppm) in 11,460 drinking water sources (mainly handpumps) in 6,746 habitats spread across 27 districts.

Around 30 per cent of the groundwater resource in the state is unfit for both drinking and agriculture, a fact that has sparked concern in the groundwater department authorities since water sources in the state are receding at an alarming rate. Salinity and fluoride contamination are the main reasons for the water becoming unsuitable for irrigation and drinking. Dr K. Venugopal, joint director, groundwater department, said that there are as many as 36 saline mandals and a huge area with high flourine content in water, posing health hazards due to fluorosis.

Vermont will be the first state to outlaw a controversial oil and gas drilling method known as fracking when Governor Peter Shumlin signs a bill banning the practice, a largely symbolic move given the state's apparent lack of energy reserves.

Hydraulic fracturing has helped companies tap potentially decades of gas supply and huge amounts of oil from previously inaccessible shale formations dotted across the United States in recent years.

The chairman of the environment agency for England and Wales voiced support for shale gas extraction - which critics say can pollute ground water and cause earth tremors - and he backed government plans to expand nuclear power generation.

Shale gas is extracted using a technology called hydraulic fracturing or fracking, which involves pumping large amounts of water and chemicals underground.

NEW DELHI, May 7 – UNICEF has reported arsenic contamination in ground water in 18 districts of Assam and fluoride contamination in five districts.
Based on information from Chief Engineer (PHE) of the State Government, a UNICEF study has found arsenic and fluoride contamination, Minister of State for Water Resources, Vincent H Pala said in a Rajya Sabha reply to a question by Naznin Faruque.

The Obama administration on Friday issued a proposed rule governing hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas on public lands that will for the first time require disclosure of the chemicals used in the process.

But in a significant concession to the oil industry, companies will have to reveal the composition of fluids only after they have completed drilling — a sharp change from the government’s original proposal, which would have required disclosure of the chemicals 30 days before a well could be started.

New Delhi: Groundwater in India is becoming toxic, says data submitted in Parliament by the water resources ministry. The record submitted in answer to a question by Congress MP Shruti Chowdhry presents a countrywide map of where groundwater has become unfit for drinking and where contamination levels have breached government standards of safety.