The nation in brief: More of U.S. on alert for polio in sewage

More of U.S. on alert for polio in sewage

NEW YORK -- Philadelphia and Oakland County, Mich., are joining the small list of U.S. localities that are looking for signs of polio infections in sewage, U.S. health officials said Wednesday.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the communities will test for at least four months. Communities in New York state began testing earlier this year after a man was diagnosed with paralytic polio outside New York City.

CDC officials say they have been talking with other communities, focusing on those with low polio vaccination coverage and those in which travelers had visited the New York communities where polio was found. Officials say identifying the virus in sewage can help a city or county accelerate and target vaccination campaigns.

Health officials around the world have used wastewater to track covid-19 outbreaks. The CDC currently is receiving wastewater sampling data for the coronavirus from all 50 states. This year, commercial laboratories began testing wastewater for mpox, previously known as monkeypox.

Next year, health officials in Houston and Colorado plan to begin testing sewage for several other health threats, including germs with antibiotic resistance, influenza, respiratory syncytial virus, norovirus and other bugs.

Navy: No sign of taint after Hawaii spill

HONOLULU -- The Navy says there is no evidence of any drinking water contamination after a spill of about 1,100 gallons of fire suppressant at a fuel facility in Hawaii.

A cleanup is underway at the Red Hill fuel facility after the spill Tuesday of Aqueous Film Forming Foam, which is used to suppress fires caused by flammable liquids such as fuel and contains PFAS, a class of chemicals that are slow to degrade in the environment.

"This is egregious," said Kathleen Ho, a state environmental official. The foam "contains PFAS forever chemicals -- groundwater contamination could be devastating to our aquifer."

Navy Capt. M.D. Sohaney, commander of Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, said there is no indication of contamination and that the nearest well is a mile away and no longer supplies drinking water. The nearest such well is about 6 miles away, he said.

PFAS were developed as coatings to protect consumer goods from stains, water and corrosion. Studies of lab animals given large amounts of PFAS have found that some of them may affect growth and development, reproduction, thyroid function, the immune system and the liver.

Ho said state regulators "will hold the Department of Defense accountable and will press the operator to take any and all appropriate corrective action."

Utility's contract extended in Puerto Rico

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- A heavily criticized private company that operates the transmission and distribution of power in Puerto Rico secured a last-minute extension on its contract Wednesday despite widespread objections.

Luma Energy won a 4-1 vote of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority's board, with the dissenting vote cast by the member representing the public interest. Luma will be paid about $122 million next year, up from the $115 million it has received so far.

The approval comes amid worsening power failures that prompted the U.S. government to intervene this month and start securing barges and land-based generators to ease blackouts. Crews have started to rebuild the power grid that Hurricane Maria razed in 2017, with only emergency repairs made until now.

Luma, a consortium of Calgary, Alberta-based Atco and Quanta Services Inc. of Houston, was awarded the contract in June 2021, taking over crumbling infrastructure resulting from decades of neglect and mismanagement.

But the duration of power failures has only worsened, and Luma has faced heavy scrutiny and calls for its contract to be canceled by customers who have been hit with seven electric rate increases in one year while often left in the dark. Several substations have caught fire in recent months, with Luma on occasion blaming bad weather, seaweed and even an iguana, as well as the aging infrastructure.

The company celebrated the contract extension, saying that "despite an array of inherited challenges, Luma has made significant progress over the last 18 months addressing key infrastructure challenges, as well as improving the reliability and resiliency of the system."

9 sailors injured in aircraft carrier fire

SAN DIEGO -- A fire broke out aboard a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, resulting in minor injuries to nine sailors, military officials said Wednesday.

The blaze started Tuesday as the USS Abraham Lincoln was conducting routine operations about 30 miles off Southern California, the Navy said.

"The fire was quickly identified and extinguished through the crew's fire-fighting efforts," the Navy said.

All the injured sailors were treated aboard the ship, which will continue its operations in the area. The cause of the fire is being investigated.


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