美国国家公共电台 NPR Water Uncertainty Frustrates Victims Of California's Worst Wildfire

Water Uncertainty¹ Frustrates² Victims Of California's Worst Wildfire

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

In and around the rural northern California town of Paradise, people are asking is it safe to live here. Almost nine months after the deadly Camp Fire, the area is still a disaster recovery zone. As NPR's Kirk Siegler reports, the handful of people who are rebuilding homes and lives there say they're getting contradictory³ messages about whether the water is even safe.

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COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Turn right, then your destination will be on the left.

KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE⁴: Tammy Waller thought she was one of the lucky ones. Her home in Magalia survived California's most destructive wildfire. But her community remains⁵ a ghostly skeleton of its former self.

TAMMY WALLER: Now some cleared lots, not cleared lots. And what is that? Burned cars.

SIEGLER: Hazmat crews are still clearing properties. Giant dump trucks continue to haul away toxic⁶ debris⁷. And then there's the water. Signs on water fountains at town hall say don't drink. Waller remembers the day she came home.

WALLER: When I first walked in, I went to my kitchen sink and turned on the water. And it was just literally⁸ black.

SIEGLER: After the Camp Fire, in some water lines, scientists detected dangerous levels of cancer causing benzenes from burnt plastics. Waller's taps are now running clear. And she's been told it's safe to drink. But less than a half mile away in a neighborhood destroyed by fire, the water isn't considered safe. In this system, the pipes are all connected.

WALLER: It's not a risk I want to take to drink it.

SIEGLER: Fire survivors⁹ like Waller are frustrated¹⁰ by the mixed signals from state and local officials. It's not always clear what water is safe, who is at risk and who isn't. Now a big reason for the confusion is that the publicly owned utility, the Paradise Irrigation District, is advising its customers to use bottled water for almost everything - drinking, cooking, brushing your teeth. But the smaller, private Del Oro Water Company says its water going to standing¹¹ homes like Waller's is safe to drink.

WALLER: The flip-flopping is what puts a lot of uncertainty and I think causes the public more stress. It causes me more stress knowing that one day it's fine, the next, you know, couple of weeks later, oh, oops, it's not.

ANDREW WHELTON: Nobody should encounter these types of decisions following a disaster because it's not their fault that this happened.

SIEGLER: Purdue University's Andrew Whelton is an expert on rebuilding water infrastructure¹² after disasters. He consulted in Paradise after the Camp Fire. He says there hasn't been nearly enough stringent¹³ testing to ensure people aren't being exposed to danger. And the state didn't even issue its water safety guidance to homeowners until June.

WHELTON: In absence of any guidance, people are going to have to figure out how to protect themselves. They're going to have to test their own plumbing¹⁴. They're going to have to find people that know what they're doing because the state clearly does not.

SIEGLER: But the state says Whelton and other academics are being alarmist. At the California Water Resources Control Board in Sacramento, I asked toxicologist Bruce Macler whether he could say with certainty that the water in the Paradise area is safe.

BRUCE MACLER: While we know that there was contamination there, and we have some very high levels, worrisome levels, we also know nobody's drinking that water, and they never will.

SIEGLER: But how can the state know that for sure? Macler told me he's pretty confident that after more recent testing, the water being delivered to homes with people in them is safe. Well, this is of little solace¹⁵ to fire survivors we talked to, who complained that government agencies are taking a cavalier attitude toward public health. But Macler says the state can only regulate water up to the moment it enters a property.

MACLER: The Safe Drinking Water Act, the federal level and the state equivalent of it, stops at the meter. Congress did not ask us to go into people's homes.

SIEGLER: For now, the Del Oro Water Company will test the water in your home if it survived the fire for a $70 charge.

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SIEGLER: In Magalia, Del Oro's assistant superintendent¹⁶ Jim Roberts takes a sample from a worried customer's kitchen sink.

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JIM ROBERTS: ...About a cup or two go through.

SIEGLER: He tells them the bottle will get shipped to a lab. But in the meantime, everything should be fine.

ROBERTS: Once this is completed, then you can go about filling up the coffee pot and...

SIEGLER: Roberts says the water going to inhabited homes like this is safe because Del Oro did rigorous flushing of its system after the fire. And this continues today. When his own home burned, he moved back to a new place nearby. The water tested safe, and he's drinking it.

ROBERTS: And as long as, you know, we feel there's any risk of any sources containing any contamination, we're going to continue to flush. So we don't know how long that's going to be. It could be years.

SIEGLER: Roberts says a wildfire taking out a whole city's infrastructure is new territory. You hear that a lot here. But for fire survivors such as Tammy Waller, patience is wearing thin.

WALLER: This is all new. And for that, I can give definitely some leeway on that. My thing is, it's OK to say you don't know.

SIEGLER: Andrew Whelton at Purdue is more blunt. He built his career advising the U.S. military on rebuilding water infrastructure.

WHELTON: The fact that it's a big disaster is no excuse anymore because what you do in disasters is you force augment¹⁷. You go get super smart, trained individuals to come in to take responsibility.

SIEGLER: Until someone actually takes responsibility and ownership of big decisions and leads, Whelton warns the recovery here will continue to lag.

Kirk Siegler, NPR News, Paradise, Calif.

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1 uncertainty   

n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物

参考例句：

• Her comments will add to the uncertainty of the situation.她的批评将会使局势更加不稳定。
• After six weeks of uncertainty,the strain was beginning to take its toll.6个星期的忐忑不安后，压力开始产生影响了。

2 frustrates   

v.使不成功( frustrate的第三人称单数 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧

参考例句：

• What frustrates him is that there's too little money to spend on the project. 使他懊恼的是，可用于这个项目的资金太少。
• His trouble is that he frustrates much easily. 他的毛病是很容易泄气。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

3 contradictory   

adj.反驳的，反对的，抗辩的；n.正反对，矛盾对立

参考例句：

• The argument is internally contradictory.论据本身自相矛盾。
• What he said was self-contradictory.他讲话前后不符。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

6 toxic   

adj.有毒的，因中毒引起的

参考例句：

• The factory had accidentally released a quantity of toxic waste into the sea.这家工厂意外泄漏大量有毒废物到海中。
• There is a risk that toxic chemicals might be blasted into the atmosphere.爆炸后有毒化学物质可能会进入大气层。

7 debris   

n.瓦砾堆，废墟，碎片

参考例句：

• After the bombing there was a lot of debris everywhere.轰炸之后到处瓦砾成堆。
• Bacteria sticks to food debris in the teeth,causing decay.细菌附着在牙缝中的食物残渣上，导致蛀牙。

8 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

9 survivors   

幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The survivors were adrift in a lifeboat for six days. 幸存者在救生艇上漂流了六天。
• survivors clinging to a raft 紧紧抓住救生筏的幸存者

10 frustrated   

adj.挫败的，失意的，泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的过去式和过去分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧

参考例句：

• It's very easy to get frustrated in this job. 这个工作很容易令人懊恼。
• The bad weather frustrated all our hopes of going out. 恶劣的天气破坏了我们出行的愿望。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

12 infrastructure   

n.下部构造，下部组织，基础结构，基础设施

参考例句：

• We should step up the development of infrastructure for research.加强科学基础设施建设。
• We should strengthen cultural infrastructure and boost various types of popular culture.加强文化基础设施建设，发展各类群众文化。

13 stringent   

adj.严厉的；令人信服的；银根紧的

参考例句：

• Financiers are calling for a relaxation of these stringent measures.金融家呼吁对这些严厉的措施予以放宽。
• Some of the conditions in the contract are too stringent.合同中有几项条件太苛刻。

14 plumbing   

n.水管装置；水暖工的工作；管道工程v.用铅锤测量（plumb的现在分词）；探究

参考例句：

• She spent her life plumbing the mysteries of the human psyche. 她毕生探索人类心灵的奥秘。
• They're going to have to put in new plumbing. 他们将需要安装新的水管。 来自《简明英汉词典》

15 solace   

n.安慰；v.使快乐；vt.安慰(物)，缓和

参考例句：

• They sought solace in religion from the harshness of their everyday lives.他们日常生活很艰难，就在宗教中寻求安慰。
• His acting career took a nosedive and he turned to drink for solace.演艺事业突然一落千丈，他便借酒浇愁。

16 superintendent   

n.监督人，主管，总监；(英国)警务长

参考例句：

• He was soon promoted to the post of superintendent of Foreign Trade.他很快就被擢升为对外贸易总监。
• He decided to call the superintendent of the building.他决定给楼房管理员打电话。

17 augment   

vt.(使)增大，增加，增长，扩张

参考例句：

• They hit upon another idea to augment their income.他们又想出一个增加收入的办法。
• The government's first concern was to augment the army and auxiliary forces.政府首先关心的是增强军队和辅助的力量。