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Comment by philovivero | Hacker News Reader

Good point. No-one will take you up on that, because as much as we hate to admit it, we know the newly-available EPA talent is good for some other org to take in, not our org, heavens no.

As others have noted in other comment threads, EPA needs some serious cleaning. It is an agency that has gotten so large that it is no longer effective.

Our drinking water and rivers and lakes and air are becoming unsafe everywhere. We need EPA to focus on its core mission.

Trump is a results-oriented guy. If EPA is in charge of clean water, and you have Flint... the course of action is clear. Trump is a simpleton: just produce the results you are supposed to produce, and he'll go find some other heads to lop off.

Predictable action from a simple-minded guy.

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Can you clarify what makes you say that the EPA is "so large that it is no longer effective"? Everything I've heard about the situation inside the EPA makes it sound more like they're desperately short on staff and funding and they're doing the best that they can within those limitations. The problem isn't lack of focus; it's lack of resources.

It's not as if the EPA has been growing unchecked; conservative politicians have been doing their best to gut its funding or render it toothless for decades now, going back at least as far as Reagan. If you're not happy with the current situation, it seems unlikely that continuing down the path of defunding the EPA will improve it.

Re: air quality, my understanding is the EPA has a badass network of air quality sensors. Here's one project that maps them and the data streaming off of them (example shows a sensor in SF):

http://aqicn.org/city/california/san-francisco/san-francisco...

> It is an agency that has gotten so large that it is no longer effective.

What makes you think the size of EPA is the cause of cases like Flint?

Any good tech for home water filtration or testing? Our sewage line up here in Twin Peaks (SF) broke a few weeks ago, mud in my sink. Been sketched out by my water since, interested in the latest and greatest in home water tech. 5 stage filter system on amazon for <$200, but too big for my studio apt. Would be cool to test my home water somehow, see how it scores.

How did the sewage line breaking cause mud in your tap? black/white water lines should never be mixed.

For my second sink in my kitchen I have a 5 stage filter system. It goes through a UV light to kill living things, then a 3 charcoal filters, one for large particles, another for removing chlorine and the third for removing small particles. Then it does reverse osmosis before heading to the tap. As far as size, it takes up about 1m x 0.5m x 0.5m

Oop, I meant water line!

Sounds like a solid system, ever tested it to see what difference it makes on a molecular level?

A friend of mine has this in their apartment http://a.co/4GZcGdC but I'm guessing that's the one you're talking about.

That same amazon page has this for testing http://a.co/dVZweID which I've seen come up a lot when doing research, but it'll only tell you if something is in the water, not what.

I usually skim thesweethome.com for things like this, too.

http://thesweethome.com/reviews/best-under-sink-water-filter... http://thesweethome.com/reviews/best-water-filter-pitcher/#h...

That RO system is overpriced and undersized (3 gph). Buy better kits from wholesalers that use standard parts (50-200 gph) for the same price. (200 gph can be tankless and generate product water on-demand) http://www.wateranywhere.com/index.php?cPath=23_411

Thanks to your link, I just bought one of the testers!

For $15 it will be fun to play with, and roughly compare water sources like my home waer vs X-stage filtered water at Manylabs. No biological test tho, or identification of molecules.

Maybe create an open source dataset and protocol for enabling mapping this data globally?

(Email me if you want updates on my tinkering - tito@impossiblelabs.io)

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