密歇根新闻广播 停工两年后 托莱多的水资源质量依然欠佳

Two years after Toledo's water supply was shut down by so-called blue-green algae¹, people are still worried about the safety of the city's drinking water.

Toxins² called microcystins are sometimes produced by certain freshwater cyanobacteria blooms. Those blooms are more likely under certain conditions, and every summer Toledo is on the watch for an increase.

Tom Henry is a columnist³ with the Toledo Blade and has extensively covered this problem in Lake Erie.

Henry told us that the water quality wasn't too bad this year. He said this year's bloom was “toxic in some areas, but still considered fairly mild in terms of volume and biomass.”

Despite that and the myriad⁴ measures the city is taking to ensure their water's safety, he told us many Toledoans still don't feel great about using their tap water.

“The late mayor Michael Collins, we talked a lot about this during the water crisis, and he told me afterward⁵ that it was a crisis of confidence. He said people lost faith, lost confidence in us as they should have because we let them down,” Henry said.

We also spoke⁶ with activist⁷ and former Ohio Green Party gubernatorial candidate Anita Rios, who lived through the water shutdown in Toledo two years ago.

“Just consider what your day would be like if that happened. We couldn't make coffee, we couldn't even wash our face or brush our teeth,” she said.

She told us that the water is now safe to drink, but it has a definite chlorine taste to it.

“It's an unpleasant thing,” she said, “but it's certainly better than being poisoned.”

Both Rios and Henry told us there are similarities between the water crisis in Toledo and that in Flint.

“The parallels between Toledo and Flint are there in terms of missed warning signs,” Henry told us.

“There are huge similarities between Toledo and Flint,” Rios said. “Of course we're both rust⁸ belt towns that I feel are largely forgotten, and I think that for us, the ordinary citizens, the important thing is that we need to push for some of these changes, because it's not going to get better without our voice.”

1 algae   

n.水藻，海藻

参考例句：

• Most algae live in water.多数藻类生长在水中。
• Algae grow and spread quickly in the lake.湖中水藻滋蔓。

2 toxins   

n.毒素( toxin的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The seas have been used as a receptacle for a range of industrial toxins. 海洋成了各种有毒工业废料的大容器。
• Most toxins are naturally excreted from the body. 大部分毒素被自然排出体外。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 columnist   

n.专栏作家

参考例句：

• The host was interviewing a local columnist.节目主持人正在同一位当地的专栏作家交谈。
• She's a columnist for USA Today.她是《今日美国报》的专栏作家。

4 myriad   

adj.无数的；n.无数，极大数量

参考例句：

• They offered no solution for all our myriad problems.对于我们数不清的问题他们束手无策。
• I had three weeks to make a myriad of arrangements.我花了三个星期做大量准备工作。

5 afterward   

adv.后来；以后

参考例句：

• Let's go to the theatre first and eat afterward. 让我们先去看戏，然后吃饭。
• Afterward,the boy became a very famous artist.后来，这男孩成为一个很有名的艺术家。

6 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

7 activist   

n.活动分子，积极分子

参考例句：

• He's been a trade union activist for many years.多年来他一直是工会的积极分子。
• He is a social activist in our factory.他是我厂的社会活动积极分子。

8 rust   

n.锈；v.生锈；(脑子)衰退

参考例句：

• She scraped the rust off the kitchen knife.她擦掉了菜刀上的锈。
• The rain will rust the iron roof.雨水会使铁皮屋顶生锈。