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It's Been A Big Week For The Pittsburgh Water And Sewer Authority

Officials announced Tuesday that PWSA is back in compliance with federal standards for lead levels in drinking water. The next day, City Council gave preliminary approval to a bill that would allow the authority to replace the private side of residential lead service lines when it replaces the public side.

PWSA put its partial line replacement program on hold in June, after tests in some homes showed elevated levels of lead in tap water after the replacement of only the public side of the line.

90.5 WESA's Liz Reid and Theresa Clift, staff writer for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, break down the updates and what to expect next.

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Pennsylvania is getting outof the nursing home business. With the recent sale of both the Washington County Health Center and Armstrong County Health Center, the number of county owned nursing homes has dropped from 36 facilities in 2004 to 18 this year.

Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald said Allegheny County's four nursing homes are fairing well and that he has no plans to privatize. Still, he said he's worried about how wavering federal funding could affect county health.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Gary Rotstein explains what happens when a nursing home goes from public to private.

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The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has onlydenied two natural gas pipelines out of hundreds of proposals in the last 30 years, according to analysis by the Center for Public Integrity and StateImpact Pennsylvania. FERC commissioners say pipelines are expensive to build, so the ones that apply are well planned out.

As natural gas pipeline construction booms across the state, Pennsylvanians are seeing changes in their communities. 

CPI's Jamie Smith Hopkins and Beaver County Time's Jared Stonesiferdiscuss what all this new natural gas infrastructure means for the future of how we produce and consume energy.

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The Confluence, where the news comes together, is 90.5 WESA’s weekly news program. Each week, reporters, editors and bloggers join veteran journalist and host Kevin Gavin to take an in-depth look at the stories important to the Pittsburgh region.

Find more episodes of The Confluence here.

Photo by Kamil Kaczor/Flickr.

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