Tag: drinking water

Is Trump hiding a stroke?

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Michelle at motleynews.net posted a video excerpt that makes me suspicious. Here’s her commentary:

Check out this short 7-second clip below (it’s the 2nd video – I’m unable to post it alone due to the way it was tweeted) when trump took a short break during his West Point Military Academy Graduation Speech. This is recent, too, as he held up the bible just fine in front of the church on June 1st. He’s been stumbling over many words for some time now. But this totally looks like he’s had a stroke when he has to use his left hand to lift the water glass he’s holding in his right hand. This is a very good sign that trump will be gone soon.

And here’s the link directly to her post.

Tell the EPA to get the lead out!

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Almost three decades after the landmark Lead and Copper Rule went into effect, children and pregnant women are being poisoned by lead in our nation’s drinking water in part because there is no requirement that the EPA be notified about where lead pipes are.

Public employees are pushing the EPA to rewrite its regulations which have helped enable crises like Flint, Mich., and now Newark, N.J. An estimated 15 million to 22 million people, or 5% to 7.5% of our nation’s population, drink water delivered through lead pipes…

There are no safe levels of lead in drinking water. Low levels of exposure to lead in children are linked in hyperactivity, anemia, lower IQs, physical and learning disabilities and slowed growth. In pregnant women, lead can be transmitted to the bones of the developing fetus. In adults, lead can lead to memory loss and high blood pressure. Bones can retain lead for decades.

Let us sort the crap politics out and get something happening to clean up unsafe water. What century is this after all?

Coal ash pits, hog manure lagoons — what could go wrong in North Carolina?

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North Carolina is home to 31 coal ash pits where Duke Energy stores an estimated 111 million tons of toxic waste produced by coal-fired power plants. The state is also home to thousands of manure pits, known euphemistically as “lagoons,” which hold approximately 10 billion pounds of wet waste generated each year by swine, poultry, and cattle operations.

A handful of news outlets are reporting about the danger of coal ash and hog manure spilling into North Carolina’s waterways in the wake of Hurricane Florence. Bloomberg covered the serious environmental and public health risks and the Associated Press warned of a potential “noxious witches’ brew of waste.”

Don’t worry, be happy! Our Fake President is so confident after being reassured by his coal pimp buddies that he relaxed the rules regulating coal ash pits. Before Hurricane Florence arrived.

And the Hog Manure Lagoons? Hey, there’s only 4,000 or so. Not much of a problem if, say, only 5 or 10% of them overflow. Right? Ain’t any Senators or Congress-critters living nearby.

Water works lawsuit puts Agribusiness on notice for nitrate pollution

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❝ Depending on your perspective, the Des Moines Water Works lawsuit against three agriculture-heavy Iowa counties to hold them accountable for harmful nitrate contamination in the Raccoon River water supply can be a few things: a battle between farmers upstream and urban water users downstream, a common sense plan to get polluters to pay or a costly intrusion into private land use…

❝ For Bill Stowe, general manager of the Des Moines Water Works, the nitrate problem was so acute in 2015 that the decision to sue was necessary…

We have spent several decades trying to work collaboratively with agriculture groups. Realistically that has gotten us nowhere. The curve continues to deteriorate in terms of water quality that we are experiencing here in central Iowa. We think that we are in a water quality crisis…It’s clear that we are facing a far worse condition in 2016 than we did 25 years ago.

❝ The federal lawsuit came in 2015 after the Water Works was forced to operate their nitrate removal system for long stretches when record-high levels of the toxic nitrogen compound were present in the Raccoon River, the water supply for 500,000 people in the Mississippi River basin. Sac County, named in the suit, had testing done on its waterways that empty into the Raccoon and some were found to be five times higher than the standards EPA deems safe, according to the utility. Besides simply recovering the $1.5 million it cost to run the denitrification system in 2015, the utility had higher aims of halting pollution at its source. In this case the utility established that the primary pollution source is runoff from farm fields and animal operations that flow from tile drainage (subsurface drains) and end up in streams, lakes, rivers and, eventually, the mighty Mississippi.

Farmers and producers offer the usual crap conservative solution: voluntary compliance. Hasn’t worked. Never will.

❝ Frustration and lack of an aggressive water quality plan led Water Works to the courts to pursue a novel legal strategy that asserts that county drainage districts are point-source polluters that are directly identifiable because their infrastructure carries nutrient-rich farm runoff. The districts manage and maintain this infrastructure, so it’s the Water Works claim that the districts, supervised by the counties, are on the hook for the water…

Agribiz has their knickers in a bunch because any reasonable finding of responsibility leaves them open to lawsuits from everyone downstream from their pollution. Maybe, just maybe, it’s time for them to free up a little money from their favorite hedge funds and act responsibly.

DuPont must pay $5.1 million for cancer case from Teflon production

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❝ A U.S. jury on Wednesday ordered DuPont to pay $5.1 million to a man who said he developed testicular cancer from exposure to a toxic chemical used to make Teflon at one of its plants…

It is the second time jurors in Ohio federal court have found against DuPont, which is facing more than 3,400 lawsuits from residents who say they contracted one of six diseases linked to perfluorooctanoic acid, known as PFOA or C-8, which is used to make products such as Teflon non-stick cookware.

❝ Following a five-week trial, jurors deliberated for less than a day before finding DuPont was negligent and awarding $5.1 million in compensatory damages to David Freeman, an Ohio resident who said he developed testicular cancer from his exposure to C-8 in drinking water.

The jury also decided that DuPont had acted with actual malice, a finding that exposes the company to punitive damages, the amount still to be determined…

❝ The trial was a so-called bellwether, the verdict of which is intended to help the companies and plaintiffs value remaining cases alleging similar facts.

Punitive damages rule AFAIC. It hasn’t been very many years since folks started to win deadly and life-altering cases against industrial giants.

Uranium contaminates water across the West

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❝Uranium, the stuff of nuclear fuel for power plants and atom bombs, increasingly is showing in drinking water systems in major farming regions of the U.S. West — a naturally occurring but unexpected byproduct of irrigation, of drought, and of the overpumping of natural underground water reserves.

An Associated Press investigation in California’s central farm valleys — along with the U.S. Central Plains, among the areas most affected — found authorities are doing little to inform the public at large of the growing risk.

❝That includes the one out of four families on private wells in this farm valley who, unknowingly, are drinking dangerous amounts of uranium, researchers determined this year and last. Government authorities say long-term exposure to uranium can damage kidneys and raise cancer risks, and scientists say it can have other harmful effects.

In this swath of farmland, roughly 250 miles long and encompassing major cities, up to one in 10 public water systems have raw drinking water with uranium levels that exceed federal and state safety standards, the U.S. Geological Survey has found.

More broadly, nearly 2 million people in California’s Central Valley and in the U.S. Midwest live within a half-mile of groundwater containing uranium over the safety standards…

❝Everything from state agencies to tiny rural schools are scrambling to deal with hundreds of tainted public wells — more regulated than private wells under safe-drinking-water laws.

That includes water wells at the Westport Elementary School, where 450 children from rural families study outside the Central California farm hub of Modesto.

At Westport’s playground, schoolchildren take a break from tether ball to sip from fountains marked with Spanish and English placards: “SAFE TO DRINK.”

The school, which draws on its own wells for its drinking fountains, sinks and cafeteria, is one of about 10 water systems in the farm region that have installed uranium removal facilities in recent years. Prices range from $65,000 for the smallest system to the millions of dollars…

❝The uranium gleaned from the school’s well water and other Central California water systems is handled like the nuclear material it is — taken away by workers in masks, gloves and other protective garments…

It is then processed into nuclear fuel for power plants…

❝Meanwhile, the city of Modesto, with a half-million residents, recently spent more than $500,000 to start blending water from one contaminated well to dilute the uranium to safe levels. The city has retired a half-dozen other wells with excess levels of uranium…

❝In California, as in the Rockies, mountain snowmelt washes uranium-laden sediment to the flatlands, where groundwater is used to irrigate crops.

Irrigation allows year-round farming, and the irrigated plants naturally create a weak acid that is leeching more and more uranium from sediment, said Miranda Fram and Bryant Jurgens, a fellow researcher at the federal agency’s office in California’s capital.

Groundwater pumping pulls the contaminated water down into the earth, where it is tapped by wells that supply drinking water.

California is now experiencing its driest four-year span on record, and farmers and other users are pumping groundwater at the highest rates ever, helping to pull yet more uranium into areas of aquifers tapped by water wells…

❝“This has been a decades-long process that has occurred,” Jurgens said.

And even if authorities were to intervene to somehow curb uranium contamination — and no such effort is under way — “we expect that it’s going to take many decades to reverse this,” Jurgens said.

RTFA. Please. Especially if you live in or around the farming valleys of California.

It is clear that the problem ain’t going away on its own. It is only going to get worse. State authorities are so drawn to other problems of the drought they’re not dealing with this much at all. And no one’s certain what they can do about it – anyway.

High levels of a carcinogen found in fracking waste water

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Hoping to better understand the health effects of oil fracking, the state in 2013 ordered oil companies to test the chemical-laden waste water extracted from wells.

Data culled from the first year of those tests found significant concentrations of the human carcinogen benzene in this so-called “flowback fluid.” In some cases, the fracking waste liquid, which is frequently reinjected into groundwater, contained benzene levels thousands of times greater than state and federal agencies consider safe.

The testing results from hundreds of wells showed, on average, benzene levels 700 times higher than federal standards allow, according to a Times analysis of the state data.

The presence of benzene in fracking waste water is raising alarm over potential public health dangers amid admissions by state oil and gas regulators that California for years inadvertently allowed companies to inject fracking flowback water into protected aquifers containing drinking water.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency called the state’s errors “shocking.” The agency’s regional director said that California’s oil field waste water injection program has been mismanaged and does not comply with the federal Safe Drinking Water Act.

Read it and weep, folks. Shocking, I say – shocking.

Except I’m not shocked. BITD, I worked in and around oil fields in Louisiana and there is no other class of business [in my experience] that spends 24 hours a day looking for ways to circumvent regulations. Especially requirements for environmental health and safety.

The article is the sort of thing LA Times journalists are thorough about. They don’t skimp on excellence. And, no, I don’t think the Feds have any right to be shocked. They should have been watching these sharks like tuna on toast.

Brain-eating amoeba found in Louisiana’s St. John Parish water system

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The water system in Reserve, Garyville and Mount Airy has tested positive for a potentially deadly brain-eating amoeba, the state Department of Health and Hospitals said…Officials say the Naegleria fowleri amoeba was found in samples taken from St. John the Baptist Parish’s Water District No. 1, which serves 12,577 people in those east bank communities.

There are no known cases of illness from the amoeba. But officials warned residents to take precautions against getting water in their nasal passages, which is how the amoeba can move to the brain…

“Families can take simple steps to protect themselves from exposure to this amoeba, the most important being to avoid allowing water to go up your nose while bathing or swimming in a pool,” state health officer Jimmy Guidry. “It is important to remember that the water is safe to drink; the amoeba cannot infect an individual through the stomach.”

The St. John public school system has ordered water fountains turned off at all schools and was taping them up, school system spokeswoman Jennifer Boquet said.

Water District No. 1 was sampled as part of the state’s surveillance program and was found to be out of compliance for maintaining minimum disinfectant levels set to control the Naegleria fowleri amoeba. The state imposed higher disinfectant levels after a 4-year-old boy Mississippi boy contracted the amoeba during a visit to St. Bernard Parish and died.

St. John is now under an emergency order to perform a 60-day free chlorine burn on the water system, in which the water lines are infused with free chlorine. That is a stronger, faster-acting disinfectant than the normal infusion of chloramines, a combination of chlorine and ammonia.

Shouldn’t change the look and smell of Louisiana drinking water a whole boatload. When I lived in New Orleans it was usual to fill your bathtub with water green enough to look like a celebration rehearsal for St.Patrick’s Day.

The amoeba may not kill you; but, the crap the state of Louisiana adds to what passes for drinking water might.

Thanks, Mike

Marine Corps says Camp Lejeune water was never tested – in violation of Corps own regulations

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Died at the age of 9

The Marine Corps has repeatedly argued federal law didn’t regulate the cancer-causing pollutants that fouled the drinking water at Camp Lejeune until long after the contamination was discovered.

But the Corps’ own regulations, starting in 1963, required water testing at the North Carolina base and other Marine bases using a method that some say could have provided a warning about tainted water, according to documents and interviews…

The Marine Corps’ regulations mandated such testing annually, or every two years if water quality was “stable.”

But no record of CCE testing at Camp Lejeune can be found in the thousands of pages of documents detailing what some believe to be the worst drinking-water contamination in U.S. history…

To critics of the Marine Corps, the test was a lost opportunity to catch a public health disaster in its early years. Today, more than 185,000 people who drank, cooked and bathed in the polluted water from 1953 to 1987 have signed up for a health registry…

“They created these rules to protect their people,” said former Marine drill instructor Jerry Ensminger, who served at Lejeune. His 9-year-old daughter, Janey, conceived at the base, died of leukemia in 1985. “They didn’t have the discretion to ignore them.”

The Janey Ensminger Act, which provides health care to veterans and family exposed to Lejeune’s polluted water, was signed into law by President Barack Obama last year in the Oval Office as Ensminger looked on. Camp Lejeune again grabbed the political spotlight last week as Chuck Hagel, Obama’s nominee as defense secretary, said during his Senate confirmation hearing he was committed to getting answers about the polluted water at Lejeune.

Chemical contamination in drinking water at Camp Lejeune came from numerous sources, scientists say. They include a dry cleaner adjacent to the base and industrial solvents discarded by Marine personnel.

One of the worst sources of pollution was a fuel depot on base that may have leaked more than a million gallons of gasoline since the base opened in the 1940s, records show.

That our vaunted military avoided their own regulations comes as no surprise to anyone living near an old American military base.

There is a small civilian community next to the old bombing practice range at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico with a truly unique problem. Anyone who leaves the community or wishes to switch over to bottled pure water must do so via an authorized withdrawal regimen.

There were so many practice bombs dropped near their community going back in time to World War 2 that an underground plume of nitroglycerin has infiltrated their water supply for decades. If anyone stops drinking the water cold turkey they run the risk of dying from nitro withdrawal.

No one tested their water until someone did a study on their unique heart problems a few years ago. For decades, our military ignored responsibility in the way Congress has more recently adopted.

China stops spread of toxic metal in Longjiang River — next task?

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Neutralizers of dissolved aluminum chloride added at a water station
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Officials in southern China appear to have averted environmental calamity by halting the spread of a toxic metal that had threatened to foul drinking water for tens of millions of people…Officials said they had successfully diluted the concentration of cadmium, a poisonous component of batteries, that has been coursing down the Longjiang River in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

The spill, which first occurred two weeks ago, prompted a rush on bottled water in several downstream cities and prompted worries that the contamination could reach as far as Hong Kong and Macao.

The cadmium, a substance used in the production of paint, solder and solar cells as well as batteries, has been traced to discharges from a mining company in Guangxi that has since halted production, said Xinhua news agency…

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