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How about a little hormone disruption with your drinking water?
Officials refrain from dumping toxic sludge into Elliott Bay;
Mom not impressed
What kids in MA are not saying: "More perchlorate please!"
FEATURED
Elected officials MIA; Instead Wal-Mart and Burger King protecting your health
Back to school: Are we ready? Are we non-toxic?
Fire retardants: Disproportionate risk to small children
Lead: Celebrate its ban, but don't cross it off your list
7 ways to reduce your exposure to PBDEs
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Starbucks' massive water waste
There are few things that we can all do without in life. And then, there are some that we definitely can’t do without. Like water.
Water has become major a human rights, environmental, and public health issue in recent years. The reason for that there is just not enough of it to go around. The numbers of those struggling to meet their basic water needs increases as the time goes. However, those who have access to fresh water are still not doing everything they could to stop wasting it. Some do very little.
Starbucks is a great example of somebody that wastes water. The U.S. owned multinational coffee giant, according to the recent reports, is wasting 23 million liters of water, daily. That is 607 595 gallons, or full Olympic pool, every 83 minutes. Or enough to supply two million people with water in countries suffering drought.
Starbucks wastes water by leaving the taps running in its worldwide stores all day. The Starbucks officials defend that practice by saying that the purpose is to clean utensils and meet health standards.
Continue reading "Starbucks' massive water waste" »
Rocket fuel, yet again
Enviroblog readers are very familiar with the health risks posed by perchlorate, a thyroid hormone disruptor and rocket fuel chemical that contaminates water supplies of millions of Americans in 28 states. EWG analysis brought public attention to the fact that three quarters of the most commonly consumed foods and beverages are contaminated with perchlorate, making food the primary source of exposure to people. And many Americans are getting a double perchlorate hit – both from food and water. Especially at risk from perchlorate are women with lowered iodide levels (a third of the US population) and newborn children whose developing brain vitally depends on adequate levels of thyroid hormone.
Ignoring an extensive body of science on perchlorate health effects and two recent reports by the Government Accountability Office, EPA has again and again refused to take any action to address perchlorate contamination of drinking water as well as groundwater, surface water, and soil across the country, leaving the health of Americans at risk. Why? As testified by the EWG Executive Director Richard Wiles before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, “Perchlorate provides a textbook example of a corrupted health protection system, where polluters, the Pentagon, the White House and the EPA have conspired to block health protections in order to pad budgets, curry political favor, and protect corporate profits.”
Today, new research from scientists at the University of Texas Arlington points to the most vulnerable population exposed to perchlorate – nursing infants. Scientists examined perchlorate levels in thirteen mother-child pairs and compared a mother’s dietary intake of iodine, her exposure to perchlorate, and the resultant concentration of iodide and perchlorate in her breast milk. They found that a while only one fifth’s of mother’s dietary iodide enters into her breast milk, a full half of her dose of perchlorate is transferred to milk, which is of course ingested by the infant. The study also confirms strong concerns about sufficient iodine intake both by the nursing infant and by the breast-feeding mother.
This study highlights the urgent need to protect the health of our children at the most vulnerable beginning stage of life. However, rather than being consumed by worries, mothers can take several effective steps to protect their children.
First, breast milk is still the best food for the infants’ long-term health.
Second, intake of iodized salt is a good way to increase our intake of this essential nutrient. For other tips on what parents can do to create safer homes for their children, check out EWG’s Healthy Home Tips .
Finally, our society needs aggressive public health protections from thyroid toxins in the environment, starting with perchlorate. After 50 years of deception and delay we need to pass strong legislation to safeguard our water from perchlorate contamination. For millions of Americans who have dual sources of exposure to perchlorate both in food and drinking water, setting national safety standards for perchlorate in drinking water is imperative. EWG has been at the forefront of advocating for state and federal establishment of stringent, science-based health standards for perchlorate in water in order fully to protect infants and children, who are exceptionally vulnerable to the chemical.
By EWG Senior Scientist Olga Naidenko, Ph.D.
A turning point for the Chesapeake Bay?
Last December, the Maryland legislature approved a new $50 million “Chesapeake Bay 2010 Trust Fund” to help clean up the decades-dirty Bay. The “2010 Trust Fund” will provide money to help move the state closer to achieving water quality goals set back in 2000 by the 2010 deadline. Everyone has accepted these goals will not be achieved in time, but public trust in the state’s ability to even make a dent is waning.
This year, state officials have a chance to strengthen public confidence that they are actually doing everything they can to clean up the Bay by announcing they will spend the Fund using a “cost-effectiveness” principle. Though seemingly simple and straightforward, this common sense approach to spending the public’s money is a radical departure from the past when funds were largely distributed on a first-come, first-share basis.
Among the various options for reducing the nutrient pollution ailing the Bay, agricultural best management practices deliver the biggest bang for the nutrient-reduction buck. That means Maryland’s farm conservation programs should get most (if not all) of the Fund. But in order to truly have an impact, Maryland’s farm conservation programs should spend the fund in the most cost-effective way they can. Maryland’s agriculture, environment, and natural resource agencies should commit to following a three-step approach:
- Identify and prioritize the highest nutrient loading watersheds,
- Identify and prioritize the highest nutrient loading farmland locations within the
priority watersheds,
- Identify and prioritize implementation of the most cost-effective and site-appropriate conservation practices.
Only by targeting the new funds to achieve the most nutrient reductions per dollar will the Chesapeake Bay have a chance to recover.
How about a little hormone disruption with your drinking water?
It's awfully hot here, especially for October. Can I get you a nice, cool glass of water?
Would you like some estrogen with that?
A UK study of two waterways and the sediment they rest on reveals that estrogenic compounds contained in effluent from wastewater treatment plants migrate into the sediment, and could from there migrate into groundwater. That means it may end up in drinking water and in water for crop irrigation.
If you're wondering how the estrogen-like compounds got there, look no further than your medicine cabinet. Endocrine disruptors (EDCs) are in products that many of us use every day, including products that get flushed down the drain constantly. There are EDCs in anti-bacterial soap, in some toothpaste, in cosmetics, in laundry detergent and in vinyl shower curtains. EDCs are also often a product of industrial manufacture.
Most endocrine disrupting chemicals are unregulated, and wastewater treatment plants -- which deal quite effectively with organic waste and solids -- were not designed to filter out hormone-mimicking compounds. You can limit your own household's exposure to EDCs, but if they're in the drinking water. . . well, maybe then the government will finally do something about it.
Officials refrain from dumping toxic sludge into Elliott Bay;
Mom not impressed
I was never rewarded for doing chores when I was a child. I was a part of the household, my mother told me, and she wasn’t going to applaud or pay me just because I did my part to help out.
I think I may need to send my mother out to Seattle, where commissioners for the Port of Seattle have decided not to dump PCB-contaminated sludge into Elliott Bay. I can see it now, my mother looking skeptically at the beamingly proud commissioners. “So you’re telling me you’re not dumping toxic sludge into the water,” she’d say, “and I’m supposed to be impressed? You’re going to have to do better than that.”
The plan to dump the sludge, dredged from a Superfund site, into Elliot Bay had passed muster with the state and federal government, whose standards are considerably lower than many environmental scientists would like. Environmentalists thought it might not be such a good idea, though, and
with support from the state's newly formed Puget Sound Partnership, King County Executive Ron Sims and various scientists within the state's Department of Ecology and Department of Fish and Wildlife -- said the current momentum toward a cleaner Puget Sound calls for higher standards.
PCBs, which were once used as flame retardants, have been banned for nearly 30 years. Unfortunately they persist in the environment and don’t easily break down. Instead they accumulate in bodies and move up the food chain, from small fish to larger fish to people and other fish-eating animals. In fact, if I were the gambling type, I’d be willing to bet a big chunk of money (say, enough to repay my undergraduate loans?) that you’ve got PCBs in your body right now. Exposure to PCBs in the womb has been linked to learning and behavioral difficulties, and new research seems to indicate a correlation between parental PCB exposure and low male birth rate. I’m sure you won’t be surprised when I tell you the chemicals are also considered cancer-causing agents.
Personally, I’m thrilled that they’re working on a plan to dump the most polluted portion of the muck into a landfill and not the bay. Activists and citizens made noise about this, and they got somewhere – although they’ll have to keep the pressure on to make sure there’s no backtracking.
But if there’s one thing I learned from Mom, it’s that good enough doesn’t get rewarded. Not dumping toxic sludge into a body of water should be a no-brainer. Show me a plan to clean up the contamination already in Elliott Bay, and then I’ll be impressed.
What kids in MA are not saying: "More perchlorate please!"
Thirsty students at Clough Elementary in Mendon, MA were treated to something refreshing when they returned to school last week: Water in the building's bubblers no longer contains rocket fuel.
Following tests in April and July that showed unacceptable levels of the chemical perchlorate (aka rocket fuel) in the building's water, the district spent the summer installing a state-approved filtration system. Tests performed since mid-August have shown no detectable level of the chemical, which can cause hypothyroidism in women and developmental problems for fetuses.
How did rocket fuel get into the water in the first place, you ask? From EWG's report Thyroid Threat:
Perchlorate, the explosive ingredient in solid rocket fuel, has leaked from military bases and defense and aerospace contractors' plants in at least 22 states, contaminating drinking water for millions of Americans. The chemical has also been found widely in supermarket milk, produce and many other foods and plants; in a separate study, the CDC found it in the urine of every person tested. As small changes in thyroid hormone levels during pregnancy -- even within the normal range -- are associated with decreased intellectual and learning capacity in childhood, the extensive reach of perchlorate contamination has huge implications for public health.
Massachusetts' perchlorate regulations are among the nation's strictest; the maximum contaminant level there is 2 parts per billion, while California is moving towards 6 ppb. But according to an EWG analysis, 1 ppb should be the maximum acceptable drinking water standard -- more than that and the health risks are too great. Bills to establish maximum safe levels of perchlorate in drinking water are making their way through the House and the Senate this session.
Beach closings at all-time high in 2006
Last summer I lived just a mile from a beach -- a real beach, with an ocean and everything. Having grown up several hundred miles from the Atlantic in a town where the only "beach" was a long patch of trucked-in sand in front of a small pond, living so close to the ocean was quite a novelty. Beach culture was an entirely new thing to me, so I did what any real geek would do. I did research.
Granted, some of my research was to investigate the best beach reading and most sensible beach mats. And boy do I wish I'd had EWG's Sunscreen Database to go by (my shoulders hurt just thinking about that painful burn). But in my travels across the sandy terrain of beach culture online, I never encountered any information about beaches being declared unsafe for swimming. Now I know why. More on that later.
The National Resources Defense Council's 17th annual report on beach water quality reveals that instances in which beaches were declared unsafe for swimming reached an all-time high last summer, with more than 25,000 instances in which beaches were closed or health advisories issued. The NRDC report says that aging and poorly designed sewage and water-treatment systems are largely to blame:
“Vacations are being ruined. Families can’t use the beaches in their own communities because they are polluted. Kids are getting sick – all because of sewage and contaminated runoff from outdated, under-funded treatment systems.”
Continue reading "Beach closings at all-time high in 2006" »
Saturday Morning Multimedia: Toilet environmentalism
Plenty of companies make water-efficient toilets these days, but replacing your old model with a newer one is an expensive endeavor -- and if you live in an apartment building, it's pretty much impossible. Here's an easy DIY way to make your toilet more efficient and save money and water at the same time.
Toxic sludge and treasures in Lake Okeechobee
Thousands of years of history were revealed this summer as drought drained the water from Lake Okeechobee in the Florida Everglades. Native American tools and jewelery, a hundred year old fishing boat, and ancient human remains are just a few of the things that archaeologists have pulled from the lake's muddy, expanding shores.
The legacy of more recent years of habitation around the lake? Toxic muck left over from years of dumped wastewater and litter (big litter. We're talking about tractor tires and speedboat motors). Isn't it nice to know how we'll be remembered?
The nice part of having the toxic mess exposed is the opportunity to clean it up:
In little more than two months, contractors with the South Florida Water Management District have hauled away 2 million cubic yards of sludge — enough to fill nine football stadiums from the field to the nosebleed seats, said Tom Debold, water district supervisor on the muck-removal project.And that was only 2% of the estimated total muck (ETM -- it's a technical term).
The wastewater management team and the Army Corps of Engineers had been hoping to be able to sell the sludge as landfill for construction, but it turns out the stuff is just too toxic. At 9 milligrams per kilogram, the arsenic content is more than four times the residential limit for fill. There isn't much to be done with it; at the moment, it's sitting in piles waiting for the environmental okay and Army Corps permit to be buried in trenches in the levee.
They're building a museum to contain all the artifacts found on the site. Think they'll include a nice big hermetically sealed container of toxic sludge?
'Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown.'
Thanks to Jack Nicholson's Oscar-winning performance in Chinatown, the story of how Los Angeles stole the water from the Owens River may be the best-known environmental crime in U.S. history. (OK, I'm showing my age. Chinatown is from 1971, and in 2000 Erin Brockovich also brought home an Oscar for Julia Roberts. Brockovich is above-average entertainment. Chinatown is art.) But finally there's a happy ending.
"I can now officially declare that the Lower Owens River is a river," a California Superior Court judge announced last week.
Almost 100 years after developers sent agents posing as farmers and ranchers into the Owens Valley to secretly buy up the water rights and divert it to LA, the river is flowing again. After decades of bitter lawsuits, in December the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power began directing water back into the river – only a fraction of its historic flow, but enough that the LA Times reports that "the area has unexpectedly quickly become home again to various fish and other wildlife."
The Times also has a nice slideshow and a video of a kayak trip down the river. It doesn't have Faye Dunaway or Roman Polanski, but does have some nice footage of the Owens River Sucker. Not Jack, the fish.