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A new study of drinking water in 35 US cities released recently by the advocacy organization, Environmental Working Group, claimed 31 cities have water with detectable levels of the carcinogen, chromium-6 (hexavalent chromium). That chemical got considerable public attention after the 2000 film, Erin Brockovich.
Bend is one of the cities EWG claims as having water with detectable levels of chromium-6. Bend officials say the water the EWG sampled for its tests came from a private utility that supplies water to some Bend residents. Justin Finestone, communications manager for the city of Bend, questions EWG's approach. He says, "The EPA has a specific testing method for chromium and EWG didn't use that. People don't know these things and they panic."
Soon after the report was released, the Environmental Protection Agency released this statement from Administrator Lisa Jackson. Jackson promised the agency is studying the issue. The EPA is in the middle of its own study looking at whether it needs to set a maximum level for hexavalent chromium in tap water. Currently, EPA requires all water systems to test for "total chromium" content, not just chromium-6. The EPA's website says its total chromium standard is 0.1 mg/L (100 parts per billion) and that their latest data show no U.S. utilities are in violation of the standard.
Studies like this one can understandably raise public concern. But it's a fine line between communicating potential public health risks and causing panic. Regarding this EWG study, Dr. George Gray, a toxicologist at George Washington University, says he'd hope that "people stop and ask questions about studies like this: how big is the risk, how does it compare to others around me, is this one worth worrying about? Is it worth changing my behavior?"
Do you have concerns about your drinking water? Do regulatory agencies like the EPA do enough to monitor public health risks? How do you react to studies that claim toxins are in our food or water? Are you alarmed? Skeptical? What questions do you have about chromium and your drinking water?
GUESTS:
- Jane Houlihan: Senior vice president for research at Environmental Working Group
- Cassandra Profita: OPB's Ecotrope blogger
- George Gray: Professor of enviornmental and occupational health at George Washington University
Tagged as: bend · environment · health · water
Photo credit: Joost Nelissen / Creative Commons
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Written tongue in cheek, no? I ask because the liability water suppliers, governments and industry would be opening themselves up to would be staggering... not just from the perspective of the health of individuals, but impact to the environment as well... the legal community would be drooling.
From a legal perspective an opt-in approach is always safer than an opt-out approach.
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We should add green tea to the water supply!The health benefits of green tea go on and on and on with no with contraindications!
It helps with many cancers, diabetes, high cholesterol, periodontal disease, osteoporosis and bone loss, weight loss, wrinkles, diseases of cognition, viral and bacterial infections. It helps prevent liver damage from alcohol. It even prevents hair loss.
It binds with copper and iron so it makes the water softer.References
* MedlinePlus: Green Tea (Camellia Sinensis)
* "BMC Pharmacology"; Effect of Green Tea on Blood Glucose Levels and Serum Proteomic Patterns in Diabetic (DB/DB) Mice and on Glucose Metabolism in Healthy Humans; Hiroshi Tsuneki, Mitsuyo Ishizuka, Miki Terasawa, Jin-Bin Wu, Toshiyasu Sasaoka and Ikuko Kimura; Aug. 26, 2004
* "Archives of Internal Medicine"; Cholesterol-Lowering Effect of a Theaflavin-Enriched Green Tea Extract: A Randomized Controlled Trial; DJ Maron, et al; June 23, 2003
* "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition"; Tea Drinking is Associated With Benefits on Bone Density in Older Women; A Devine, JM Hodgson, IM Dick, RL Prince; October 2007
* "Antiviral Research"; Antiviral Effect of Catechins in Green Tea on Influence Virus; JM Song, KH Lee, BL Seong; Aug. 9, 2005 -
@jacob: Americans are over medicated as it is. The last thing we need is to start "introducing very tiny amounts" of other medications. Our water should be WATER, plain and simple. It should not be a cocktail of drugs including Prozac and Aspirin. Prozac has side affects such as; headache, insomnia, and nausea which can cause sufferers to misinterpret symptoms of anxiety or other conditions and cause anxiety to be exacerbated.
EXERCISE is the most powerful medicine know to man.
At LEAST 68% of adults in America (20 years and older) are obese or overweight. I'm proud to be in the 32% although it is VERY hard work in this culture. (years ago I was 60lbs heavier)The conditions you spoke of can be avoided or cured by exercise. The answer is NOT medication. The drugs you mentioned will only cause dependency amongst the population.
Did you know that if you exercise, eat well, and are a slim person, you have avoided 3/4 of the most common cancers? Add green tea and we could be nearly invincible :)PS Don't get me started about the disaster that bottled water is. It's a totally F%$#ed up industry!!
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Put Prozac in the water supply to get submissive compliance by all Americans? That's going way too far, Jacob.
And didn't your old pal-Comrade Karl Marx say words something like "Religion is the opiate of the masses"? Isn't religion already enough to get submissive compliance by the population?
And what effect would your abuse of our water supply have on all of the natural life that it would eventually get to? Fish, frogs, and any other animals and birds? On bacterias, fungi, etc?
No, let's keep our water clean.
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Jacob,
Before you seriously go adding drugs to the water supply.
I recommend you watch this film:
THX 1138, an ealy George Lucas film. With all due respect to Star Wars, I consider it his most profound, before he went commercialized.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THX_1138
The film is set in an underground city of the future were the use of mind-altering drugs is mandatory.
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The Bend water had .78 parts chromium-6 per billion parts of water. What volume of water has 1 billion molecules of H2O?
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Oh, boy, a quiz!
Water has molecular weight of 18 so a mole is 18 grams.
A gram of water is 1cm^3.
Thus 6*10^23 molecules / 18 cm^3 or 3.3e22 molecules/cm^3
So a billion (10^9 or 1e9) molecules would be
1e9 / 3.3e22 = 3e-13 cm^3...
let's see: 1cm^3 is milli-liter
working down the named units, that would be about 1/3 attoliter, less than a micrometer cube.
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What does it involve to filter it out of a water supply?
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It takes chemical filtration, as hexavalent Chromium forms soluble compounds.
Google: chromium 6 solubility
and choose your references
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.06 parts per billion? Are you kidding me? Do your research people, there is no way they can test accurately to those levels. I am all for safe drinking water, but this Environmental Working Group is an alarmist organization. Chromium, as well as Uranium, Plutonium, Arsnic, Lead, Baruim, and many other harmful contaminants exist naturally in water that comes from the earth, it's just a fact.
If you do nothing else, please look at how small .06 parts per billion actually is. It's .00000001% so .06 ppb would be .000000006%! Here are some other representations:
1 part per billion is equal to:
1 penny in 10 million dollars
1 second in 32 years
1 foot of a trip to the moon
1 blade of grass on a football field
1 drop of water in an Olympic-size swimming pool1 square in a roll of toilet paper stretching from New York to London
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And who would benefit from selling the new filtering apparatus and supplies?
Cui Bono?
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Good show, TOL crew, one of the best I've heard you do. You covered pretty much all aspects of it.
Well done!
I'd say a candidate for some kind of award in journalism, or talk shows, etc.
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Having the experience of being flat lied to, by the unelected bureaucracy of Deschutes County (having spent millions of tax dollars to prop up their untenable position) about the water in Deschutes County, I have learned to be highly suspect of such information. I have concerns certainly, now I have one more thing to learn about.
Trust the people/agencies that are there to protect the public? Based on direct experience: NONE! Follow the money.
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Sorry I didn't get this posted before the show. It's a BIG reason to be skeptical about legal/government Chromium 6 policy action.
Cancer rates were actually LOWER than expected in Erin Brokovich's town Hinkley during the time of the lawsuit.
The California Cancer Registry has now completed three studies that show cancer rates remained normal in the Hinkley area from 1988 to 2008. PG and E paid a record $333 million to settle a class-action suit in 1996 during this period.
Below is a quotation from a recent the Los Angeles Times story:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-hinkley-cancer-20101213,0,7881571.story
"From 1996 to 2008, 196 cancers were identified among residents of the census tract that includes Hinkley — a slightly lower number than the 224 cancers that would have been expected given its demographic characteristics, said epidemiologist John Morgan, who conducted the California Cancer Registry survey." -
I wanted to follow up on my on-air comment with more detailed information. I mentioned the US EPA Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) acceptable level of arsenic is 10 ug/L. (This is the level to which the drinking water agencies compare their data and report it to you, the customer. As I noted, these SDWA levels include, in some cases, the costs associated with treatment so they are not a "pure" indication of the risks of consuming that water.)
In contrast, under the federal Clean Water Act (CWA) -- which does not allow the factoring in of treatment costs -- EPA recommends 0.018 ug/L of arsenic level for protection of human health (from drinking and fish consumption).
Similarly, Oregon currently has an arsenic level under the CWA of 0.0022 ug/L. Last year, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (inaccurately) recalculated this figure and generated a proposed level of 0.023 ug/L. (All of these criteria are based on providing a risk of one cancer per million people exposed to the level of arsenic.) Oregon DEQ is recalculating it yet again but the point is that regardless of which of these CWA numbers you take, that number is considerably less than EPA's Safe Drinking Water Act level of 10 ug/L that factors in the costs of treatment.
Put another way, it means very little when your drinking water provider tells you that their tests show they have not exceeded the Safe Drinking Water Act level for arsenic because that level presents a high human health risk.
Nina Bell, Ex. Dir., Northwest Environmental Advocates, Portland, OR
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"that level presents a high human health risk"
Can you quantify that in terms of cancers per million people? If not your statement is meaningless/useless at best.
Please give us the numbers and let us decide.
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According to EPA's CWA recommended criteria, a level of 0.018 ug/L of arsenic is associated with a cancer risk of one in a million people exposed. Therefore, a level of 0.18 is a risk of one cancer in one hundred thousand people and a level of 1.8 is a risk of one cancer in ten thousand people. Therefore, EPA's SDWA Maximum Contaminant Level of 10 ug/L is greater than one cancer per ten thousand people exposed to that level. And that's NOT factoring in the non-cancer risks associated with arsenic (e.g., heart disease) nor EPA's Science Advisory Board's new cancer slope factor (I believe the potency factor increased for bladder cancer by 15-20%).
I'm not clear on why you think I'm not entitled to state my opinion that the SDWA level is high. I'm a member of the public.
My entire point is that the SDWA level for arsenic presents a much higher risk than the CWA level for arsenic, a risk level (one in a million of cancer) that is typically the goal used for clean water in Oregon and most other states. A consumer of water reading the annual report required under the SDWA could be easily confused into thinking he or she is obtaining information concerning the safety of the water when, in fact, that information has factored in the cost of treatment to allow for a much higher risk.
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Willamette University - College of Law in Salem, Oregon is hosting a conference called: A NEW PARADIGM - REALLOCATING WATER: IMPLEMENTING THE HUMAN RIGHT TO WATER IN THE WEST. It's about examining the idea around ensuring that human beings and the systems that support us have enough clean, drinkable water. Since the United Nations recently declared a human's right to water and sanitation, there is a new momentum behind this idea. There will be much exploration focused on these small work groups: Defining and Enforcing the International Human Right to Water, Defining the Human Right to Water in the West: Protecting Livelihoods and Ecosystems, How Western Water Laws Currently Secure the Human Right to Water, The Economics of Implementing the Human Right to Water, Water Governance: Designing Institutions and Defining Roles in Securing the Human and the Right to Water. For more information, to register, or to sign up for a working group, go to: http://www.willamette.edu/wucl/events/wrc/index.phI>
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Sorry, that last link didn't work... try this one:
http://www.willamette.edu/wucl/events/wrc/index.php
February 3-5, 2011
Willamette University College of Law
245 Winter St SE
Salem, OR 97301 -
I missed part of this. I am curious; what is chromium and what is the common source?
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One more thing: Being as this latest study follows the courts decision so closely to allow civil suits against KBR, Is it possible KBR is behind murking up the waters by trying to show that chromium contamination is common?
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It raises the need of water supply as long with filter.
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Comments are now closed.
We see water as a carrier of toxins to pollute our health. But imagine water as not just a clean resource that replenishes our precious bodily fluids, but as a source of health and wellness prevention:
We come up short in international comparisons of health care principally because life expectancy lags despite the highest per capita spending for healthcare.
For less than one dollar per capita we can employ several interventions that will lengthen life expectancy, increase happiness and decrease mental and physical dysfunction.
We already fluoridate the water to prevent dental caries. And chlorinate to reduce bacteria.
We can use the water supply as a medication distribution network by introducing very tiny or trace amounts of medicines that have been known to reduce major diseases.
1.)Simple cheap aspirin dramatically cuts rates of strokes, heart attacks and now recently proven in a longitudinal study reduces cancer death rates by 20%. Put Aspirin in the water supply–if would be cheaper than fluoride. If Chromium-6 is a potential carcinogen, Aspirin is the closest thing to a cheap, effective proven preventative anticancer drug.
2.)High cholesterol is endemic and contributes to strokes and heart attacks. Just about everyone benefits from lower cholesterol. Put statin drugs in the water supply. As drugs like Lovastatin come off patent, they will be as cheap as Aspirin.
3.)Up to 30% of parents do NOT believe in the value of vaccinations and many act on this belief. Utilize water borne vaccinations in the water supply, such as the oral polio Sabin Vaccine.
4.)Up to 40% of Americans will experience a diagnosable mental illness in their lifetime including depression, Alcohol abuse, Illicit drug abuse, Anxiety disorder, PTSD, Obsession-Compulsion, Eating disorders. Half of these will remain undiagnosed. And love ones suffer by enduring the mental illness like an affliction. Virtually all these maladies would benefit from Prozac type drugs which increase brain serotonin neurotransmitter. It is almost consider a vital tool in psychiatry: ‘Vitamin P’. Put Prozac in the water supply and we will be less sad, less depressed, less anxious, and less dysfunctional. And we will behave better leading to less murder, less suicide and less physical abuse and illicit drug abuse.
5.)Perhaps an effective future drug to treat or prevent Diabetes or Obesity–put it in the water.
Of course any one can 'Opt-Out' just as they do with current fluoridation programs--by buying bottled water. But 95% of Americans would benefit.
Imagine a simply drinking 3 cups of water a day will prolong your life expectancy by 10-15 years by drastically reducing your risk of Heart Disease, Strokes, Cancer and Depression and multiple Mental Illnesses.