Would you drink this water?

Here’s what Flint, Michigan’s poison lead water looks like. pic.twitter.com/s2g2ml8UL4

— (´・ω・｀) (@_icze4r) January 15, 2016

Many citizens of Flint, Michigan are refusing to–and for good reason. The water supplied by the city of Flint to many residents has been contaminated with poisonous amounts of lead and other toxins for over two years. The safe level for lead content in drinking water, according to the CDC, is absolutely none. That’s why the EPA’s goal for public drinking water is zero parts per billion (ppb), and why 15 ppb is listed as their action level (the concentration at which water authorities are federally required to lower contamination).

So with these regulations from the Safe Drinking Water Act, why are some families reporting 25, 100, and even 200 ppb of lead detected in the tap water from their homes? The answer is shrouded in the intricacies of municipal water supply agreements and water main construction, which are enough to make anyone’s eyes glaze over. So let’s break down just how this ‘man-made disaster‘ began: with a corner-cutting move designed to save money.

It Began With a Plan

Flint, Michigan had been getting its tap water from Detroit for over 50 years. But in 2013, the Karegnondi Water Authority (KWA) began constructing a new pipeline to connect water from Lake Huron to Genessee County, which contains the Flint metropolitan area. This new project would provide water to Genessee and neighboring counties no longer rely on water piped in from Detroit.

A project like this is great news for towns like Flint, which could reduce their public water costs by procuring it locally while also creating jobs to construct and maintain the new system. So construction began on the KWA, and at this point in the story, no public officials or agencies have done anything wrong. That changes.

A Temporary Switch

You see, when this happened, Flint planned to switch to the new KWA pipelines when they finished construction in three years. But in the meantime, they still needed water, and rather than continuing to buy the Detroit water–a pre-treated and sanitary supply from Lake Huron–they switched sources to the Flint River. This switch was estimated to save about $5 million over less than two years.

The trouble was that the water sourced from the Flint River was 19 times more corrosive than the Lake Huron supply. Even after being treated and deemed acceptable, the water eroded the city’s pipes and water lines and accumulated iron, lead, and other metals from the material of the pipes.

By the time the water arrives at neighborhoods, businesses, and schools, the once-drinkable water is tinged brown from the iron, and carrying harmful levels of toxic chemicals. The most dangerous of which is lead.

Flint, Michigan, is suffering a major water crisis. Here’s how you can help. https://t.co/Z01vWiG8JLpic.twitter.com/ecJyIhEtkF

— CNN (@CNN) January 14, 2016

Permanent Health Effects

The presence of lead in drinking water is known to cause kidney problems and related issues in adults, but infants and children are subjected to the worst effects. Lead interferes with development such that children exposed to lead exhibit delays in mental and physical development are often severely impaired by the contaminant’s effects. In September 2015, according to a study performed by the Hurley Medical Center, the proportion of infants and children with above-average levels of lead in their blood nearly doubled since Flint switched its water source.

Given the extent of the problem, residents in Flint have very few options to stay safe. Many homeowners took to boiling large batches of water before bathing their children or giving them water to drink. While that process can help remove some impurities, it actually makes the issue of lead contamination worse. The city issued a ‘Boil Advisory‘ detailing how boiling water just increases the concentration of lead in the tap water.

The only choice left for thousands of residents is to purchase bottled water. The FDA regulates that a bottle of water can have no more than 5 ppb of lead, so bottled water is a safer option for concerned homeowners. For many, this cost is in addition to their water bill, which still may need to use for bathing, and washing dishes. Considering that Flint is often recognized for its poverty (in addition to being among the most dangerous cities in the United States), this burden is especially debilitating.

A Failed Response

After denying that the water in Flint presented a danger to its citizens for nearly two years while residents continuously complained about their water quality, Flint officials finally recognized the contamination problem. When trying to contain a public health epidemic such as this one, it’s important to know the scale of the problem. That seems like a pretty simple task– figure out which homes receive water from pipes made of lead, as those pipes are now corroded and cannot safely transmit water– but as with all things bureaucratic, it wasn’t nearly that simple.

The city government’s data on which houses are serviced by lead water lines was written down on 45,000 index cards stored in a filing cabinet in the city’s public utility building. In October of 2015, transferring this information into a digital spreadsheet was, according to Department of Public Works Director Howard Croft, “on our to-do list,” but only a quarter of the cards had been processed at that time.

Remember that $5 million number? That was the amount Flint expected to save with their water-source switch. The ultimate cost of that “money-saving” maneuver has been estimated at over $1.5 billion dollars by some, as officials evaluate the cost of completely renovating the Flint waterlines with lead-free pipes. That figure also doesn’t take into account any compensation for families and children affected by the contaminated water. The Governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder has now officially appealed to President Obama for a declaration of disaster and federal aid.

Whether Snyder and the state of Michigan receive the declaration and money they are hoping for, the damage to the people of Flint has already been done. Even as the water source is relocated, the lead pipes servicing Flint will still be compromised. A careless decision by local officials snowballed into a public health crisis of unprecedented scale in the area, and the youngest residents of Flint will pay the highest price.

Sean Simon

Sean Simon is an Editorial News Senior Fellow at Law Street, and a senior at The George Washington University, studying Communications and Psychology. In his spare time, he loves exploring D.C. restaurants, solving crossword puzzles, and watching sad foreign films. Contact Sean at SSimon@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post A Call for Help in Flint’s Toxic Water Emergency appeared first on Law Street.

Could your surroundings impact your health as much as your diet, genetics, and lifestyle? The field of environmental health seeks to understand how the natural and manmade elements of our homes, work, and leisure environments impact health. To understand environmental impacts on health, experts examine a tremendous range of factors from community noise levels to the availability of public parks; some even look at dust.

I know that seems strange, because when you look at dust, I’m sure you probably see nothing but unsightly grime that makes you sneeze. But when researchers at the California Department of Toxic Substances Control look at dust, they see a possible indicator of chemicals people might be exposed to from various synthetic materials commonly found in homes.

Dust holds clues to multiple facets of your domestic life. Companies use an array of chemicals, including flame retardants, to manufacture your appliances, furniture, and even curtains. Your appliances, furniture, and curtains also contribute to the powdery detritus obscuring your coffee table. Dust offers researchers a way to investigate the holistic chemical composition of the average home atmosphere, all from the contents of a vacuum cleaner.

So why do we spend time studying dust and hundreds of other tiny environmental factors? Well, the experts in the University of Michigan video below estimate that 25-33 percent of disease globally stems from our environments. If we understood what specifically caused that percentage, we could take the first steps toward developing interventions.

With so many aspects to consider, it’s hard to make a solid connection between one environmental factor and a health outcome. But solid connections do make for golden evidence in influencing policy decisions that promote better health outcomes. A relatively new science called biomonitoring could help environmental health scientists make those golden connections by linking a pollutant directly to a health problem.

What is biomonitoring?

Biomonitoring quantifies bodily absorption of pollutants by measuring chemical amounts in human specimens like blood or urine. In the dust example mentioned above, researchers could incorporate biomonitoring by comparing the chemical composition of dust samples with the chemical levels present in residents’ blood or urine samples. This would allow them to look beyond what chemicals are present and find out if people are actually absorbing them, since atmospheric presence doesn’t automatically indicate absorption.

For example, an elemental mercury spill in a Massachusetts school caused panic when air samples revealed high mercury vapor air levels after the initial clean up. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health responded to the panic by offering urine tests. It turned out they had nothing to worry about–none of the samples indicated elevated urine mercury levels.

We worry about chemical levels in the environment because of what they might be doing to human health, but they need to be absorbed in order to cause harm. Environmental health scientists can bypass the need to study the presence of environmental pollutants one by one, by using biomonitoring to directly assess human impact. Outside of individual cases, cross-population biomonitoring data could reveal locations with disproportionate chemical exposures, a red flag that something fishy is going on.

According to the Association of Public Health Laboratories, manufacturers in the United States use more than 100,000 chemicals, yet we don’t understand what they could all do to human health. Combine this uncertainty with the rise of chronic diseases and you have a concerned public that demands many answers. Biomonitoring strives to find out which of these 100,000 chemicals make it into our bodies so we can figure out what to do about it.

How can biomonitoring affect health policy?

In the 1970s when researchers discovered that lead exposure could cause serious health problems, the U.S. implemented laws to bar it from many products like food cans, paint, and gasoline. Biomonitoring through blood testing has confirmed decreased blood lead levels since the laws were enacted, but also pointed out that low income and minority children still have levels above the CDC safe reference value, with lead in housing being the major source. After hearing these results, officials looked to housing policies as a way to decrease the problem:

• The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) required landlords to disclose lead hazards in all residences built before 1978.
• HUD made lead safety mandatory for federally funded housing and created grants for removing lead hazards from current buildings.
• The EPA began regulating painting and repair practices in all residences built before 1978.

These efforts achieved lower levels of lead hazards in government-funded housing, but did little to decrease levels in low-income or non-assisted housing.

At the state level, officials focused on finding children with elevated blood lead levels and then tried to remove lead from their environments. Some states, including Maryland, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, implemented more prevention-based laws, but many still struggle with compliance.

To respond to a high concentration of children with elevated blood lead levels, Philadelphia officials combined public health with law in the Philadelphia Lead Court. The court was designed to increase compliance of city health codes related to lead hazards. If the court hears of a lead hazard, it issues an order to the property owner to remedy the situation. If they don’t complete hazard control activities, they’re sent to the Lead Court.

Before the court, property owners complied with lead regulations seven percent of the time. After the court was established, the compliance rate spiked to 77 percent.

These intervention successes were made possible through biomonitoring, and the connections between health and a contaminant that it revealed.

Biomonitoring and Fracking

Hydraulic fracturing (or fracking), a new and unconventional method for extracting natural gas, poses a possible health hazard to the people who live closest to fracking wells. Self reports show a disproportionate amount of respiratory problems like itchy eyes, coughing, and nose bleeds among people living near fracking wells.

Read More: Fracking is Short-Sighted in Light of Temporary U.S. Oil Boom

In this New Haven Register article, researcher Dr. Peter Rabinowitz summarizes the limitations of this self-reported data:

It’s more of an association than a causation. We want to make sure people know it’s a preliminary study. … To me it strongly indicates the need to further investigate the situation and not ignore it.

Use of biomonitoring in this instance could provide more clarity on which chemicals are present and could be causing health problems in the residents. A doctor from Aspen Integrative Health in Colorado has already tested some people who live close to drilling sites for chemical exposures. His results showed some elevated levels, but didn’t provide any conclusive links. The results could serve as a baseline comparison for other communities wishing to test residents.

The new federal rules on fracking don’t include any biomonitoring measures, but they take small steps toward understanding the possible health effects of fracking by requiring more care and accountability from drilling companies. Per the new rules, government workers can inspect fracking wells for safety, companies will have to tell the public what chemicals they use in their extraction processes, and companies will have to abide by new rules on chemical storage and disposal of flowback water.

Making Connections

The future of our health depends on our ability to make connections as we constantly introduce new chemicals into our lives through food, construction, manufacturing, and more. Environmental health scientists, supplemented by biomonitoring, work to make those connections in the hope that their findings will result in legal and policy decisions that keep people healthy.

Daunting as achieving these connections may be, daily advances, like this new University of Miami instrument to detect atmospheric mercury, bring us closer to understanding the interaction of our environment and our health. If we encourage advances in biomonitoring and other new technologies, all the vague correlations of the past could become solid connections.

Resources

 Primary

Environmental Health Perspectives: Proximity to Natural Gas Wells and Reported Health Status: Results of a Household Survey in Washington County, Pennsylvania

The Network for Public Health Law: Environmental Public Health

Additional

Association of Public Health Laboratories: Biomonitoring: Analysis of Human Exposure to Chemicals

Association of Public Health Laboratories: Measuring For Potentially Dangerous Chemicals

Public Health Law Research: Local Housing Policy Approaches to Preventing Childhood Lead Poisoning

Public Health Law Research: Public Health and Law Collaboration: The Philadelphia Lead Court Study

Public Health Law Research: Philadelphia’s Lead Court is Making a Difference

Association of Public Health Laboratories Blog: Biomonitoring and the Public Health Laboratory: Everything You Want to Know

Association of Public Health Laboratories: Biomonitoring: An Integral Component of Public Health Practice

EurekAlert: Researchers Develop New Instrument to Monitor Atmospheric Mercury

The New York Times: New Federal Rules Are Set For Fracking

Washington Post: Obama Administration Tightens Federal Rules on Oil and Gas Fracking

NPR: Interior Department Issues New Federal Rules On ‘Fracking’

The Network for Public Health Law: Environmental Public Health

Ashley Bell

Ashley Bell communicates about health and wellness every day as a non-profit Program Manager. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Business and Economics from the College of William and Mary, and loves to investigate what changes in healthy policy and research might mean for the future. Contact Ashley at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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The Appalachians, one of the world’s oldest mountain ranges, might be gone forever sooner than we expect. It is not erosion or tectonic activity that will be the culprit, but human action.

Mountain Top Removal (MTR) is a mining process wherein literally the top of a mountain is blasted apart so as to access the coal that resides within. This is a more efficient process than the older underground mining style, requiring fewer men, less time, and resulting in higher yields. However, it inflicts catastrophic damage to the surrounding ecosystems as well as the people who live in the region. Whether it be for human health, biological diversity, or aesthetics, MTR has been the subject of an intensifying debate over the last few decades.

One of the most immediate problems caused by Mountain Top Removal is damage to rivers and contamination of water supplies. When the peaks are blown apart, many tons of rock, minerals, and sediment packed with metal materials fall into the water. In some cases, this has buried streams entirely. Often it chokes the flow of the waterway, and as journalist Eric Reece detailed, changes the chemistry of the water. This causes many fish, larvae, and other aquatic life to die. Furthermore, these contaminants find their way into the human water supply. There have been reports of contaminated wells and illnesses attributed to drinking fouled water.

Companies have sought to promote feigned silver linings in their actions. One corporation operating in Eastern Kentucky asserted that its actions, which cleared the landscape and opened up space, were in fact beneficial to the elk population there. It claims that it is an ideal habitat for “free ranging elk” whose grazing keep deer in check and maintain a balance of biodiversity in the ecosystem. This is an intentional misinformation campaign. Conservation biologists have argued to the contrary, detailing the requirements for a healthy elk population and the complicating factors of a healthy ecosystem, the vital interconnected set of relationships of which have been removed by clear cutting and a landscape thrown out of balance.

A pair of elk forage in the early morning. Courtesy of Franklin R. Halprin.

In addition to these micro-environmental concerns, there may be macro ones as well. Mountain ranges have substantial influence over weather patterns. The air barriers created by the Himalayas and Andes are vital to the thriving diversity of the rainforests in Indochina and the Amazon, respectively. Although the Appalachians do not reach such soaring heights, there is no reason to doubt that their presence as a substantial topographic feature plays into the interconnectedness and complexity of the environments there.

Most of the issues elucidated so far deal with scientifically motivated concerns; there are sociological ones as well. Many local proponents of MTR cite the Bible, wherein God said to subdue the Earth. God put the mountains there for us to mine, they argue. It is a fulfillment of our place as the favored species and rulers of the planet to do so. On the contrary, others assume a stance that God put the mountains there for us to admire. They serve a purpose of spiritual fulfillment and self betterment, and to destroy them is sacrilegious. Reece, who spent a long time in Kentucky delving into this issue referenced a local clergyman who took a middle ground on this debate. He suggested that these passages intend to promote “stewardship.” Human-environmental interactions should be balanced and reciprocal; each needs the other. Clearly, discourses of this nature can be recast so as to be appropriated toward any camp’s objectives.

Religion aside, many proponents of the practice reference the practical benefits of mountain top removal. It provides many jobs and figures substantially into the export economy of a region with a relatively low standard of living and median income. These arguments do not hold water when held under scrutiny. The towns themselves do not see much financial benefit, as profits go to the companies and the wealthy elite. Furthermore, reminiscent of fracking, the process of mountain top removal requires specialized training that is carried out by company employees brought in from the outside. The industry does not provide many jobs for local residents. In fact, there have been cases of companies buying up locals’ land, inflicting damage, then going bankrupt before distributing compensation. In this sense they impart direct harm on the people’s livelihoods.

Why is there such willingness to throw a large group of people under the bus? The term “sacrifice zone” refers to a geographic region that is used as either a physical dumping ground or a section that is allowed to degenerate in consequence of industrial and developmental activity intended for the benefit of other regions. The environment and people who live in a sacrifice zone suffer greatly. In her insightful book Removing Mountains: Extracting Nature and Identity in the Appalachian Coalfields, sociologist Rebecca R. Scott addresses shifting and contradictory ideas about the people of Appalachia in history and modernity, and their relationship to the physical environment. In some cases the people are portrayed as descendants of the British; they are an idealization of rural, innocent, white Americanness. More commonly, she argues, they are portrayed as backwards, uneducated, vile, violent, white trash. These two divergent concepts are appropriated depending on the agenda at hand. Scott provides as an example the efforts to bring home prisoner of war Jessica Lynch from Iraq. Here, the former dialogue was brought into play. It evoked sympathy and aroused humanizing emotion in favor of her return. Scott provides many perceptive revelations, but suffice it to say that the latter discourse is more common and convenient when promoting the actions of mountain top removers. It establishes all of Appalachia as a sacrifice zone for the coal industry.

Ultimately, massive human and environmental damage is being inflicted in quest of a fuel source that is less and less preferable anyway. Although it has been around since the 1960s, mountain top removal has been on the rise in the last twenty years. Resulting problems are increasing, while the benefits are short lived and the consequences are long term. The quality of our bodies and ideas about our identities are just as tightly intertwined with our environments are are wildlife and waterways. Alternatives to the process, and alternatives to the coal, are vital.

Franklin R. Halprin

Franklin R. Halprin holds an MA in History & Environmental Politics from Rutgers University where he studied human-environmental relationships and settlement patterns in the nineteenth century Southwest. His research focuses on the influences of social and cultural factors on the development of environmental policy. Contact Frank at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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We tend to envision our oceans as blue and our lands as green; the residents of Toledo, Ohio, however, had a bit difference experience recently when they were faced with green water.

When municipal officials declared they found toxins in the city’s drinking water supply, residents refrained from using it entirely. Naturally they did not drink or cook with it, but the contamination was deemed so severe that even boiling the water beforehand would not be sufficient. Emma G Fitzsimmons of The New York Times relates that children and people with weak immune systems were urged not to bathe in such water either. As local bottled supplies ran dry, the National Guard arrived to disperse fresh water.

Eventually, investigators determined that a large Lake Erie algae bloom, the source of water for the city of Toledo and 11 million residents in the lake’s vicinity, was the source of the contamination. Algae refers to a very broad spectrum of aquatic organisms ranging from the microscopic and single celled to the giant kelp of the Eastern Pacific. A bloom results in the production of a large amount of peptides, compounds consisting of multiple linked amino acids, in this case called microcystin. This particular peptide is toxic to humans, inducing vomiting, diarrhea, and liver damage, Fitzsimmons relates.

A 2012 algal bloom in Lake , courtesy of Olga Nohra via Flickr

Algal blooms resulting from human activity are often caused by massive introduction of phosphorous into an aquatic system. Lake Erie has been plagued by blooms in the past, particularly in the 1960s and 1980s. These occasions tended to be the result of poor septic infrastructure and consequent excessive discharge of waste into the lake. Since then, those threats have been somewhat ameliorated; however, agricultural runoff continues to provide undesired phosphorous discharge into water bodies such as Erie.

It is difficult to impose barriers on the leakage of phosphorous into Lake Erie. Journalist Michael Wines clarified that,

“The federal Clean Water Act is intended to limit pollution from fixed points like industrial outfalls and sewer pipes, but most of the troublesome phosphorous carried into waterways like Lake Erie is spread over thousands of square miles.”

This process is called “non-point pollution.” There have been some initiatives to try and reduce the pollution output in the first place, by providing farmers with methods of reducing fertilizer use, for example. But enacting laws that set limits on pollution is a daunting task. They must go hand in hand with voluntary efforts by those involved with the sources of pollution, to more accurately calculate how much fertilizer and materials are necessary, rather than carelessly applying an estimated amount.

An issue that must be addressed throughout the course of the dialogue on this event is the fact that algal blooms choke off other aquatic life. They absorb a massive amount of oxygen from the water, and other biodiversity are hard pressed to survive. This should be sufficient motivation in and of itself to mitigate the causes of blooms. Furthermore, substantial damage to the ecosystems of a place like Lake Erie causes fish catches to plummet, causing threats to our food supplies and commercial endeavors. The health of the lake’s biodiversity is also tied into lay fishing and other forms of recreation, which in turn brings to mind the importance of tourism and the state of the regional economy.

Simultaneously, another city farther east is also concerned with the state of its drinking water. New York City is famous for its pure and high quality drinking water. This is in large due to the vigorous efforts of organizations such as Riverkeeper, that maintain a presence in the Hudson River estuary in attempt to protect it from polluters, dumpers, and violators of other environmental and water protection laws. The source of water for more than nine million urban residents has come under threat recently from a rise in oil shipment by rail right along river’s edge in the so labeled “bomb trains,” or cars that are prone to spillage and explosion. On top of this, one of the primary aqueducts in the water infrastructure is leaking, journalists Aaron Ernst & Christof Putzel reveal. If it bursts, over half the city could be left without drinking water. In the meantime, plans are for it to be diverted through a bypass tunnel while repairs take place, which could take several years.

One of New York City’s reservoirs in the Catskills, courtesy of Franklin R. Halprin

This case is the inverse of from Toledo; the problem is not the quality of the water, but the ability to deliver it. However, in the New York area there are many dangers to the quality of the water, and similarly the mediums by which Toledo’s water arrives in the city are an important factor when addressing phosphorous discharge and the quality of water resources. The cities face multiple and similar challenges: urban drinking water, water infrastructure, and reservoir protection. These concerns will only grow as cities expand and pressure on natural resources requires new approaches. If only two to three percent of the Earth’s water is freshwater, and the United States agricultural industry accounts for more than 75% of the nation’s water consumption, then civilian residents and policy makers face many challenges in ensuring that enough water remains drinkable and accessible to the people.

It is evident, then, that we humans are deeply entrenched in our environments. An ecosystem is very delicate, complex, and interconnected; a series of events in a remote corner may multiply and have unforeseen consequences elsewhere. It is vital for us to be more responsible in how we treat our water. We need it, the rest of the environment needs it, and we need the environment.

—

Franklin R. Halprin (@FHalprin) holds an MA in History & Environmental Politics from Rutgers University where he studied human-environmental relationships and settlement patterns in the nineteenth century Southwest. His research focuses on the influences of social and cultural factors on the development of environmental policy. Contact Franklin at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory via Flickr]

Franklin R. Halprin

Franklin R. Halprin holds an MA in History & Environmental Politics from Rutgers University where he studied human-environmental relationships and settlement patterns in the nineteenth century Southwest. His research focuses on the influences of social and cultural factors on the development of environmental policy. Contact Frank at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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