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National Clean Water Laws Neglected at the Expense of Public Health
Emily Lynne Ion
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Earlier this week, the New York Times published a shocking investigation of widespread pollution in America’s waterways, and the effect of contamination on the health of millions of Americans. It is an eye-opening account of how big coal and other industry giants often treat our public waterways as a dumping ground for chemicals and waste, and the government’s inability to do anything to prevent it.
The findings are startling: An estimated one in 10 Americans have been exposed to drinking water that contains dangerous chemicals or fails to meet federal health benchmarks. Exposures include carcinogens in the tap water of major American cities and unsafe chemicals in private wells (which are not typically regulated at all).
The piece was an infuriating read for many reasons, first and foremost because public water is a resource so vital to our health it is widely considered a birth right. Its purity is intrinsically tied to our quality of life. Sadly, in this country, lax regulation and capitulation to business perogatives mean millions of Americans are unjustifiably denied access to clean water.
Nothing is more heart wrenching than the story of Jennifer Hall-Massey of West Virginia. The tap water in her family’s community near Charleston is heavily polluted with lead, nickel, arsenic, manganese and other chemicals, “at concentrations federal regulators say could contribute to cancer and damage to the kidneys and nervous system.” Largely due to contamination from local mining companies, the family is forced to avoid contact with tap water as much as possible, and use lotions after showering to cool burning skin. Hall-Massey’s youngest son has scabs on his body where his bathwater caused painful rashes; many of her older son’s teeth were capped to replace corroded enamel. “How can we get digital cable and Internet in our homes, but not clean water?” Mrs. Hall-Massey poignantly asked the Times. Find out more about the struggle of the Hall-Massey family by watching this video:
The irony of this sad situation is that the passage of the landmark Clean Water Act in 1972 set in place regulations guarding against such pollution, with clear sanctions for those who threaten public health by breaking these laws. Most of the data compiled by the Times was available in safety reports and public records, often submitted to state agencies by the polluters themselves. But a fatigued and under-staffed EPA has largely failed in fining or punishing polluters, even as communities are ravaged by rising rates of illness due to contamination. And, most insidious, aggressive lobbying by industry has undermined effective regulation by exploiting the EPA’s insufficient resources and spreading fear within the agency. Evident intimidation and pressure from industry-friendly politicians has made EPA officials reticent to do their jobs fully for fear of retribution, often leading them to turn a blind eye to serious violations of ethics and safety codes. Layoff, transfers, and smear campaigns have muzzled whistleblowers; consequently, fewer than 3% of reported violations result in punishments:
“In the last five years alone, chemical factories, manufacturing plants and other workplaces have violated water pollution laws more than half a million times. The violations range from failing to report emissions to dumping toxins at concentrations regulators say might contribute to cancer, birth defects and other illnesses.
However, the vast majority of those polluters have escaped punishment. State officials have repeatedly ignored obvious illegal dumping, and the EPA, which can prosecute polluters when states fail to act, has often declined to intervene.”
The Times estimates that the Clean Water Act has been “violated more than 506,000 times since 2004, by more than 23,000 companies and other facilities, according to reports submitted by polluters themselves.”
Pollution includes pesticide exposure, high levels of industrial solvents like tetrachloroethylene (which is linked to kidney damage and cancer), and liquefied animal feces from dairy fields (that then seeps into water wells). And, there’s also the Friendly Acres Mobile Home Park in Indiana, “which acknowledged to regulators that it had dumped human waste into a nearby river for three years.”
Chemicals and heavy metals can silently accumulate in the body for years or decades, often known as building up a “body burden”, before they cause problems. Some of the most frequently detected contaminants have been linked to cancer, birth defects and neurological disorders.
As Jennifer Hall-Massey emphasized in the article, her children and thousands like them are bathing in and drinking from this water everyday, during critical periods of development when the presence of these toxic chemicals and carcinogens could compromise their health permanently.
What you can do:
• The New York Times compiled a national database of water pollution violations that is more comprehensive than those maintained by states or the EPA. Using an interactive version, you can look up any community, including your own, to find out which areas have been cited as polluters or fined.
• Find a water filter for your home faucets in Shop Healthy. Bottled water is often just packaged tap water and is less regulated than public drinking water supplies. Unless your water is extremely contaminated, you’re better off identifying your contaminants of concern and purchasing the appropriate filter.
Posted by Lana on 09/30 at 02:32 PM
Well done.