I feel like everyone thinks Flint and Erin Brockovich were the only two water incidents in the country. If you look for water pollution news - you'll find that places near garbage dumps are coming up highly toxic, all over the country. Everyone seems to think the administration has it under control. They don't. There is benzene, hexavalent chromium and thousands of pollutants found in our water all over the country. There are literally millions of properties on well water in the country that are not checked but once every 20 years (if that). The only fix is rain catchment, before it goes into the ground. Soil remediation and stopping people from contaminating!!!! In all political parties groundwater and soil contamination is going to come to a head soon.
Firefighting foam leaves toxic legacy in Californians’ drinking water
51–60 of 145 posts
Re: Firefighting foam leaves toxic legacy in Californians’ drinking water
#52This kind of reminds of when we dump tons of salt on the roads when winter storms come around the east coast. It solves one problem but what other problems is it causing? It would be incredibly naive to think dumping all these chemicals on the ground wouldn't cause some type of negative externality.
I'm really sensitive to whatever it is they've started using in the last decade or so. Get rashes and itchy eyes/nose just from particles coming in through the air vents. I often entertain moving back to the DC area, but every winter visit adds another notch in the "No way" column.
Re: Firefighting foam leaves toxic legacy in Californians’ drinking water
#53This kind of reminds of when we dump tons of salt on the roads when winter storms come around the east coast. It solves one problem but what other problems is it causing? It would be incredibly naive to think dumping all these chemicals on the ground wouldn't cause some type of negative externality.
It rusts cars for one. It could make the soil too salty for growing if runoff accumulates in one place, but usually it will be diluted too much to matter. I don't know if chemicals other than salt are used commonly on roads, that could cause other issues.
Zeolites are one of the widely used alternatives developed specifically to replace salt use. They are an oil derivative, so I am not hopeful of their long term effects. They are also very expensive comparatively.
Re: Firefighting foam leaves toxic legacy in Californians’ drinking water
#54I grew up approximately 2.5 miles from a major rocket manufacturer. We're talking R&D and manufacturing of jet propulsion and rocket systems since the 80s.
They totally polluted the water tables in the area with by-products of rocket fuel and other industrial chemicals used to clean engines.
They were fined in the 90s and supposedly worked with local water authorities to setup a filtration system... but decades later, they're still finding the pollutants are actually SPREADING to adjacent water tables in communities miles from the original location.
Even worse... many women from the community I grew up in have developed strange autoimmune disorders in their 40s and 50s. Like, a truly abnormal number of them. Many of these women are upper middle class, health conscious, non-smokers, including many athletes. Among those disorders, one of the common ones is issues with their thyroid.
Turns out that one of the major byproducts of rocket combustion - if consumed - is known to fuck up your thyroid.
Am I saying that I know for sure that the pollution of the water tables caused all these women to develop these strange disorders? I can't say for sure. I respect the scientific process and I certainly don't want to jump to any unfair or drastic conclusions, but it seems likely.
As recently as 2011 the area was again hit with a $60 million fine for cleanup. A slap on the wrists for the level of ecological damage they've caused. The water basin in this area is permanently damaged, and seems (even after decades or rain fail) to still be seeping into surrounding areas.
EDIT: For those wanting more specifics...
Aerojet / Rocketdyne is the company. Rancho Cordova is the city.
Re: Firefighting foam leaves toxic legacy in Californians’ drinking water
#55Filter your water if you live anywhere near an airport or military base anywhere, it's not just California. In Satellite Beach, Florida, the contamination from Patrick AFB was discovered after a group of Satellite Beach High alumni realized they all developed cancer around the same time and decided to start digging. [ https://pfasproject.com/2018/08/08/satellite-beach-florida-f... ] They dumped everything in a trench…
My father, who was in the aircraft refueling industry for decades until his passing earlier this year, would routinely rant about his customers' (the airports, generally) tolerance for leaking jet fuel into the ground.
He reported, and I have no source aside from him, that JFK allows up to 10,000 gallons of jet fuel to leak into the ground. Per day. And he claimed that most airports with hydrant systems had similarly large allowances.
Re: Firefighting foam leaves toxic legacy in Californians’ drinking water
#56I feel like everyone thinks Flint and Erin Brockovich were the only two water incidents in the country. If you look for water pollution news - you'll find that places near garbage dumps are coming up highly toxic, all over the country. Everyone seems to think the administration has it under control. They don't. There is benzene, hexavalent chromium and thousands of pollutants found in our water all over the country.…
The risk of getting sick from rainwater may be different depending on your location, how frequently it rains, the season, and how you collect and store the rainwater. Dust, smoke, and soot from the air can be dissolved in rainwater before it lands on your roof. Roofing materials, gutters, piping, and storage materials can introduce harmful chemicals like asbestos, lead, and copper to the water, though building standards minimize some of this. Dirt and germs can be washed into collected rainwater from the roof, especially when rain follows several days of dry weather.
https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/drinking/private/rainwater-...
Re: Firefighting foam leaves toxic legacy in Californians’ drinking water
#57This is a big deal here in Michigan as well, due to various other industries using PFAS-laden chemicals in industrial settings. Around here it's mostly tanneries that used these chemicals and then wantonly dumped them in municipal dumps or the companies bought land and just dumped the chemicals there. Entire communities are now being discovered to be polluted.
Re: Firefighting foam leaves toxic legacy in Californians’ drinking water
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nobody running a farm is wasting expensive municipal water on irrigation when they have a perfectly functional well on the property. I'm not sure it's even possible to run an economically solvent farming operation off municipal water in the US for any crop other than maybe indoor weed.
Many farms in the US run off a municipal water supply. Only in the west do farms have irrigation systems. When you get east of the Missouri river there is enough rainfall to water the crops and so you don't have any irrigation needs (I don't know why the climate changes so drastically on this line but it does). Even if you have a well, if you are east of the river it is only for household and livestock use, not irrig…
I live in the midwest and irrigation is definitely used around here. Not for all crops but there has been a huge increase in the usage of irrigation over the past decade. There's usually enough rain but irrigation still helps make yields a lot more consistent.
Re: Firefighting foam leaves toxic legacy in Californians’ drinking water
#59I grew up approximately 2.5 miles from a major rocket manufacturer. We're talking R&D and manufacturing of jet propulsion and rocket systems since the 80s. They totally polluted the water tables in the area with by-products of rocket fuel and other industrial chemicals used to clean engines. They were fined in the 90s and supposedly worked with local water authorities to setup a filtration system... but decades later…
They did all kinds of crazy stuff in the name of rocket science.
Nothing like HF as an exhaust gas...
Or injecting liquid mercury into an already carcinogenic nitrogen tetroxide/hydrazine-burning chamber to boost the thrust...
Re: Firefighting foam leaves toxic legacy in Californians’ drinking water
#60Can someone recommend a consumer water testing kit that covers things like this?
The problem with tests is that they look for what you know to look for at one point in time.
If you’re going to go down that road, better to just get carbon filter and R/O filtering setup.