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Cancer-Linked Chemicals Manufactured by 3M Are Turning Up in Drinking Water

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Re: Cancer-Linked Chemicals Manufactured by 3M Are Turning Up in Drinking Water

#111

Post by cjensen »

Note that much of the background on this issue appears to be provided by the Environmental Working Group (EWG). They are an organization which frequently promotes their agenda through scaremongering scientific claims which are frequently flat-out wrong or misrepresented.

The valid stuff in the article is the stuff where the Minnesota department of health altered their allowable limits based on published scientific concerns, and the town was over the limit. The other stuff... I can't tell the wheat from the chaff.

Re: Cancer-Linked Chemicals Manufactured by 3M Are Turning Up in Drinking Water

#112

Post by woolvalley »

resters wrote: post #101
rsync wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Although surely not serious ..." Not your parent but I took it seriously and I think "skin in the game" structures like this should be taken very seriously - they are likely the best mechanisms for aligning interests. "This assumes everyone values personal health over financial health." Very easy to solve this one - the elected official doesn't eat the fish and drink the water, their children do . "This prevents any…

Very well put. Newly elected officials could be given a six month grace period to get any remediation efforts underway before their first tasting. Incumbents would not be eligible for a grace period. One other point to add to rsync's comment: One other point to mention is that rational choices cannot be made about things like pollution when measurement methods can be fudged and the health effects of specific pollutan…

Thats not really fair if you have a superfund lake from the 1950s that nobody uses water from, eats fish in it or has the budget to fix. And is in the middle of nowhere at some desert.

Re: Cancer-Linked Chemicals Manufactured by 3M Are Turning Up in Drinking Water

#113

Post by ohthanks »

hokkos wrote: post #90
armitron wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reverse osmosis only for peace of mind. Nothing else is worth it in my opinion.

But then there is not enough minerals in the water. How do you deal with that ?

You can remineralize with limestone post-filtration.

Or eat food.

Re: Cancer-Linked Chemicals Manufactured by 3M Are Turning Up in Drinking Water

#114

Post by atombender »

There was an excellent article in the NYT a couple of years ago about the fight against the PFAS industry (PFOA, etc.) [1].

The legal fight against DuPont, 3M and others has been going on for decades, and their environmental abuses have been going on since the 1950s. PFAS are scary, and they're absolutely everywhere. And every time a much-maligned pollutant such as PFOA or PFOS gets phased out or banned, a new fluorochemical takes it place that has more or less the same properties; same story all over again.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/magazine/the-lawyer-who-b...

Re: Cancer-Linked Chemicals Manufactured by 3M Are Turning Up in Drinking Water

#115

Post by graphememes »

rsync wrote: post #81
kodablah wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although surely not serious, lots of naivete here. This assumes everyone values personal health over financial health. This prevents anyone from wanting to get elected to fix an existing problem. This places guilt even on the innocent if they are subjected to upstream or state-level pollution. On and on and on. You either have a problem with existing laws not being enforced or there not being laws to enforce concerni…

"Although surely not serious ..." Not your parent but I took it seriously and I think "skin in the game" structures like this should be taken very seriously - they are likely the best mechanisms for aligning interests. "This assumes everyone values personal health over financial health." Very easy to solve this one - the elected official doesn't eat the fish and drink the water, their children do . "This prevents any…

I wonder what would happen should private schools be forced to use the same food that public schools have.

Re: Cancer-Linked Chemicals Manufactured by 3M Are Turning Up in Drinking Water

#116

Post by ohthanks »

jxramos wrote: post #19
artursapek wrote: post #16

Is this something a reverse-osmosis system can filter out at home?

I'm curious about that too. We use a RO system, and so far I've only replaced the carbon sediment filters. I'm a year or two away from replacing the RO membrane cartridge. I cut them open when I replace them, I always wanted to do some kind of chemical analyses of the filters. Visibly they're just brown and saturated with rust from old galvanized pipes our building uses.

I think it's actually pretty hard to tell much from the membrane itself, my understanding is that most of the process is based in the membrane preferring the smaller water-only molecules and allowing the waste run off to carry away anything else. So they shouldn't really be catching much in the element.

They fail either from the chlorine degrading the membrane film which will start allowing larger dissolved solids through (your TDS will increase) or by having the pores scale and plug over time which will slowly decrease the output.

Re: Cancer-Linked Chemicals Manufactured by 3M Are Turning Up in Drinking Water

#117

Post by resters »

woolvalley wrote: post #112
resters wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very well put. Newly elected officials could be given a six month grace period to get any remediation efforts underway before their first tasting. Incumbents would not be eligible for a grace period. One other point to add to rsync's comment: One other point to mention is that rational choices cannot be made about things like pollution when measurement methods can be fudged and the health effects of specific pollutan…

Thats not really fair if you have a superfund lake from the 1950s that nobody uses water from, eats fish in it or has the budget to fix. And is in the middle of nowhere at some desert.

The notion of an appropriate budget to fix these kinds of things usually omits the full cost of neglect.

The article linked above describes a massive plume of cancer-causing pollution spreading through underground waterways. All we need to do to find and justify the budget is accurately quantify the human cost.

Re: Cancer-Linked Chemicals Manufactured by 3M Are Turning Up in Drinking Water

#118

Post by nerdponx »

atombender wrote: post #114

There was an excellent article in the NYT a couple of years ago about the fight against the PFAS industry (PFOA, etc.) [1]. The legal fight against DuPont, 3M and others has been going on for decades, and their environmental abuses have been going on since the 1950s. PFAS are scary, and they're absolutely everywhere. And every time a much-maligned pollutant such as PFOA or PFOS gets phased out or banned, a new fluoro…

Do alternatives even exist?

Re: Cancer-Linked Chemicals Manufactured by 3M Are Turning Up in Drinking Water

#119

Post by quasse »

kayhi wrote: post #100
quasse wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many places in AK unfortunately have a history of barely-regulated mining [1], which is now being joined by a push to expand and deregulate the oil and gas industry in those areas [2]. Unfortunately remote is no guarantee of clean and in some cases might even mean the opposite because being out of the public eye allows companies to ignore externalities that they would otherwise have to take responsibility for. [1] ht…

Great point, but the articles mentions extremely small areas compared to the entire state over the period of decades.

Unfortunately those extremely small areas do not exist in a vacuum and and connected to the rest of the state by things like watersheds, especially when we're talking about timescales like decades.

Re: Cancer-Linked Chemicals Manufactured by 3M Are Turning Up in Drinking Water

#120

Post by mr_toad »

village-idiot wrote: post #110
hammock wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is almost definitely yes, at least in great part. Furthermore, the top two killers in America are heart disease and cancer. 80% of heart disease is preventable by diet - avoiding foods that cause insulin resistance (sugar) and gut dysfunction (chemicals). The top cancer and many others are triggered by environmental variables (chemicals). And I know I am going to be downvoted for not citing, maybe someone…

Don’t forget seed oils!

And oxygen. That stuff can be lethal.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxidative_stress

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