non-epa regulated hexavalent cromium found in tap water of 31 cities

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

patriot and widower
[FONT=&quot]12:00 AM ET[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Report: Harmful chemical found in tap water of 31 U.S. cities[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Millions of Americans in at least 31 U.S. cities could be drinking tap water contaminated with the harmful chemical hexavalent chromium, according to a report released Monday by the non-profit Environmental Working Group.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]While the dangerous carcinogen, otherwise known as chromium-6, may sound foreign to most people, perhaps the name Erin Brockovich will ring a bell.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]After chromium-6 was discovered in the [ame="http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2010/11/23/ac.simon.hinkley.chemicals.cnn"]water supply of Hinkley, California[/ame], Brockovich helped bring about a lawsuit that ultimately ended in 1996 with the utility company, Pacific Gas & Electric, paying more than $330 million in damages. Norman, Oklahoma; Honolulu, Hawaii; and Riverside, California, top the non-profit organization's list of cities with water supplies contaminated by chromium-6.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Although the Environmental Protection Agency does not require water utilities to test for chromium-6, and has not established a legal threshold for how much can be in our water, the agency has classified the toxin as "likely to be carcinogenic to humans."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"I was expecting to find hexavalent chromium in some of the cities we checked, but I didn't expect it to be so widespread," said Rebecca Sutton, a senior scientist with the Environmental Working Group and the lead author of the study.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Sutton said there is a well-documented corollary between exposure to chromium-6 and a greater risk of stomach cancer in humans. Additionally, there is ample animal evidence showing a broad risk of gastrointestinal tumors in rats and mice exposed to the toxin, she said.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Worse, skipping tap water in favor of bottled water does not guarantee you'll be protected.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"Bottled water is not necessarily any safer than tap water," said Sutton. "We just don't have any guarantee that hexavalent chromium isn't in that water."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]So how can you protect yourself? Sutton says your best bet is buying an effective water filter.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"Getting the water filter is a great way to protect yourself and your family," says Sutton. "It's a step you can take yourself; you don't have to wait for government action."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Samples from the test provided a "one-time snapshot" of water systems that serve 26 million people, the Environmental Working Group said. But the organization said the results show that more federal regulation of the cancer-causing chemical is needed.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The National Toxicology Program has said that chromium-6 in drinking water shows "clear evidence of carcinogenic activity."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]California's state environmental agency has proposed capping levels of the chemical in drinking water at 0.06 parts per billion. The Environmental Working Group said 25 of the cities it tested showed exceeded that level.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]To conduct its test, the organization said it recruited volunteers in 35 cities to collect tap water samples "from unfiltered taps in homes or in public buildings such as hospitals, libraries and malls," the report said.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
 
Schadenfreude said:
[FONT=&quot]12:00 AM ET[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Report: Harmful chemical found in tap water of 31 U.S. cities[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Millions of Americans in at least 31 U.S. cities could be drinking tap water contaminated with the harmful chemical hexavalent chromium, according to a report released Monday by the non-profit Environmental Working Group.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]While the dangerous carcinogen, otherwise known as chromium-6, may sound foreign to most people, perhaps the name Erin Brockovich will ring a bell.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]After chromium-6 was discovered in the water supply of Hinkley, California, Brockovich helped bring about a lawsuit that ultimately ended in 1996 with the utility company, Pacific Gas & Electric, paying more than $330 million in damages. Norman, Oklahoma; Honolulu, Hawaii; and Riverside, California, top the non-profit organization's list of cities with water supplies contaminated by chromium-6.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Although the Environmental Protection Agency does not require water utilities to test for chromium-6, and has not established a legal threshold for how much can be in our water, the agency has classified the toxin as "likely to be carcinogenic to humans."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"I was expecting to find hexavalent chromium in some of the cities we checked, but I didn't expect it to be so widespread," said Rebecca Sutton, a senior scientist with the Environmental Working Group and the lead author of the study.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Sutton said there is a well-documented corollary between exposure to chromium-6 and a greater risk of stomach cancer in humans. Additionally, there is ample animal evidence showing a broad risk of gastrointestinal tumors in rats and mice exposed to the toxin, she said.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Worse, skipping tap water in favor of bottled water does not guarantee you'll be protected.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"Bottled water is not necessarily any safer than tap water," said Sutton. "We just don't have any guarantee that hexavalent chromium isn't in that water."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]So how can you protect yourself? Sutton says your best bet is buying an effective water filter.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"Getting the water filter is a great way to protect yourself and your family," says Sutton. "It's a step you can take yourself; you don't have to wait for government action."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Samples from the test provided a "one-time snapshot" of water systems that serve 26 million people, the Environmental Working Group said. But the organization said the results show that more federal regulation of the cancer-causing chemical is needed.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The National Toxicology Program has said that chromium-6 in drinking water shows "clear evidence of carcinogenic activity."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]California's state environmental agency has proposed capping levels of the chemical in drinking water at 0.06 parts per billion. The Environmental Working Group said 25 of the cities it tested showed exceeded that level.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]To conduct its test, the organization said it recruited volunteers in 35 cities to collect tap water samples "from unfiltered taps in homes or in public buildings such as hospitals, libraries and malls," the report said.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
Click to expand...

So, do we need less government regulation?
 
Sounds like a free-market solution.

What business does the government have regulating our water, soil and air, anyway?
 
Mojo said:
So, do we need less government regulation?
Click to expand...

No, you need the public to get off their $*%# fat, complacent butts and put the screws to their local, State and Fed representatives to get a BETTER regulatory gov't system so this crap doesn't continue to happen.

Please stop this "free market is the only solution" BS....because we're experiencing just what a little deregulation of big business can do to the American wallet.
 
Taichiliberal said:
No, you need the public to get off their $*%# fat, complacent butts and put the screws to their local, State and Fed representatives to get a BETTER regulatory gov't system so this crap doesn't continue to happen.

Please stop this "free market is the only solution" BS....because we're experiencing just what a little deregulation of big business can do to the American wallet.
Click to expand...

Does the term "irony" hold any meaning for you?
 
Originally Posted by Taichiliberal
No, you need the public to get off their $*%# fat, complacent butts and put the screws to their local, State and Fed representatives to get a BETTER regulatory gov't system so this crap doesn't continue to happen.

Please stop this "free market is the only solution" BS....because we're experiencing just what a little deregulation of big business can do to the American wallet.
Click to expand...


Mojo said:
Does the term "irony" hold any meaning for you?
Click to expand...

Depends, what PRECISELY are you referring to?
 
Schadenfreude said:
[FONT=&quot]12:00 AM ET[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Report: Harmful chemical found in tap water of 31 U.S. cities[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Millions of Americans in at least 31 U.S. cities could be drinking tap water contaminated with the harmful chemical hexavalent chromium, according to a report released Monday by the non-profit Environmental Working Group.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]While the dangerous carcinogen, otherwise known as chromium-6, may sound foreign to most people, perhaps the name Erin Brockovich will ring a bell.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]After chromium-6 was discovered in the water supply of Hinkley, California, Brockovich helped bring about a lawsuit that ultimately ended in 1996 with the utility company, Pacific Gas & Electric, paying more than $330 million in damages. Norman, Oklahoma; Honolulu, Hawaii; and Riverside, California, top the non-profit organization's list of cities with water supplies contaminated by chromium-6.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Although the Environmental Protection Agency does not require water utilities to test for chromium-6, and has not established a legal threshold for how much can be in our water, the agency has classified the toxin as "likely to be carcinogenic to humans."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"I was expecting to find hexavalent chromium in some of the cities we checked, but I didn't expect it to be so widespread," said Rebecca Sutton, a senior scientist with the Environmental Working Group and the lead author of the study.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Sutton said there is a well-documented corollary between exposure to chromium-6 and a greater risk of stomach cancer in humans. Additionally, there is ample animal evidence showing a broad risk of gastrointestinal tumors in rats and mice exposed to the toxin, she said.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Worse, skipping tap water in favor of bottled water does not guarantee you'll be protected.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"Bottled water is not necessarily any safer than tap water," said Sutton. "We just don't have any guarantee that hexavalent chromium isn't in that water."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]So how can you protect yourself? Sutton says your best bet is buying an effective water filter.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"Getting the water filter is a great way to protect yourself and your family," says Sutton. "It's a step you can take yourself; you don't have to wait for government action."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Samples from the test provided a "one-time snapshot" of water systems that serve 26 million people, the Environmental Working Group said. But the organization said the results show that more federal regulation of the cancer-causing chemical is needed.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The National Toxicology Program has said that chromium-6 in drinking water shows "clear evidence of carcinogenic activity."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]California's state environmental agency has proposed capping levels of the chemical in drinking water at 0.06 parts per billion. The Environmental Working Group said 25 of the cities it tested showed exceeded that level.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]To conduct its test, the organization said it recruited volunteers in 35 cities to collect tap water samples "from unfiltered taps in homes or in public buildings such as hospitals, libraries and malls," the report said.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
Click to expand...

"...scientists say there's no good science on just how much of an impact the chemical can have on public health...scientists say that's an extremely small amount. One part per billion is equivalent to about a drop in 250 gallon drums of water, or three seconds in a century.

Even if a city such as Norman has the highest concentration of chromium-6 of all the cities tested, that doesn't mean it places the residents at a higher risk for developing cancer than in other cities...

Experts say inhaling chromium-6 can cause cancer, but there isn't much data on the dangers of drinking it.

"The evidence is fairly good that it's carcinogenic in people in occupational settings who inhale it and get a good dose," said Dr. Shan Yin, assistant medical director of the Cincinnati Drug and Poison Information Center.

"No one has really established what is a carcinogenic level for drinking water," said Alfred Aleguas, managing director at the Northern Ohio Poison Control Center in Cleveland..."

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellne...er-alarmist/story?id=12440751&tqkw=&tqshow=WN
 
Schadenfreude said:
[FONT=&quot]12:00 AM ET[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Report: Harmful chemical found in tap water of 31 U.S. cities[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Millions of Americans in at least 31 U.S. cities could be drinking tap water contaminated with the harmful chemical hexavalent chromium, according to a report released Monday by the non-profit Environmental Working Group.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]While the dangerous carcinogen, otherwise known as chromium-6, may sound foreign to most people, perhaps the name Erin Brockovich will ring a bell.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]After chromium-6 was discovered in the water supply of Hinkley, California, Brockovich helped bring about a lawsuit that ultimately ended in 1996 with the utility company, Pacific Gas & Electric, paying more than $330 million in damages. Norman, Oklahoma; Honolulu, Hawaii; and Riverside, California, top the non-profit organization's list of cities with water supplies contaminated by chromium-6.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Although the Environmental Protection Agency does not require water utilities to test for chromium-6, and has not established a legal threshold for how much can be in our water, the agency has classified the toxin as "likely to be carcinogenic to humans."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"I was expecting to find hexavalent chromium in some of the cities we checked, but I didn't expect it to be so widespread," said Rebecca Sutton, a senior scientist with the Environmental Working Group and the lead author of the study.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Sutton said there is a well-documented corollary between exposure to chromium-6 and a greater risk of stomach cancer in humans. Additionally, there is ample animal evidence showing a broad risk of gastrointestinal tumors in rats and mice exposed to the toxin, she said.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Worse, skipping tap water in favor of bottled water does not guarantee you'll be protected.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"Bottled water is not necessarily any safer than tap water," said Sutton. "We just don't have any guarantee that hexavalent chromium isn't in that water."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]So how can you protect yourself? Sutton says your best bet is buying an effective water filter.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"Getting the water filter is a great way to protect yourself and your family," says Sutton. "It's a step you can take yourself; you don't have to wait for government action."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Samples from the test provided a "one-time snapshot" of water systems that serve 26 million people, the Environmental Working Group said. But the organization said the results show that more federal regulation of the cancer-causing chemical is needed.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The National Toxicology Program has said that chromium-6 in drinking water shows "clear evidence of carcinogenic activity."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]California's state environmental agency has proposed capping levels of the chemical in drinking water at 0.06 parts per billion. The Environmental Working Group said 25 of the cities it tested showed exceeded that level.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]To conduct its test, the organization said it recruited volunteers in 35 cities to collect tap water samples "from unfiltered taps in homes or in public buildings such as hospitals, libraries and malls," the report said.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
Click to expand...
again this is more irresponsible and alarmist reporting by people who don't understand how environmental testing works. First, EPA doesn't require testing for hexavalent chromium in drinking water for several reason. The first is that they all ready have an established threshold for total chromium of 5 parts per billion under provisions of the Clean Water Act(i.e. the Safe Drinking Water Act). There are no documented peer reviewed studies that show a correlation to cancer or even toxicty due to expsure to hexavalent chromium (or chromium of any oxidation/valence state) at the 5 parts per billion range. This is essentially an over kill margin of safety. Second, even the most sensitive analytical methods for hexavalent chromium including such methods as high performance ion chromatography with post column mass spectroscopy detection that require post column colorimetric methods to detect the hexavalent species of chromium from ground state and trivalent chromium valence states. These post colomn colorimetric methods are notoriously unreliable at this level of detection due to the many forms of matrix and ionic interferences that cause false positive results to occurr for Cr 6+. Therefore a total chromium analysis via inductively coupled argon plasma spectrometry is used for determination of total chromium levels in all public drinking water and all public water systems must test drinking water under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) as I mentioned before to 5 parts per billion (or 5 micorgrams per liter) for total chromium.

In other words this article is bull shit.
 
Last edited:
Schadenfreude said:
obviously :mad:

there is an alternative - [FONT=&quot]Sutton says your best bet is buying an effective water filter.[/FONT]
Click to expand...
Water filters are probably a bad idea too. About the only type of filtration that would remove metals are ion-exchange and reverse osmosis filtration. Both have limits as to how much they can remove and public drinking water is all ready treated to have lower then a 5 ppb total Cr level. Then there's the fact that unless these types of filters are properly maintained and periodically backflushed or regenerated the contaminant concentration will actually increase in the waster passing through them and end up in actually reducing the water quality instead of improving it.
 
Mojo said:
Sounds like a free-market solution.

What business does the government have regulating our water, soil and air, anyway?
Click to expand...
I dunno. I have a 55 gallon drum of Methyl ethyl ketone how about I come over and dump it in your front yard and then we can talk about what right the government has to regulate our water, soil and air.
 
Taichiliberal said:
No, you need the public to get off their $*%# fat, complacent butts and put the screws to their local, State and Fed representatives to get a BETTER regulatory gov't system so this crap doesn't continue to happen.

Please stop this "free market is the only solution" BS....because we're experiencing just what a little deregulation of big business can do to the American wallet.
Click to expand...

That's what bothers me about this sort of alarmism. People read it and accept it at face value cause they assume that the authors of the article have the tehcnical expertise to draw valid conclusions but in this case, it's pretty obvious to me, a professional who works in the field, that they don't know what they are talking about. We do have substantial controls in place to protect drinking water from excesive chromium contamination. 5 parts per billion is pretty high standard dude.
 
Mojo said:
"...scientists say there's no good science on just how much of an impact the chemical can have on public health...scientists say that's an extremely small amount. One part per billion is equivalent to about a drop in 250 gallon drums of water, or three seconds in a century.

Even if a city such as Norman has the highest concentration of chromium-6 of all the cities tested, that doesn't mean it places the residents at a higher risk for developing cancer than in other cities...

Experts say inhaling chromium-6 can cause cancer, but there isn't much data on the dangers of drinking it.

"The evidence is fairly good that it's carcinogenic in people in occupational settings who inhale it and get a good dose," said Dr. Shan Yin, assistant medical director of the Cincinnati Drug and Poison Information Center.

"No one has really established what is a carcinogenic level for drinking water," said Alfred Aleguas, managing director at the Northern Ohio Poison Control Center in Cleveland..."

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellne...er-alarmist/story?id=12440751&tqkw=&tqshow=WN
Click to expand...
Yup, I pretty much have to agree with all these comments. The posted article is both alarmist and irresponsible.
 
so we're supposed to assume god is real, as part of science, and we're supposed to beleive carcinogens may just be part of a smear campaign against all knowing and moral corporations?
 
AssHatZombie said:
so we're supposed to assume god is real, as part of science, and we're supposed to beleive carcinogens may just be part of a smear campaign against all knowing and moral corporations?
Click to expand...

Do you have any evidence to support such an insinuation? If, so, present it.

Unless you're going to attempt to link this thread to the evils of free trade, and affirmative action, or maybe you'll just use your devastating debating tool of "shmo, shmu, shmee"?

Which is it to be?
 
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