By Kelly Vaughn
Flint - As water infrastructure across the country grows older, (click here) residents and leaders in Flint say what happened to them should be a lesson to all.
April 25, 2023, marks nine years since the Flint water crisis began. Some residents said they still feel like they are living in a science experiment.
"We run the cold water and it smells like chemicals; run the hot water and it smells like sometimes dirty feet," said Melissa Mays, the operations manager for "Flint Rising," an organization helping those impacted after Flint's water was contaminated with lead in 2014.
The ramifications are still unfolding today. This week, a judge approved the $626 million civil settlement, the largest in Michigan's history.
While money is nice, what residents really want is lasting change....
Flint - As water infrastructure across the country grows older, (click here) residents and leaders in Flint say what happened to them should be a lesson to all.
April 25, 2023, marks nine years since the Flint water crisis began. Some residents said they still feel like they are living in a science experiment.
"We run the cold water and it smells like chemicals; run the hot water and it smells like sometimes dirty feet," said Melissa Mays, the operations manager for "Flint Rising," an organization helping those impacted after Flint's water was contaminated with lead in 2014.
The ramifications are still unfolding today. This week, a judge approved the $626 million civil settlement, the largest in Michigan's history.
While money is nice, what residents really want is lasting change....
Clean air, clean water, and a safe climate are all priorities to quality of life. This is not a fad that will go away. These problems for the American consumer are real. Good governance is paying attention and creating measurable improvement in all aspects of life.
PFAS can affect the fertility of Americans. Counting numbers and attributing it to women depressed over oppressive Republican regimes is not the answer. Americans know there are problems and it is time to bring about a higher quality of life concentrated on removing dangers to food and water.
By Annie Snead
Requirements (click here) such as labeling of products that contain PFAS in a WARNING is a good beginning.
Many Americans fill up a glass of water (click here) from their faucet without worrying whether it might be dangerous. But the crisis of lead-tainted water in Flint, Mich., showed that safe, potable tap water is not a given in this country. Now a study from the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a nonprofit advocacy organization, reveals a widespread problem: the drinking water of a majority of Americans likely contains “forever chemicals.” These compounds may take hundreds, or even thousands, of years to break down in the environment. They can also persist in the human body, potentially causing health problems.
A handful of states have set about trying to address these contaminants, which are scientifically known as perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs). But no federal limits have been set on the concentration of the chemicals in water, as they have for other pollutants such as benzene, uranium and arsenic. With a new presidential administration coming into office this week, experts say the federal government finally needs to remedy that oversight. “The PFAS pollution crisis is a public health emergency,” wrote Scott Faber, EWG’s senior vice president for government affairs, in a recent public statement....
October 14, 2020
By Monica Amarelo
The study, published today in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters, analyzed publicly accessible drinking water testing results from the Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Geological Survey, as well as state testing by Colorado, Kentucky, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina and Rhode Island.
“We know drinking water is a major source of exposure of these toxic chemicals,” said Olga Naidenko, Ph.D., vice president for science investigations at EWG and a co-author of the new study. “This new paper shows that PFAS pollution is affecting even more Americans than we previously estimated. PFAS are likely detectable in all major water supplies in the U.S., almost certainly in all that use surface water.”
The analysis also included laboratory tests commissioned by EWG that found PFAS chemicals in the drinking water of dozens of U.S. cities. Some of the highest PFAS levels detected were in samples from major metropolitan areas, including Miami, Philadelphia, New Orleans and the northern New Jersey suburbs of New York City....
July 27, 2022
By Rich Haridy
First developed in the 1940s, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) encompass more than 4,700 different chemical molecules. For decades these chemicals were used in a variety of manufacturing contexts, from non-stick cookware and waterproof clothing to carpets and firefighting foams.
Because PFAS chemicals tend to persist in he environment for long periods of time they have anecdotally been dubbed “forever chemicals.” And the sheer pervasiveness of PFAS in 20th century manufacturing led to studies finding traces of the chemicals in the blood of nearly every American.
Leveraging a very large body of pre-existing research, this new study looked to quantify the disease burden of PFAS exposure and estimate the economic cost of this in regards to medical bills and lost worker productivity. The goal of the economic estimate was to offer regulators a way to evaluate the cost-benefit of eliminating PFAS from our environment....
