"Emissions from pyrotechnic displays are composed of numerous organic compounds as well as metals," a new study reports. Nodar Chernishev / EyeEm / Getty Images
Fireworks have taken a lot of heat recently. In South Dakota, fire experts have said President Trump's plan to hold a fireworks show is dangerous and public health experts have criticized the lack of plans to enforce mask wearing or social distancing. Now, a new study shows that shooting off fireworks at home may expose you and your family to dangerous levels of lead, copper and other toxins.
<p>The study, published Wednesday in the journal <em><a href="https://particleandfibretoxicology.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1186/s12989-020-00360-4" target="_blank">Particle and Fibre Technology</a></em>, analyzed 12 different retail fireworks and found that once set off, five of them released particle emissions that could damage human cells and animal lungs, as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/01/health/fireworks-toxic-air-safety-wellness/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported.</p><p>The metals are used to give the fireworks their vibrant colors when they explode. However, those same metals are hazardous to humans and animals. The study said that blue fireworks can be made of copper and red fireworks can contain strontium, which gives a brilliant red light.</p>
<p>"While many are careful to protect themselves from injury from explosions, our results suggest that inhaling firework smoke may cause longer-term damage, a risk that has been largely ignored," said Terry Gordon, environmental medicine professor at New York University's Grossman School of Medicine, as the <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-fireworks-produce-high-level-lead-toxins-study-20200702-rs26g27afzag3nhlrjbp2yj5fu-story.html" target="_blank">New York Daily News</a> reported</p><p>The study acknowledged that people are typically exposed to these emissions a few times a year, usually around July 4th and New Year's Eve. And yet, even that exposure means people are inhaling much more harmful toxins than what people breathe in normally.</p>
<p>The researchers looked at 14 years of air quality samples taken at dozens of locations across the U.S. by the Environmental Protection Agency throughout the years. The researchers noticed that levels of toxic metals tended to peak in samples taken near Independence Day and New Year's Eve celebrations. The concentration of airborne toxic metals was much higher during those years than at any other time.</p><p>"Although people are only exposed to these substances for a short time each year, they are much more toxic than the pollutants we breathe every day," said Dr. Gordon in an <a href="https://nyulangone.org/news/common-fireworks-release-lead-copper-other-toxic-metals-air" target="_blank">NYU press release</a>.</p><p>"I could hypothesize that people could have, especially susceptible people like asthmatics, increased episodes," Gordon said to CNN.</p>
<p>To conduct the study, the scientists detonated fireworks in a laboratory chamber. They tested roughly a dozen types of fireworks commonly sold in the U.S., including the Black Cuckoo, the Color-Changing Wheel and the Blue Storm firecracker. They then tested mice and human lung cells with the captured particles.</p><p>The Black Cuckoo, a fountain-style firework, registered the most toxic of the group, at 10 times more damaging to human cells than a nontoxic saline solution, according to the findings, as NYU said in a <a href="https://nyulangone.org/news/common-fireworks-release-lead-copper-other-toxic-metals-air" target="_blank">statement</a>.</p><p>Gordon said that the firework emitted lead particles at 40,000 parts per million, which is exceedingly high. Normally, lead should not be emitted at all, he said, as CNN reported.</p>
<p>Families looking to set off fireworks this weekend should be particularly mindful of children's developing lungs and brains. Parents should make sure their kids are far away from the fireworks smoke and any potential lead exposure.</p><p>"Allow the adults to be the ones to set off the fireworks and stay upwind from it so that the smoke is blowing in the breeze," said Kristin Van Hook, chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics section on pediatric pulmonology and sleep medicine.</p><p>She told CNN she has seen cases where children who have asthma breathed in fumes from fireworks and ended up in the emergency room.</p><p>Gordon also said that families should be aware what their children are exposed to and that everyone should try to stay downwind from fireworks. He added that the fireworks industry must increase its safety regulations.</p><p>"Given what we've found, I propose that ... they make sure they are importing safer fireworks and that that's what the consumers use," Gordon said to CNN.</p>
From Your Site Articles
- No Social Distancing or Mask Requirement at Trump's Mt ... ›
- Trump's Fireworks Show at Mt. Rushmore Is a Dangerous Idea, Fire ... ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
Ariana Hawk of Flint, Michigan, leads a chant during a protest over unsafe drinking water on the steps of the Michigan State Capitol on April 11, 2018 in Lansing, Michigan. Brittany Greeson / Getty Images
By Ben Knight
Reports that the new coronavirus is disproportionately killing African Americans in the United States are no surprise to the country's public health researchers. Numerous examples, from polluted water in Flint, Michigan, to parasites like hookworm in Alabama, have long shown that African Americans are more exposed to environmental dangers and ill-health than white Americans.
But a study into one of the most enduring of these threats — lead poisoning among children —provides a new measure of what many say is the toxic effect of systematic racism in the US.
<p>There is no safe level of lead in the blood, which means even trace amounts can damage brain cells. But it is particularly dangerous for children in their pre-school years, when it can disrupt brain development. Overall, the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that around 2.5% of children aged between 0 and six in the country have an "elevated blood lead level".</p><p>Using publicly available data collected by the CDC from a representative sample of thousands of children aged one to five over an 11-year period, the <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/5/1552" target="_blank">study</a>, published in February by the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, found that black children living below the poverty line are twice as likely to have elevated levels of lead in their blood than poor white or Hispanic children.<br></p><p>The CDC did not offer a comment on the new study, on the grounds that it was not involved in writing it.</p>
The Danger of Being African American
<p>Statistically, the increased risk of lead poisoning associated with being black persists even when you correct for all other factors, from poverty to education levels to the presence of smokers in the home, to quality of housing.</p><p>"A lot of people had been saying: 'oh black children are just more at risk because they're more likely to be poor,'" said study co-author Deniz "Dersim" Yeter, an independent academic and undergraduate nursing student in Kansas. "Yeah, poverty's a problem, but it's nothing compared to being a black child in America."</p><p>Yeter was "astounded" by the results of their three-year analysis. "I knew it was bad, but I was expecting something like a marginal increase, something statistically significant, but ... not two to six times higher," they told DW. "That is obscene."</p><p>The study includes some surprising conclusions: The social condition of being African American is a bigger risk than living in an old house. In other words, black children living in buildings built between 1950-1977 are six times more likely to have elevated levels of lead in their blood than white children living in a building of that era.</p><p>That date is important. The US began putting restrictions on the lead content of paint in 1977. But leaded paint was never systematically removed from old buildings, and the US Department of Housing estimates that over 3.6 million homes housing children still contain lead hazards.</p><p>"It's so bad," Yeter said. "It deteriorates, it's little pieces of dust, you inhale it, kids touch stuff, touch their mouths, absorb it. [Before the 1950s] it used to be so bad that kids would go into seizures, go to the hospital and die, because there was so much lead in their blood."</p>The Consequences of 'Redlining'
<p>The figures Yeter unearthed aren't surprising to community workers in areas where lead poisoning is just one of many health hazards that African Americans face.</p><p>"You just have look around you," said Kinzer Pointer, pastor and health campaigner in an overwhelmingly African-American community in Buffalo, New York, a city where most of the housing is older than 1978 and 40% of children tested in 2016 had an elevated blood lead level.</p><p>Buffalo is a prime example of the effects of "redlining" — the exclusion of minorities in the US from everything from insurance, to grocery stores — which offers a clue to how racism leads to poor health. </p><p>Pointer said that in the neighborhood he serves, the nearest supermarket selling fresh fruit and vegetables is over five miles away, and 60% of people don't own their own transport. "People live on fast food," he said.</p><p>Redlining also extends to mortgages and home ownership — the US census shows that only around 42% of African Americans own their homes, compared to 68% of white Americans. </p><p>Rahwa Ghirmatzion, director of People United for Sustainable Housing in Buffalo, explained that when renters receive a letter from health authorities warning their building is contaminated, "the expectation is for them to either move … or get their landlord to remediate the issue." </p><p>Confronting your landlord can be more fraught for black people: A 2012 study in the American Journal of Sociology showed that African Americans face disproportionately higher eviction rates than whites in the same income brackets. And moving voluntarily may mean breaking a lease and losing a deposit, making it still harder to afford a lead-free home.</p>
The 'Color-Blind' Failure
<p>David Rosner, co-author of the 2014 book Lead Wars, which traces the post-war history of lead poisoning, said racism has always been part of why lead poisoning has been tolerated.</p><p>As he explained, after the war, the Lead Industries Association even tried to blame black parents for letting their children eat paint: One 1956 letter showed the LIA arguing to government that lead poisoning was a problem of "educating the parents, but most of the cases are in Negro and Puerto Rican families, and how does one tackle that job?" </p><p>With their study, Yeter wants to show that hidden, structural racism can be just as dangerous, and that "color-blind" public health screening only exacerbates the problem. </p><p>Currently, blood lead screening is recommended (by organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics) when children live in old buildings or belong to a certain economic class. Yeter says not addressing race too, blinds authorities to the endemic discrimination. </p><p>"If you're ignoring black race as a leading risk factor — you're leaving so many black kids at far greater risk out of the local, state, and federal response." He added: "To act like there's no politics behind people being at risk, or what causes that, or how to solve that... it's political!"</p>From Your Site Articles
- How Residents of South LA Are Tackling Environmental Racism ... ›
- First-of-Its-Kind Study Finds Racial Gap Between Who Causes Air ... ›
- Flint Water Crisis Keeps Getting Bigger and More Shocking Each Day ›
- 15 EcoWatch Stories on Environmental and Racial Injustice ›
- Fighting Climate Change Is a Social Justice Issue Too - EcoWatch ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
Examples (from left) of a lead pipe, a corroded steel pipe and a lead pipe treated with protective orthophosphate. U.S. EPA Region 5
Under an agreement negotiated by community groups — represented by NRDC and the Pennsylvania Utility Law Project — the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority (PWSA) will remove thousands of lead water pipes by 2026 in order to address the chronically high lead levels in the city's drinking water and protect residents' health.
<p>"During this global pandemic more than ever, it's critical that PWSA provide safe drinking water to all city residents, that residents in Pittsburgh continue to have significant say over how ratepayer dollars are spent, and that we do everything we can to take care of the most vulnerable people in our communities," said Jennifer Rafanan Kennedy, executive director of <a href="https://pittsburghunited.org/" target="_blank">Pittsburgh United</a>, a coalition of labor, faith and environmental groups that helped negotiate the settlement.</p><p>Under the settlement, which was recently approved by the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, PWSA must prioritize replacement for residents in high-risk neighborhoods. It must also limit the practice of replacing only part of a lead service line, which can <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/experts/cyndi-roper/hidden-costs-dangers-partial-lead-pipe-replacements" target="_blank">cause lead levels to substantially increase</a>.</p>
<p>PWSA will also expand its free tap water filter program to include low-income renters whose homes may have lead lines, homes with lead lines where PWSA replaces a water meter, and any customer whose tap water contains at least 10 parts per billion of lead.</p><p>"The aggressive steps to get the lead out of Pittsburgh outlined in the settlement are necessary to protect the health of children and families," said<a href="https://www.nrdc.org/experts/pete-demarco" target="_blank"> NRDC attorney Pete DeMarco</a>. "The burdens of lead-contaminated water fall most heavily on low-income families and communities of color, which is why it is so important to prioritize lead service line replacements in those neighborhoods where residents are at greatest risk."</p>
<p>Pittsburgh's drinking water has been contaminated with lead since at least 2016, with levels above the federal action limit in five out of the last eight testing periods. <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/stories/how-protect-yourself-lead-contaminated-water" target="_blank">There is no safe level of lead exposure</a>: The heavy metal can cause serious and irreversible damage to the body, affecting the nervous system, fertility and cognitive ability, among other functions, and posing a particularly high risk for children.</p><p>Pittsburgh is just the latest in a growing list of cities facing drinking water crises, such as <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/stories/flint-water-crisis-everything-you-need-know" target="_blank">Flint</a>, Michigan, and <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/newark-drinking-water-crisis" target="_blank">Newark</a>, New Jersey. In 2016, <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/whats-in-your-water-flint-beyond-report.pdf" target="_blank">NRDC analysis</a> indicated that more than 18 million people were being served by 5,363 community water systems that violated the Lead and Copper Rule. But Pittsburgh United said that the settlement could now provide a model for other cities with lead-contaminated drinking water. "Safe water is a right, not a luxury," Kennedy says. "Although work remains to be done to ensure all customers have access to safe and affordable service, this settlement puts PWSA on a path to replacing all residential lead service lines."</p><p>Pittsburgh residents who would like to know whether their home is serviced by a lead water line that is slated to be replaced or whether they are eligible for a free filter can contact PWSA's lead help desk at 412-255-8987 or <a href="mailto:leadhelp@pgh2o.com" target="_blank">leadhelp@pgh2o.com</a>.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/experts/nrdc/pittsburgh-agrees-replace-thousands-lead-pipes-clean-its-drinking-water" target="_blank">Natural Resources Defense Council</a>.</em></p>
Read More
Show Less
America's national bird is threatened by hunters. Not that hunters are taking aim at the iconic bald eagle, but bald eagles are dying after eating lead bullets, as CNN reported.
<p>The <a href="http://www.capefearraptorcenter.org/" target="_blank">Cape Fear Raptor Center</a>, North Carolina's largest eagle rehab facility, has recently treated seven eagles for lead poisoning, executive director Dr. Joni Shimp told CNN. The center also said that 80 percent of the eagles it has had to euthanize since November were because of lead poisoning. </p>
<p>Similarly, officials from the <a href="https://www.hiwr.us/" target="_blank">Hatteras Island Wildlife Rehabilitation</a> in North Carolina said that 70 to 80 percent of the eagles they treat have high levels of lead in their system, and the effects are devastating, <a href="https://www.wtkr.com/news/experts-say-hunters-are-killing-eagles" target="_blank">according to WTKR</a> in North Carolina and coastal Virginia.</p>
<p>"The bird is lethargic, it's limp, it may have vision problems, staggering, legs not working correctly," explained Lou Browning of <a href="https://www.hiwr.us/" target="_blank">Hatteras Island Wildlife Rehabilitation</a> to <a href="https://www.wtkr.com/news/experts-say-hunters-are-killing-eagles" target="_blank">WTKR</a>.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/16/us/bald-eagles-dying-lead-poisoning-trnd/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> explained, hunters use lead bullets to kill deer and other animals. When the eagles feast upon the dead animals, they are indirectly exposed to toxic levels of lead. </p>
<p>"Hunters in no way, shape or form intentionally try to kill an eagle, vulture or any other species," Shimp said to CNN. "If the deer isn't killed immediately and runs and the hunter can't find the deer, the eagles and vultures find it and ingest the lead."</p>
<p>Shimp also explained some of the neurological problems that result from lead exposure to eagles. She told CNN that the eagles will show a "lack of judgment when flying across roadways, the inability to take flight quickly resulting in being hit by cars, seizures and death."</p>
<p>The bullets hunters use often scatter into tiny fragments that travel through an animal's body. </p>
<p>"It's often said a piece of lead the size of a grain of rice is enough to take down an eagle," Doug Hitchcox, a naturalist from Maine Audubon, said. Maine had five cases of eagles dying from lead poisoning in January alone, <a href="https://www.necn.com/news/local/maine-wildlife-advocates-look-to-curb-lead-poisoning-in-bald-eagles/2224560/" target="_blank">according to NECN</a> in New England. </p>
<p>Hunters and bird advocates agree that changes in ammunition would go a long way to solving the problem. That small change makes a big impact for eagles. "The most direct thing would be to switch to copper bullets instead of lead," Browning said to <a href="https://www.wtkr.com/news/experts-say-hunters-are-killing-eagles" target="_blank">WTKR</a>.</p>
<p>Similarly, David Trahan, the executive director of the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine said that education and outreach are essential to prevent the problem, <a href="https://www.necn.com/news/local/maine-wildlife-advocates-look-to-curb-lead-poisoning-in-bald-eagles/2224560/" target="_blank">according to to NECN</a>. He also advocates using copper bullets, especially for big animals like moose where pieces of meat are often left behind.</p>
<p>"If you're going to kill an animal and leave it in the woods like that, let's use a copper bullet," Trahan said to <a href="https://www.necn.com/news/local/maine-wildlife-advocates-look-to-curb-lead-poisoning-in-bald-eagles/2224560/" target="_blank">NECN</a>. He added, "I know of no hunter who wants to hunt an animal and knowingly kill a bald eagle."</p>
<p>Trahan also felt that outreach could protect people as well, since lead is toxic to us as well. </p>
<p>"If I give meat to kids, to family, I want to make sure I'm not providing something to them that could be harmful," he explained to <a href="https://www.necn.com/news/local/maine-wildlife-advocates-look-to-curb-lead-poisoning-in-bald-eagles/2224560/" target="_blank">NECN</a>, suggesting that lead bullets be used in training and at gun ranges, where it won't come into contact with wildlife.</p>
<p>According to the American Bird Conservancy, millions of birds every year die from lead poisoning, as CNN reported.</p>
<p>"It's an overall US problem. The lead poisoning increases during deer season but we see it all year," Shimp said to CNN. "Some times it's chronic low-grade exposure over time that also brings them down."</p>
<p>She too suggests that large stores should sell copper bullets. </p>
<p>"We need to target the big chain stores and get them to carry copper bullets," Shimp said to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/16/us/bald-eagles-dying-lead-poisoning-trnd/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a>. "Then I can set up education days at these stores, with a vulture, red tail (hawk) or eagle and show the hunters and point them to the copper ammo. Then we can start to win this war ... the war on lead, not on hunters."</p>
From Your Site Articles
- 5 Essential Reads on Endangered Species - EcoWatch ›
- New Farm Bill Contains Sneak Attack on the Environment With Toxic ... ›
- Bald Eagle Nest Spotted in Cape Cod for First Time Since 1905 - EcoWatch ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
Researchers found byproduct of coal in an ice core extracted from Shishapangma Mountain in the Himalayas, seen above. ccdoh1 / Flickr / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
New research has found that soot dating back to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution made its way across Europe to settle on the top of the Himalayas, according to a new study published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
<p>The findings show the byproduct of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal" rel="noopener noreferrer">coal</a> burning dating back to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution around 1780. It was found in an ice core extracted from the Dasuopu glacier, at an elevation of over 23,600 feet, on the Shishapangma mountain, according to the <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/02/04/1910485117" target="_blank">study</a>. Shishapangma is the world's 14th largest mountain.</p>
<p>The mountain, which had deposits of toxic material from the late 18th century, is 6,400 miles from London, where the Industrial Revolution started. </p>
<p>"Unintended consequences were and are still part of human history," lead author Paolo Gabrielli, from the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center, Ohio, <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/soot-industrial-revolution-himalayas-1486439" target="_blank">told Newsweek</a>. "I see irony in the fact that we humans did not learn this lesson and we still believe to have everything under control."</p>
<p>The research team from Ohio State that published the study was part of a march larger group of scientists that traveled to Dasuopu in 1997 to drill ice cores from the glacier, <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200210153343.htm" target="_blank">according to a press release</a> from Ohio State. The ice cores are useful for providing a trove of data, including snowfall records, atmospheric circulation and other environmental changes over time. The Byrd Center has on of the world's largest collection of ice cores. </p>
<p>Gabrielli and his colleagues analyzed an ice core that they believe formed between 1499 and 1992, looking for 23 trace elements. They found higher-than-natural levels of a number of toxic metals, including cadmium, chromium, nickel and zinc, from around 1780. These metals are all by-products of burning coal, which were likely transported by winter winds, which travel around the globe from west to east, according to <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth-sciences/himalayan-glacier-shows-evidence-of-industrial-revolution" target="_blank">Cosmos Magazine</a>.</p>
<p>"The Industrial Revolution was a revolution in the use of energy," Gabrielli <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200210153343.htm" target="_blank">said in a statement</a>. "And so the use of coal combustion also started to cause emissions that we think were transported by winds up to the Himalayas."</p>
<p>However, Gabrielli did note that some of the trace materials found, notably zinc, may have come from large forest fires, especially the large ones used in the 19th century to clear land for agriculture, <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth-sciences/himalayan-glacier-shows-evidence-of-industrial-revolution" target="_blank">according to Cosmos Magazine</a>.</p>
<p>"What happens is at that time, in addition to the Industrial Revolution, the human population exploded and expanded," Gabrielli said, as <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth-sciences/himalayan-glacier-shows-evidence-of-industrial-revolution" target="_blank">Cosmos Magazine reported</a>. "And so there was a greater need for agricultural fields and, typically, the way they got new fields was to burn forests."</p>
<p>The most abundant contamination of toxic metals was found in layers frozen between 1810 and 1880, which researchers say was likely caused by wetter-than-normal winters, which caused more <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/ice">ice</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/snow" rel="noopener noreferrer">snow</a> to form, as <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/soot-industrial-revolution-himalayas-1486439" target="_blank">Newsweek reported</a>.</p>
<p>Gabrielli and his team also reported that samples from the 20th century showed trace amounts of another toxic material: <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/lead" rel="noopener noreferrer">lead</a>. </p><p>The lead is likely from its use as a gasoline additive. </p><p>"The levels of metals we found were higher than what would exist naturally, but were not high enough to be acutely toxic or poisonous," Gabrielli said. "However, in the future, bioaccumulation may concentrate metals from meltwater at dangerous toxic levels in the tissues of organisms that live in ecosystems below the glacier."</p>
From Your Site Articles
- Living in Hope and Fear Beside India's Retreating Himalayan Glaciers ›
- Scientists Find Plants Are Growing Higher up the Himalayas ... ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
A women fills a water bottle with a filter from an alpine lake in the mountains around Pemberton, British Columbia, Canada. Canada is on the front lines of rapid climate changes that affect the water cycle. Ben Girardi / Aurora Photos / Getty Images
By Corinne Schuster-Wallace, Robert Sandford and Stephanie Merrill
In recent years, the daily news has been flooded with stories of water woes from coast to coast to coast.
<p>There are <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4795735/glaciers-b-c-alberta-disappears-50-years/" target="_blank">melting glaciers and ice sheets in northern and western Canada</a> and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/lead">lead</a> in <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/drinking-water">drinking water</a> in the older neighborhoods of many cities in Canada. We see toxic blue green algae <a href="https://www.empireadvance.ca/news/local-news/toxic-algae-endangers-pets-livestock-1.23923710" target="_blank">threatening pets, livestock</a> and <a href="https://news.usask.ca/articles/research/2019/health-threat-from-blue-green-blooms-extends-beyond-single-toxin-usask-study.php" target="_blank">drinking water</a> as well as catastrophic <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/flooding-in-4-provinces-sparks-evacuations-1.4397911" target="_blank">floods</a>, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/severe-drought-farmers-declare-disaster-1.5264877" target="_blank">droughts</a> and <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/how-wildfires-may-be-permanently-changing-canada-s-boreal-forest-1.4763748" target="_blank">fires</a>.</p><p>In 2018, parts of British Columbia experienced <a href="https://www.thestar.com/vancouver/2018/06/19/for-bc-fire-and-flood-disaster-cycle-wont-let-up-anytime-soon-and-may-get-worse.html" target="_blank">devastating floods, followed by wildfires a couple of months later</a>.</p><p>Our water resources are under threat from contamination, land use, urbanization and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change">climate change</a>. If we're not careful, it may not be clean enough or available when we need it.</p>
<h2>An Opportunity to Lead</h2><p>The public supports environmental — and water — leadership in Canada. Many political pundits have suggested the federal election result of October 2019 was a <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/election-2019-climate-change-andrew-leach-1.5321425" target="_blank">clear call for climate action</a>.</p><p>And yet Canada is on the front lines of <a href="https://changingclimate.ca/CCCR2019/" target="_blank">rapid climate changes</a> that affect the water cycle. Where, when, and how much rain, snow or freezing rain falls is changing across Canada.<br></p><p>This is the water that we depend upon to replenish our groundwater, rivers and lakes, which continue to have a significant and increasing impact on water availability and quality in Canada and around the world.</p><p>However, Canadians remain divided on energy policy and resource development, and on appropriate solutions that balance environmental, economic and social needs. As Canadians, we must move beyond this and implement changes to better manage our water resources sustainably.</p>
<h2>Water Front and Center</h2><p>We must manage our water sustainably because water is central to environmental, social and economic <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sustainability">sustainability</a> and therefore sustainable societies. This is the focus of the <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/?menu=1300" target="_blank">UN's Sustainable Development Goals</a>. These 17 goals identify targets that must be achieved for livelihoods, health, education, environment, cities, oceans, equity and partnership.</p><p>It's important to understand that these goals are not isolated, but interrelated. This is why, even though there is a goal for water (<a href="https://www.unwater.org/what-we-do/monitor-and-report/" target="_blank">SDG 6</a>), there are 40 targets in the other 16 goals that relate directly to water.</p><p>For example, we cannot have good health if we do not have clean and accessible water, and children cannot go to school or adults to work, if they are not healthy. With water often at the heart of many social and economic inequities, it is critical to address water quantity, quality and access issues in order to meet all of the goals and to achieve the global sustainable development vision.</p><p><a href="https://gwf.usask.ca/sdgreport/" target="_blank">The recipe for managing Canada's water resources</a> in a sustainable and equitable manner requires all of us to urgently recognize our changing climate and water resources, including drinking water, and act appropriately.</p><p>It requires federal co-ordination and leadership on water to overcome challenges of fragmented jurisdiction, such as following through with their commitment to create a <a href="https://www2.liberal.ca/our-platform/fresh-water/" target="_blank">Canada Water Agency</a>, develop a <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/5221630/canada-is-the-only-g7-country-without-a-national-flood-forecasting-system-experts-say-theres-a-cost-to-that/" target="_blank">national flood forecasting system</a> and ensure universal access to adequate drinking water supplies.</p><p>Research institutions must also step up to advance our knowledge, develop and assess decision support tools and solutions, and communicate their findings to communities, governments and economic sectors.</p><p>Finally, it requires reconciliation through shared nations' governance of water resources and recognition of the <a href="https://www.waterteachings.com/water-is-knowledge" target="_blank">long history of successful, sustainable management of natural resources through indigenous knowledge</a> and <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/FIELD/Venice/pdf/special_events/bozza_scheda_DOW_6_1.0.pdf" target="_blank">historical local knowledge</a>.</p>
<h2>Getting Our Own House in Order</h2><p>Canada could support the world in achieving water sustainability, but it must first get its own house in order and achieve the UN's water goals nationally.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjY1NTg2NC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MzczMjQ0NH0.t63CdsJKeydp71fFDKe3i7sZ0ss1VT2qqGPwheWg5u0/img.png?width=980" id="ee322" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b0329e976447fdf675c989ffefe26723" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Canada's water opportunities and challenges. Global Water Futures
<p>Canada still has not reached universal access to reliable, potable water supplies for everyone, especially <a href="https://thetyee.ca/News/2019/10/17/First-Nations-Water-Crises-Explained/" target="_blank">First Nations communities</a>. Lead pipes, disinfection byproducts and aging infrastructure are interrupting drinking water service and negatively affecting human health.</p><p>These water threats also cost our economy big time — as much as <a href="https://gwf.usask.ca/documents/meetings/water-security-for-canada/WaterSecurityForCanada_April-25-2019-2pg1.pdf" target="_blank">$28 billion between 2010 and 2017</a> — and those <a href="http://www.ibc.ca/on/resources/media-centre/media-releases/options-for-managing-the-flood-costs-of-canada%E2%80%99s-highest-risk-residential-properties" target="_blank">costs are rising</a>.</p>
<h2>The Bottom Line<br></h2><p>Canada already has the expertise, technologies, industries and research capacity to make good on a commitment to water sustainability and universal achievement of the UN's water goals for all Canadians. But it needs leadership to advance research and practice to expand our existing strengths, and export these internationally.</p><p>Canadian research institutions have a role to play in bringing the country together by showing Canada and the world the solutions and benefits of achieving these goals.</p><p>There are significant long-term benefits at stake, including the enhanced health and well-being of current and future generations, as well as expanded economic opportunity. But, to achieve these, political leadership needs to transcend partisan lines in order to do what is right.</p><p>Ultimately, we have an opportunity to make where we live a better place and to get our own watersheds in order. This will help us create a better, more just, equitable and sustainable world for all. The alternative is, quite simply, unthinkable.</p>
<p>
<em>Corinne Schuster-Wallace is an associate professor in the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Saskatchewan.<br/>
Robert Sandford is the Chair in Water and Climate Security at United Nations University.<br/>
Stephanie Merrill is a research scientist in knowledge mobilization at the Global Institute for Water Security, Global Water Futures Program, University of Saskatchewan.</em>
</p><p>
<em>Disclosure statement: Corinne Schuster-Wallace receives funding from Global Water Futures and the Canadian Tri-Agency. She is co-chair of the Working Group on Climate Change for the Canadian Coalition for Global Health Research.<br/>
</em><em>Robert Sandford receives partial funding from the Global Water Futures program at the University of Saskatchewan.<br/>
</em><em>Stephanie Merrill is a volunteer board member of the Saskatchewan branch and National board of the Canadian Water Resources Association and the Nashwaak Watershed Association.</em>
</p><p>
<em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-pollution-and-urbanization-threaten-water-in-canada-127876" target="_blank">The Conversation</a>.</em>
</p><script async="async" data-counter="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127876/count?distributor=republish-lightbox-advanced" id="theconversation_tracker_hook" src="https://theconversation.com/javascripts/lib/content_tracker_hook.js" type="text/javascript"></script>From Your Site Articles
- 15 Canadian Kids Sue Government Over Climate Crisis - EcoWatch ›
- Why Defending Indigenous Rights Is Integral to Fighting Climate ... ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
People participate in a national mile-long march to highlight the push for clean water in Flint Feb. 19, 2016 in Flint, Michigan. Bill Pugliano / Stringer / Getty Images
The Supreme Court made a decision Tuesday that means Flint residents can sue state and local officials over the water crisis that leached lead into their water and resulted in at least 12 deaths.
<p>City officials and state regulators argued that they had "qualified immunity" from being sued, but lower courts rejected this argument. By refusing to hear two cases related to the matter, the Supreme Court has upheld those rulings, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/01/21/798331185/supreme-court-allows-flint-water-lawsuits-to-move-forward-officials-not-immune?utm_term=nprnews&utm_campaign=npr&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR3rbYErj3gDnSE4UNtsMESyYg3i2bgjACmY3OSeq5jKpHmy-OhViFgfOWc&t=1579682782022" target="_blank">NPR explained</a>.</p><p>"It's time for the people of Flint to start feeling like they are going to get their day in court," lawyer Michael Pitt told <a href="https://www.michiganradio.org/post/major-court-victory-flint-residents-suing-over-water-crisis" target="_blank">Michigan Radio</a>. "This just moves the entire process closer to that day."</p><p>Pitt is a co-lead counsel on a class action lawsuit filed by thousands of Flint residents seeking damages in the wake of the water crisis. The case which triggered the Supreme Court decision was filed by two Flint residents including mother Shari Guertin, who said she and her child were exposed to lead, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-flint/us-supreme-court-lets-flint-michigan-residents-sue-over-water-contamination-idUSKBN1ZK1S5" target="_blank">Reuters reported</a>.</p><p>The crisis began In 2014 when an emergency manager appointed by then-Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/flint-water-crisis-5-years-2635520065.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1" target="_self">switched</a> the city's water supply to the Flint River. The improperly treated water leached lead and bacteria from the pipes, contaminating water and causing a deadly outbreak of Legionnaires' Disease. More than 25,000 Flint residents were harmed by exposure to lead or other contaminants, according to court records reported by Reuters. More than 5,000 of those individuals were children under the age of 12. No level of lead exposure, which can harm children's cognitive development, is considered safe.</p>
<p>Government officials at first said the contaminated water was safe, but admitted 18 months later that it was not, according to NPR. The city's water supply was finally switched to Lake Huron. The supply did not meet federal safety standards until late in 2016.</p><p>"They have been denied justice," Pitt told Michigan Radio of his clients.</p><p>The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had previously ruled that the officials were not immune from lawsuits.</p><p>"Knowing the Flint River water was unsafe for public use, distributing it without taking steps to counter its problems, and assuring the public in the meantime that it was safe is conduct that would alert a reasonable person to the likelihood of personal liability," the lower court ruled, as <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/21/politics/supreme-court-flint-michigan-lawsuit-water-crisis/index.html" target="_blank">CNN reported</a>. "Any reasonable official should have known that doing so constitutes conscience-shocking conduct prohibited by the substantive due process clause."</p><p>The officials had argued they should be immune because they could not have known they would be sued for doing the best they could with the information they had, according to Reuters.</p><p>"Allowing the <a href="https://www.mlive.com/news/flint/2019/01/flint-water-crisis-lawsuit-allowed-to-move-forward-after-appeal.html" target="_blank">Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling</a> to stand (means the Supreme Court decided the lower court's) reasoning was strong, appropriate and well-researched," Guertin's lawyer Paul Geske told <a href="https://www.mlive.com/news/flint/2020/01/attorney-says-supreme-court-decision-on-flint-water-brings-federal-trial-closer-to-reality.html" target="_blank">Michigan Live</a>.</p>
From Your Site Articles
Read More
Show Less
Arica, a port city close to the border with Peru, has expanded rapidly since the 1980s, with housing developments moving into what were previously industrial areas. FLASHPACKER TRAVELGUIDE / CC BY-SA 2.0
By Laura Sear and Leslie Steed (Arica, Chile)
Arica is a dusty, windswept port city in northern Chile. Tourists wander the city's long seafront under the shadow of a dramatic buff-colored cliff called El Morro. But the bracing sea air belies a toxic controversy that has bounced from court to court, from Chile to Sweden, in vain search of resolution.
<p>In 1994, the Chilean government erected a social housing development next to an industrial site on the outskirts of the city. Families moved in, and children began to play on mounds of dust beside their new homes — sledging down them, modeling the dust like clay, and walking it back into their homes. What residents didn't realize was that the children's playground was in fact a <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/toxics">toxic</a> waste dump.</p><p>A decade before the housing development went up, Swedish mining giant Boliden paid a Chilean contractor called Promel €1 million ($1.1 million) to process some 20,000 tons of smelter sludge from copper, lead, silver and gold mines in the Scandinavian country. But Promel didn't process the waste. Instead, it was left unprotected on the industrial lot next to the company's processing plant — at that time about three kilometers from Arica homes.</p>
<h2>Rashes, Miscarriages and Cancer</h2><p>Tomas Bradanovic, an engineer from the Chilean capital of Santiago, moved to Arica in the late 1980s. "At first nobody knew the soil was toxic," he told DW, "until children showed symptoms we had never seen before, like strange rashes, and suddenly many mothers in the neighborhood started to have miscarriages. Eventually people started dying."</p><p>Marisol Vilches Maibé and her family lived next to the Promel site. She has suffered breast and gallbladder <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/cancer">cancer</a>, her husband heart failure, and her four boys skin diseases, learning difficulties and cancerous deformities in their bones — symptoms that tally with effects of arsenic poisoning listed by the World Health Organization.</p><p>"It was at the end of our street on the corner," Marisol said of the toxic waste. "When my husband finally received his treatment, the doctors in Santiago told us there was too much arsenic in his blood — twice the allowed amount."</p><p>In 1997, NGO Servicio Paz y Justicia investigated and found the dust to contain high levels of arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury, copper and zinc — <a href="https://de.scribd.com/doc/23226523/Serpaj-PLAN-VECINAL-Los-industriales-y-Cerro-Chuno" target="_blank">findings</a> later confirmed by a <a href="http://www.bred.cl/descargas/Estudios/Salud/Medioambiente.pdf" target="_blank">government toxicology report</a>.</p>
<h2>Chilean Authorities Neglect Victims</h2><p>The Chilean authorities responded with plans to move the waste safely out of the way of residential areas. In fact, they shifted most of it a short distance to a site just 600 meters from the nearest homes — where it remains to this day, walled in but poorly protected by plastic sheets held down by rocks.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjEzMjMxNy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNzI0MDkxN30.BDt5wC0HwpZXsu7D-EQhQtHmfPSeHFSVBZi6A_qPLHM/img.jpg?width=980" id="d59fd" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a802ef43aa29e494ca2bdc1626ef728c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Today, the waste is walled off but still exposed to the elements, just five minutes' walk from the nearest social housing.
<p>"The government just moved it across the street, in open trucks, spreading the chemical powder all over the city," said Tomas, who campaigns to raise awareness of the contamination. "It even landed on the rooftops of a primary school."</p><p>In 1999, NGO FIMA launched a case against the Chilean government and Promel on behalf of the communities near both the dump sites. It dragged on until 2007, when the Chilean Supreme Court finally ruled in the communities' favor.</p><p>By that time, Promel had gone bankrupt. The Chilean government compensated 365 residents, including Marisol. But a <a href="http://www.fima.cl/site/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Plan-Maestro-Contaminacion-Arica.pdf" target="_blank">government report</a> released two years after the Supreme Court ruling found that as many as 12,000 people may have been affected by the toxic waste.</p>
<h2>Taking the Fight Back to Sweden</h2><p>The same report outlined plans to dispose of the waste and provide healthcare to those affected. But they have never been effectively carried out, and in 2013 Arica residents took their fight back to the source of the waste — filing to sue Boliden at the mining company's local county court in Sweden.</p><p>Boliden argued that when it delivered the waste, Promel's site was still in a purely industrial zone. The Swedish court found that the company had been negligent in exporting waste that it would have known could not be safely processed, but did not find a sufficient link between the company's actions and the plaintiffs' injuries and ruled in Boliden's favor.</p><p>A subsequent appeal to the Swedish Supreme Court was rejected on the basis that too much time had elapsed since Boliden negligently exported the waste in 1984. Plaintiffs were left to pick up the company's legal bills of around €3.2 million.</p><p><a href="https://meta.eeb.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/EEB-letter-of-support-for-Arica.pdf" target="_blank">Calls this year</a> for the Swedish government to ensure the waste is brought home and safely processed on Swedish soil have gone unanswered.</p>
<h2>An End to Toxic Offshoring?</h2><p>More than 30 years after the European mining waste was dumped on the doorstep of an unsuspecting Latin American community, it may prove impossible to hold either the Swedish company or Swedish government accountable. But in the future, European companies may not be able to act with such impunity. </p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjEzMjMyNC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NjYwMjYwM30.Af9laku-3uNoShGp68qtzbKTib9-VYMtZVPyibMtMMc/img.jpg?width=980" id="f7cab" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f5018dfb17bfaf82d1004b56d36e4d56" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
The waste is now just outside the impoverished Cerro Chuno neighborhood of Arica, where most residents are migrants.
<p>On Dec. 5, an <a href="http://www.basel.int/Implementation/LegalMatters/BanAmendment/Overview/tabid/1484/Default.aspx" target="_blank">amendment to the Basel Convention</a> will come into force, banning the export of hazardous waste from OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries to the rest of the world.</p><p>Campaigners have been fighting for such a ban for decades — decades through which people of Arica have continued to live, and fall ill, in neighborhoods and homes contaminated with arsenic and lead. For them, it has come far too late.</p>
<h2>'What Was Done to Us Is Wrong'</h2><p>Marisol said her husband still isn't getting treatment for effects of the poisoning and she has given up on anyone being held accountable. "We'll never see justice for what happened here," she said.</p><p>Yet for Tomas, the Basel Ban Amendment at least acknowledges the injustice of offshoring toxic waste and, therefore, of what was done to his community. They are still fighting for healthcare and the removal of toxins from their environment. But, Tomas said, "It is equally important to know that what was done to us is wrong."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/swedish-toxic-waste-poisons-chilean-community-for-30-years/a-51424782" target="_blank">DW</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
Trending
An EPA sponsored cleanup of the toxic Gowanus Canal dredges a section of the canal of industrial debris on Oct. 28, 2016 in Brooklyn. The Gowanus is a Superfund site from years of industrial waste spilling into the water, and it is listed in GAO's report to be at risk from a climate disaster. Andrew Lichtenstein / Corbis / Getty Images
The climate crisis has put at least 945 designated toxic waste sites at severe risk of disaster from escalating wildfires, floods, rising seas and other climate-related disasters, according to a new study from the non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO), as the AP reported.
The country's most contaminated spots that pose an imminent threat to human health or the environment are designated Superfund sites. That means cleaning them up is a national priority. The EPA has identified more than 500 contaminants at Superfund sites, including arsenic, lead and mercury.
<p>However, the GAO found that efforts to secure the toxic waste have weakened as the Trump administration plays down their threat, according to the <a href="https://apnews.com/dc5ac3832512435cb863897b5c1a0fe6" target="_blank">AP</a>.<br></p><p>Senate Democrats responded to the <a href="https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-20-73" target="_blank">report</a> in a letter to the EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler demanding an explanation for agency leaders' "failure to embrace addressing climate change as a strategic objective," according to the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2019/11/18/about-percent-superfund-sites-could-be-hit-by-climate-change-new-government-report-finds/" target="_blank">Washington Post</a>.</p>
<p>"We believe that EPA's refusal to implement GAO's recommendations could result in real harm to human health and the environment as the effects of climate change become more frequent and intense," the lawmakers wrote to Wheeler, as the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2019/11/18/about-percent-superfund-sites-could-be-hit-by-climate-change-new-government-report-finds/" target="_blank">Washington Post</a> reported.</p><p>The GAO <a href="https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-20-73" target="_blank">report</a> looked at 1,571 Superfund sites and found that six out of 10 are vulnerable to extreme weather caused by the climate crisis. The GAO produced an <a href="https://www.gao.gov/multimedia/GAO-20-73/interactive/" target="_blank">interactive map</a> that shows each of the 945 vulnerable sites. It is color-coded to show if the site is threatened by wildfires, hurricanes, storm surge, sea-level rise, or coastal and river flooding, as <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/18/20970979/climate-change-epa-superfund-sites-gao-toxic-pollution" target="_blank">the Verge</a> reported.</p><p>The <a href="https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-20-73" target="_blank">study</a> recommended that the EPA start incorporating the climate crisis into its decision making for toxic waste sites and its risk assessments for the Superfund sites.</p><p>The EPA however has continued to deny the climate crisis as a threat to the Superfund sites, according to the GAO <a href="https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-20-73" target="_blank">report</a>. The EPA does not include the climate crisis in its agency-wide policies, which stops the EPA from tackling the risks at contaminated sites as the planet heats up and extreme weather events increase in frequency, duration and intensity, as <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19112019/superfund-flooded-climate-change-toxic-health-risk-sea-level-rise-wildfires-gao-report-epa" target="_blank">Inside Climate News</a> reported.</p><p>The EPA issued a statement that was largely dismissive of the <a href="https://apnews.com/dc5ac3832512435cb863897b5c1a0fe6" target="_blank">report</a>. The statement also managed to avoid mentioning climate change.</p>
<p>"The EPA strongly believes the Superfund program's existing processes and resources adequately ensure that risks and any effects of severe weather events, that may increase in intensity, duration, or frequency, are woven into risk response decisions at non-federal [National Priorities List] sites," EPA Assistant Administrator Peter Wright said in a statement Monday, as the <a href="https://apnews.com/dc5ac3832512435cb863897b5c1a0fe6" target="_blank">AP</a> reported.</p><p>The GAO decided to look into the safety of Superfund sites after Hurricane Harvey in 2017 brought record rains to Houston and caused one toxic site to spring a leak, as <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zahrahirji/superfund-sites-climate-change-gao-investigation" target="_blank">BuzzFeed News</a> reported. Floodwaters there eroded an "armored cap" that sealed off dioxins and other toxins linked to cancer and nerve damage. In the wake of the storm, officials tested that water sediment. They found that dioxin levels in the sediment were 2,000 times above what the EPA allows, according to the <a href="https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/EPA-Dioxin-leaking-from-Waste-Pits-12242409.php" target="_blank">Houston Chronicle.</a></p><p>"We can no longer ignore the fact that the climate crisis is here and it's in our backyard," Sen. Kamala Harris, a California Democrat and one of the members of Congress that pushed GAO to investigate the issue, said in a statement emailed to <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zahrahirji/superfund-climate-change-disaster-risk-report" target="_blank">BuzzFeed News</a>. "This report underscores that protecting our communities requires us to demand that the EPA incorporates climate change into its cleanup plans for current and future Superfund sites."</p><p>The EPA's refusal to take the climate crisis into account has not only angered lawmakers, but also baffled experts.</p><p>"The report raises critical issues that are not being addressed," said Nancy Loeb, director of the Environmental Advocacy Center at Northwestern University's Pritzker School of Law, who was not involved in the GAO study, to the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2019/11/18/about-percent-superfund-sites-could-be-hit-by-climate-change-new-government-report-finds/" target="_blank">Washington Post</a>. "It's a huge shortcoming not to take climate change into consideration."</p>
From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
Heavy metals that may damage a developing brain are present in 95 percent of baby foods on the market. Cirou Frederic / PhotoAlto Agency RF Collections / Getty Images
Heavy metals that may damage a developing brain are present in 95 percent of baby foods on the market, according to new research from the advocacy organization Healthy Babies Bright Futures (HBBF), which bills itself as an alliance of scientists, nonprofit organizations and donors trying to reduce exposures to neurotoxic chemicals during the first three years of development.
<p>Researchers commissioned by HBBF looked at 168 different baby foods that spanned 61 brands commonly found on grocery store shelves. From that large sample, 95 percent were contaminated with one or more of four toxic heavy metals — arsenic, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/lead" target="_self">lead</a>, cadmium and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/mercury" target="_self">mercury</a>.</p><p>The high prevalence of the toxic metals meant that 26 percent of the foods tested had all four of the heavy metals.</p><p>"Arsenic, lead and other heavy metals are known causes of neurodevelopmental harm," said Dr. Philip Landrigan, a pediatrician and director of the Program in Global Public Health and the Common Good in the Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society at Boston College, in an HBBF issued <a href="https://www.healthybabyfood.org/sites/healthybabyfoods.org/files/2019-10/Press%20Release%20-%20Baby%20Food%20Study.pdf" target="_blank">statement</a>. "Low level exposures add up, and exposures in early life are especially dangerous. The cumulative impact of exposures is what makes this a significant concern that demands action."</p><p>Foods with the highest concentration of neurotoxins tended to be rice-based products, sweet potatoes and fruit juices, according to the <a href="https://www.healthybabyfood.org/sites/healthybabyfoods.org/files/2019-10/BabyFoodReport_FULLREPORT_ENGLISH_R5b.pdf" target="_blank">report</a>.</p><p>"Even in the trace amounts found in food, these contaminants can alter the developing brain and erode a child's IQ. The impacts add up with each meal or snack a baby eats," said the <a href="https://www.healthybabyfood.org/sites/healthybabyfoods.org/files/2019-10/BabyFoodReport_FULLREPORT_ENGLISH_R5b.pdf" target="_blank">analysis</a>, as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/17/health/baby-foods-arsenic-lead-toxic-metals-wellness/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported.</p><p>Four of seven infant rice cereals had a toxic form of arsenic in excess of the FDA's threshold of 100 parts per billion (ppb).</p><p>"These popular baby foods are not only high in inorganic arsenic, the most toxic form of arsenic, but also are nearly always contaminated with all four toxic metals," the <a href="https://www.healthybabyfood.org/sites/healthybabyfoods.org/files/2019-10/BabyFoodReport_FULLREPORT_ENGLISH_R5b.pdf" target="_blank">analysis</a> said, as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/17/health/baby-foods-arsenic-lead-toxic-metals-wellness/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported.</p><p>The <a href="https://www.healthybabyfood.org/sites/healthybabyfoods.org/files/2019-10/BabyFoodReport_FULLREPORT_ENGLISH_R5b.pdf" target="_blank">report</a> also found that 83 percent of baby foods tested had more lead than the 1-ppb limit endorsed by public health advocates, and one of every five foods tested had over 10 times that amount.</p><p>"Even very low exposure levels cause lower academic achievement, attention deficits and behavior problems. No safe level of exposure has been identified," the <a href="https://www.healthybabyfood.org/sites/healthybabyfoods.org/files/2019-10/BabyFoodReport_FULLREPORT_ENGLISH_R5b.pdf" target="_blank">report</a> said.</p><p>The results are not far off from an <a href="https://www.fda.gov/food/guidance-documents-regulatory-information-topic-food-and-dietary-supplements/infant-formula-guidance-documents-regulatory-information" target="_blank">FDA study</a> that found one of the four toxic metals present in 33 of 39 baby foods, according to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/17/health/baby-foods-arsenic-lead-toxic-metals-wellness/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a>. However, this new report looks at a much broader range of products and brands than previous studies have.</p><p>The HBBF has started a <a href="http://go.hbbf.org/FDA-petition" target="_blank">petition</a> to ask the FDA to set stricter limits on arsenic levels in baby food to protect a baby's brain development.</p><p>"Current arsenic contamination levels in rice cereal and juice are 36% and 75% less, respectively, than the amounts measured a decade ago," said HBBF research director and study author Jane Houlihan in a <a href="https://www.healthybabyfood.org/sites/healthybabyfoods.org/files/2019-10/Press%20Release%20-%20Baby%20Food%20Study.pdf" target="_blank">statement</a>. "When FDA acts, companies respond. We need the FDA to use their authority more effectively, and much more quickly, to reduce toxic heavy metals in baby foods."</p><p>In lieu of tighter regulations, the HBBF <a href="https://www.healthybabyfood.org/sites/healthybabyfoods.org/files/2019-10/BabyFoodReport_FULLREPORT_ENGLISH_R5b.pdf" target="_blank">report</a> recommends parents take steps to protect their babies by offering them rice-free snacks, frozen bananas and chilled cucumbers instead of teething biscuits, oatmeal instead of rice-cereal, and offering a wide-variety of fresh fruits and vegetables. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">25 Healthy Breakfast Ideas for Kids <a href="https://t.co/bP4YSFP67l">https://t.co/bP4YSFP67l</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Childrenshealth?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Childrenshealth</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Food?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Food</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Health?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Health</a> <a href="https://t.co/fKnFuivsTw">pic.twitter.com/fKnFuivsTw</a></p>— Renewable Search (@RenewableSearch) <a href="https://twitter.com/RenewableSearch/status/1180818120174264321?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 6, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
From Your Site Articles
- Arsenic and Other Toxins Found in 80% of Baby Formulas - EcoWatch ›
- Baby Food Tests Find 68 Percent Contain 'Worrisome' Levels of ... ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
Water Inequality Used to Be a Developing World Problem Only. Not Any More.
14 October 2019
Insights + Opinion
Protestors marched outside the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey on Monday, August 26, during the MTV Video and Music Awards to bring attention to the water crisis currently gripping the city. Karla Ann Cote / NurPhoto / Getty Images
By Will Sarni
It is far too easy to view scarcity and poor quality of water as issues solely affecting emerging economies. While the images of women and children fetching water in Africa and a lack of access to water in India are deeply disturbing, this is not the complete picture.
<p>The city of Flint, Michigan, where dangerous levels of <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/04/us/flint-water-crisis-fast-facts/index.html" target="_blank">pollutants contaminated</a> the municipal water supply, is a case in point — as is, more recently, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/23/nyregion/newark-water-crisis.html" target="_blank">the city of Newark, New Jersey</a>.</p>
<p><em>Will Sarni is the founder and CEO of Water Foundry.</em><br/></p><p><em><em>Note: This post also appears on the <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/10/water-inequality-developing-world-usa-west/" target="_blank">World Economic Forum</a>.</em></em></p><p><em><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.circleofblue.org/2019/world/water-inequality-used-to-be-a-developing-world-problem-only-not-any-more/" target="_blank">Circle of Blue</a>.</em></em></p>
The Past Is No Longer a Guide to the Future
<p>We get ever closer to "day zeros" — the point at when municipal water supplies are switched off — and tragedies such as Flint. These are not isolated stories. Instead they are becoming routine, and the public sector and civil society are scrambling to address them. We are seeing "day zeros" in South Africa, India, Australia and elsewhere, and we are now detecting lead contamination in drinking water in cities across the U.S.<br></p><p>"Day zero" is the result of water planning by looking in the rear-view mirror. The past is no longer a guide to the future; water demand has outstripped supplies because we are tied to business-as-usual planning practices and water prices, and this goes hand-in-hand with the inability of the public sector to factor the impacts of climate change into long-term water planning. Lead in drinking water is the result of lead pipe service lines that have not been replaced and in many cases only recently identified by utilities, governments and customers. An estimated 22 million people in the U.S. are potentially using <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/115/9/2078" target="_blank">lead water service lines</a>. This aging infrastructure won't repair or replace itself.</p><p>One of the most troubling aspects of the global water crisis is that those least able to afford access to water are also the ones who pay a disproportionately high percentage of their income for it. A report by <a href="https://www.wateraid.org/us/" target="_blank">WaterAid</a> revealed that a standard water bill in developed countries is as little as 0.1 percent of the income of someone earning the minimum wage, while in a country like Madagascar a person reliant on a tanker truck for their water supply would spend as much as 45 percent of their daily income on water to get just the recommended daily minimum supply. In Mozambique, families relying on black-market vendors will spend up to 100 times as much on water as those reached by government-subsidized water supplies.</p><p>Finally, we need to understand that the discussion of a projected gap between supply and demand is misleading. There is no gap, only poor choices around allocation. The wealthy will have access to water, and the poor will pay more for water of questionable quality. From Flint residents using bottled water and paying high water utility rates, to the poor in South Africa waiting in line for their allocation of water — inequity is everywhere.</p>Water Inequity Requires Global Action — Now.
<p>These troubling scenarios beg the obvious question: What to do? We do know that ongoing reports on the 'water crisis' are not going to catalyze action to address water scarcity, poor quality, access and affordability. Ensuring the human right to water feels distant at times.</p><p>We need to mobilize an ecosystem of stakeholders to be fully engaged in developing and scaling solutions. The public sector, private sector, NGOs, entrepreneurs, investors, academics and civil society must all be engaged in solving water scarcity and quality problems. Each stakeholder brings unique skills, scale and speed of impact (for example, entrepreneurs are fast but lack scale, while conversely the public sector is slow but has scale).</p><p>We also urgently need to change how we talk about water. We consistently talk about droughts happening across the globe — but what we are really dealing with is an overallocation of water due to business-as-usual practices and the impacts of climate change.</p><p>We need to democratize access to water data and actionable information. Imagine providing anyone with a smartphone the ability to know, on a real-time basis, the quality of their drinking water and actions to secure safe water. Putting this information in the hands of civil society instead or solely relying on centralized regulatory agencies and utilities will change public policies.</p>From Your Site Articles
- Newark Water Filters Are Working, Tests Suggest - EcoWatch ›
- Newark's Lead Crisis Escalates - EcoWatch ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less