Tainted water that we unknowingly drink.

Over the years, much has been said about the safety of drinking water. It has been estimated that 1 in 6 Americans has been exposed to contaminated drinking water – that’s 49 million people in the most powerful and richest nation on earth.

In 2000, Hollywood released ‘Erin Brockovich’. The movie highlights one woman’s fight for compensation for a community that was devastated by disease after ground water was contaminated with chromium(VI) by the Pacific Gas and Electric Company of California. The case was settled against PG&E in 1996 for $333 million (£222 million) among 634 plaintiffs. And Julia Roberts? She won an Oscar for her efforts.
Here in the UK, we have had our fair share of contaminated water supply stories:

• The Camelford incident in 1988: when 20 tonnes of aluminium sulphate were accidentally dumped in the drinking water supply for 20,000 people. Many of those who came into contact with the contaminated water suffered a variety of short-term health problems including gastric and urinary complaints, skin peeling and memory loss. Local river fish also died in their thousands. The South West Water Authority was fined and eventually paid out around £400,000 to 148 victims. Some long term effects on brain function were subsequently recorded.
• In 2008, routine tests by Anglian Water showed cryptosporidium in the water supply to 250,000 people across 85 communities in Northamtonshire. The contamination came from a straying rabbit. ‘Boil water’ recommendations were issued until the bacteria could be cleaned and flushed out from over a period of ten days from a thousand miles of pipe. £30 compensation was paid to each household in the affected area. 13 people were reported with cryptosporidiosis due to the incident; symptoms included diarrhoea and stomach upsets.

Back in the USA:

• The Crestwood suburb in south Chicago has higher than normal cancer rates that have now been possibly attributed to water drawn from a tainted well. Locals are angry that they have had to foot the bill for the defence of pubic officials implicated in the case.
• Chemical pollution of many American rivers is affecting the hormones of fish so that male fish are displaying female characteristics: they produce sperm but also small undeveloped eggs. Pesticides, pharmaceuticals, including birth-control pills and even household detergents are able to cause this unnatural feminisation. So what is the effect on the millions of people who drink water drawn from these same rivers? Food for thought or that should be drink for thought…
• Radioactive waste from the 921 nuclear warheads detonated in tests over 41 years has worked its way into the aquifers below the Nevada Desert. A population boom and a water supply crisis mean that the contamination is likely to affect locals now. A fresh environmental assessment of the estimated $48 billion worth of water lost to the nuclear fallout is needed. Early tests were carried out above ground that were visible from Las Vegas, later on the underground detonations vapourised huge chambers of rock and earth (some 5000 ft below the surface) to leave cavities filled with radioactive rubble and a strange landscape with hundreds of craters.

What’s the solution – maybe just drink beer. But 92% of beer is water, so the alternatives may not be much safer! Filtration is the answer as is taking better care of our most precious resource.