Lax oversight creates toxic water supply
A massive investigation of water pollution records reveals a web of lax oversight, weak environmental standards, toxic water and illness.
Photo: Photo 24/Jupiterimages.com In an exposé chock full of data, a West Virginia mother named Jennifer Hall-Massey described her family’s plight, including tooth decay, scabs and rashes. A resident of a coal-mining town 17 miles from Charleston, she said about a decade ago local taps began to emit foul smells as coal companies pumped industrial waste into the ground.
Subsequent tests showed the tap water contained arsenic, barium, lead, manganese and other chemicals. The Times, citing state records, said coal companies spilled more than 1.9 billion gallons of industrial waste into the ground in the eight miles around Hall-Massey’s home since 2004.
Records show 350 companies violated the Clean Water Act, and Hall-Massey’s community reported gall bladder disease, fertility problems, miscarriages and kidney and thyroid issues. After The Times’ inquiry, officials suspended injection permits. In December, Hall-Massey and 264 neighbors filed a lawsuit.
“How can we get digital cable and Internet in our homes, but not clean water?” she asked.
“The E.P.A. and states have completely dropped the ball,” said Minnesota Rep. James Oberstar, who chairs the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee charged with water-quality issues.
In many cases, regulators are overburdened, don’t know how to do the job or they fear industry pressure. During the Bush administration, enforcement reached a low point and “polluters were getting away with murder,” one official said.
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Fluoride is a constituent of coal and fluoride can damage tooth enamel in the ways that are described in this article.
Over protests of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) scientists, EPA management set the maximum contaminant level of fluoride in public water supplies at 4 mg/L to prevent crippling skeletal fluorosis and tooth damaging dental fluorosis. In 2006 the National Research Council confirmed the EPA scientists concern that this level is too high to be protective of.... More
