PFC Contamination Also Theatens U.S. Water Supply

EPA map showing cities where PFC levels exceeded 70 parts per trillion

While we have already seen, as in the case of Flint, MI and other cities, the extent to which lead contamination threatens the water supply, e.g

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/02/mark-ruffalo-bill-maher-expose-degraded.html

 that is not the only contaminant to worry about. More than 55 % of the U.S. watersheds and millions of citizens are also at risk from PFC (perflourinated chemical) contamination.

As noted from a Denver Post story (June 16, p. 16 A) "these perflourinated chemicals rank among the worst in an expanding multitude of unregulated chemicals that federal scientists are detecting in city water supplies, including hormones, pesticides, antibiotics and anti-depressants."

And as further observed: "Perflourinated chemicals don't break down"

In Colorado now, as in  many other states and cities, it has reached the critical crisis mark as the water in all 32 wells of the Security, CO water district has been found contaminated by - you guessed it - PFCs. (DPost, p. 1A) In every case the contamination levels have exceeded 70 ppt and in one case hit 1,367 ppt - nearly 20 times higher than the putative limit (and hence inimical for the consumption of pregnant women and small children).

And while PFC ingestion might not lead to retardation as does lead, it can lead to a whole raft of cancers, including the one I am currently fighting (prostate).  It has also been linked to "kidney and testicular cancer (p. 16A) as well as "developmental damage to fetuses, low birth weight, accelerated puberty, distorted bones and liver tissue damage".

Incredibly, despite the fact these horrendous chemicals are persistent in the environment (don't break down) "they aren't regulated under any national water standard although Vermont and New Hampshire have launched state-level action."

So it appears the country as well as most states, have made a deal with the corporate 'devil' to allow as much contamination of water as it likes to further prospective business (and employment) - devil take the hindmost (or the most cancer sensitive). No wonder so many insurance companies are running up huge, outstanding losses under the ACA  - they probably can't keep up with all the poor health as a result of our contaminated water supply.

The situation doesn't get better nationally. Hence (ibid.):

"The EPA has measured PFCs exceeding the limit in one percent of 4,464 public water systems nationwide. That means more than 5 million Americans in 33 states may regularly be drinking contaminated water with perflourinated chemicals".

Would you willingly and knowingly give your loved one a glass of poison? Well, that's pretty much what you are doing if you inhabit one of those PFC contaminated areas. And then triggering one cancer or another, or one of the other damaging medical horrors.

But, of course, it doesn't stop with PFCs since as I noted our water is literally awash with other toxins too, virtually none of which are regulated, including antibiotics, atrazine-laden weedicides and pesticides and other industrial byproducts - all carcinogenic crap for which the cancers generated will likely need painful, invasive biopsies as well as treatments later.

The situation just south of us in Security (ironic name, eh?) is now so bad that summer school students at four elementary schools began to use bottled water. Meanwhile, the residents themselves- worried over the terrible effects - have begun to stock their shelves with bottled water only.  (They hope that showering in the stuff won't prove too deleterious, but who knows?)

Again, more evidence that the neoliberal state and agenda doesn't really care about its citizens other then to make money off them, and use them as temporary cogs in its machine before tossing them away. Or ditching them entirely if they get too sick to work -or too expensive for continued medical benefits.