“Toilet to Tap” Recycling in California

Posted March 7th, 2014
Environmental

California Drought: Orange County expands ‘toilet to tap’ water recycling

 

by Ed Joyce

 

One way state officials hope to make California better able to withstand the ongoing drought is to stock underground drinking water supplies with recycled wastewater. Water managers across the state could learn a thing from the Orange County Water District: It was an early adopter of recycled water. And now, the district is expanding its use of what some call “toilet to tap.”

But calling it “toilet to tap” isn’t fair. The recycled sewage water makes quite a journey on its path to purification before it comes out of faucets at home. About 2.4 million Orange County residents get their water from a massive underground aquifer, which, since 2008, has been steadily recharged with billions of gallons of purified wastewater.

But, that toilet to tap moniker hangs around. So, we decided to put the Orange County tap water to a blind taste test.

Longtime Orange County resident John Hart sampled one glass filled with Newport Beach tap water and another glass filled with bottled water. He said he couldn’t tell the difference between the tap water and the bottled water.

Hart remembers when the Orange County Water District (OCWD) first proposed taking treated wastewater and turning it into drinking water.

The “yuk factor” associated with the phrase “toilet to tap” had doomed a similar proposal years earlier in San Diego. (The city of San Diego now has a pilot project underway). Orange County Water District officials avoided that fate with a massive public relations campaign that involved more than 2,000 community presentations.

“Most of my neighbors, we talked about it,” said Hart, who lived in Huntington Beach at that time.  “If they [OCWD] could do it and do it right and make sure that it’s proper, then it’s probably a good deal.”

Recycled water’s been such a good deal for Orange County, the water district is spending $140 million to expand its capacity to purify wastewater by 30 percent.

It starts in Fountain Valley where the water district operates a 24-acre facility that takes sewage fom the sanitation plant next door and converts it into millions of gallons a day of pure H2O.

OC Water District President Shawn Dewane said the cost is 30 percent cheaper than imported water.

“So it’s a tremendous savings for our local community to be able to pump from the groundwater basin and about 70 percent of the local demand is supplied from the groundwater,” said Dewane.

Dewane and OCWD Assistant General Manager Michael Wehner showed us around the treatment plant, where shiny stainless steel tubes and tanks fill several large buildings.

Microfiber membranes

First, to filter out bacteria, particles and protozoa, the sewer water is forced by air pressure through a series of microfibers, straw-like plastic membranes, with holes so tiny you can’t see them with the naked eye. The next stop is a pump station.

Wehner said the pump station is “where the water that’s been vacuumed through those hollow fibers is basically accumulated in a tank and transferred over to the reverse osmosis facility.”

Wehner said reverse osmosis or “R-O” is the heart of the largest potable reuse facility in the world. The water is pushed through plastic R-O membranes that remove nearly everything that isn’t H2O. The R-O process removes dissolved chemicals, pharmaceuticals and viruses.

“There is 70 million gallons a day of R-O capacity,” said Wehner, as he pointed to hundreds of tubes. “Each of these units represents five million gallons a day. And you can see all of the units as you look across, you look at endless pressure vessels that hold these spiral wound R-O membranes.”

The last step is to add peroxide (H2O2) to the water before it is sent through pipes where it is exposed to ultraviolet light that “kills anything that’s alive,” Wehner said.  The end result is distilled water.

“It’s actually purer than any other source of water that we have to put into our groundwater basin,” he said.

The water is then shipped northeast through a 14-mile pipe where it feeds a series of recharge basins, which resemble small lakes.

“It percolates through the native soils here at a very high rate up to 14 feet a day,” said Bill Hunt, OCWD executive director of operations, as he showed us where the purified water fills a recharge basin. “We’re putting a lot of water in the ground here. It goes into the ground here in Anaheim, which is sort of the upper end of the (350 square mile) aquifer system. It creates a mound of water underground and it pressurizes the aquifers throughout the county.”

The water is so blue it looks like glacial snowmelt.

“Our Caribbean water,” is what Hunt calls it.

The OC Water District says 1.3 billion gallons of treated wastewater flows through Southern California sewers into the Pacific Ocean every day.  The water district takes some of that water from the Santa Ana river and diverts it to a recharge basin.

While other counties, and even the portion of south Orange County not served by the OCWD, rely heavily on imported water from Northern California and the Colorado River, the district’s Groundwater Replenishment System combined with the aquifer, provide 70 percent of the supply.

So why aren’t more counties moving to ‘tap the toilet?’

The OC Water District’s Wehner says public acceptance and political support are the main obstacles. He also pointed out that there are groundwater resources in Los Angeles County that remain untapped.

“The San Fernando Valley and the San Gabriel Valley have groundwater resources,” said Wehner. “But they face greater challenges in terms of contamination (of that groundwater) over the years. They need to address those issues, but they have groundwater resources they can manage in those areas.”

But California drought cycles and climate change may force more California counties to reclaim their sewage water.

UC Irvine Professor of Earth System Science Jay Famiglietti said reusing wastewater needs to be a greater part of the supply mix going forward.

“Population growth is too great, the traditional sources are being depleted, so there really is no choice,” said Famiglietti. “We need to invest in projects like sewage recycling in a lot more places then we’re currently doing it.”

As for the “yuk factor” of the old toilet to tap objections, Famiglietti has this simple advice: “get over it.”

Meantime, the Orange County Water District has a $142 million expansion project underway at the Fountain Valley reuse facility. By the end of 2015, OCWD officials say the plant will be producing 100 million gallons of potable water a day – at half the cost of imported water.

Source: Southern California Public Radio.

 


What Does 100% Recycled Water Mean?

Posted March 5th, 2014
Environmental, Shortage

Levi Strauss tests 100% recycled water in parts of its jeans production

The jeans manufacturer has developed a new water recycling standard to reduce its impact on the world’s water resources

Editor’s Note:  This article works toward a definition of “100% recycled,” which can mean different things in different contexts and from different sources.  Since in a sense all water is “100% recycled,” none of it being used for the very first time, you could apply the label to any water you use, even if you use it only one time and discharge it.  On the other extreme, 100% recycled water would mean that no new water is introduced into the closed loop of a particular process, with the same water being recirculated for reuse ad infinitum.  As the article below indicates, Levi Strauss’s definition falls somewhere in the middle, and the company is to be applauded for its effort in any event. — Hardly Waite.

Levi Strauss has created a process for using 100% recycled water in parts of its garment production, Michael Kobori, vice president of sustainability at the company, has told the Guardian.

In what the jeans manufacturer claims to be an industry first, the process is the result of a new water recycling standard – verified by third parties – that aims to reduce the impact of garment production on fresh water resources.

The process is being used in one of the brand’s key Chinese factories, which bleaches, dyes and stone washes garments to achieve specific looks or feels.

The factory, located in southern China, worked with Levi Strauss to engineer a system to pipe 100% recycled water into an industrial laundry machine used for finishing one of its jeans lines. Some 100,000 pairs have now been produced with the new technology.

Kobori says the company looked at Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) guidelines on reuse of water, as well as World Health Organization guidelines on managing waste water.

“We then hired engineers from the textile industry to adapt these general guidelines into a set of standards that can be specifically used in our industry,” he says.

The process is still in the testing phases, but the goal is to eventually use 100% recycled water to finish a broader range of Levi Strauss products at factories in other parts of the world, he says.

Different Different Definitions of 100% Recycled

One of the third parties Levi Strauss asked to review the standard was Gilbert O’Neal, president of the Institute of Textile Technology.

O’Neal has worked with some of the largest textile and apparel makers in the world to help them use less water, and discharge less polluted water.

He says it’s not impossible to finish a garment with recycled water, but that the term “100% recycled” can be misleading because saying a garment is made from 100% recycled water is not the same as saying that 100% of the waste water is recycled.

“The garment industry is really good at establishing standards and talking a great game about sustainability,” O’Neal says. “But the challenge is in the implementation.”

For example, there’s no economically feasible way to recycle 100% of laundry machine water in a closed loop system, he says.

“It requires membrane technology that may triple or quadruple the cost of water treatment,” O’Neal says. “That’s a cost that most consumers won’t accept.”

So what does Levi Strauss mean by 100% recycled water? O’Neal says the he has not seen the engineering or other information from the Chinese factory, so he doesn’t know for sure. But he suspects to keep the process economical, they recycle a portion of the waste water that is most easily treated.

O’Neal says Levi Strauss is probably using 100% recycled water, but isn’t achieving “zero liquid discharge” – or zero waste water – the highest standard in industrial water recycling. However, the process likely does reduce the amount of effluent, or waste water, from the factory, he adds.

Levi Strauss, which is expected to announce this news later today, says it hopes the standard will help other apparel brands and retailers increase their use of recycled water and reduce industry effluent.

Article Source– The Guardian.

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Fluoridated Water Linked to ADHD

Posted March 2nd, 2014
Fluoride

Harvard Research Links Fluoridated Water to ADHD, Mental Disorders

By Ethan A. Huff

A leading cause of ADHD (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder) and autism in children could be the hidden chemicals lurking in the foods we eat, the water we drink and the products we consume, says a new study recently published in The Lancet. Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS) found that, among other things, the fluoride chemicals added to many public water systems in North America directly contribute to both mental and behavioral disorders in children.

Building upon earlier research published in 2006 that dubbed fluoride as a “developmental neurotoxicant,” the new review included a meta-analysis of 27 additional studies on fluoride, most of which were from China, that linked the chemical to lowered IQ in children. After thorough analysis, it was determined that fluoride obstructs proper brain development and can lead to autism spectrum disorders, dyslexia, ADHD and other health conditions, a “silent epidemic” that many mainstream health authorities continue to ignore.

According to the two main researchers involved in the study, Philippe Grandjean from HSPH and Philip Landrigan from ISMMS, incidences of chemical-related neurodevelopmental disorders have doubled over the past seven years from six to 12. The reason for this is that an increasing number of mostly untested chemicals are being approved for use without the public being told where and in what quantities such chemicals are being used.

“Since 2006, the number of chemicals known to damage the human brain more generally, but that are not regulated to protect children’s health, had increased from 202 to 214,” writes Julia Medew for The Sydney Morning Herald. “The pair said this could be the tip of the iceberg because the vast majority of the more than 80,000 industrial chemicals widely used in the United States have never been tested for their toxic effects on the developing foetus or child.”

Fluoride must be immediately removed from public water supplies for child safety

While pesticides dominated the duo’s list as the most pervasive and damaging chemicals whose presence the public is largely unaware of, fluoride, which is intentionally added to public water supplies as a supposed protectant against tooth decay, is also highly problematic. It is also largely ignored by public health authorities as a possible factor in childhood development problems, even though the science is clear about its dangers.

Like lead, certain industrial solvents and crop chemicals, fluoride is known to accumulate in the human bloodstream, where it eventually deposits into bones and other bodily tissues. In pregnant women, this also includes passing through the bloodstream into the placenta, where it then accumulates in the bones and brain tissue of developing babies. The effects of this are, of course, perpetually damaging, and something that regulatory authorities need to take more seriously.

“The problem is international in scope, and the solution must therefore also be international,” stated Grandjean in a press release, calling for improved regulatory standards for common chemicals. “We have the methods in place to test industrial chemicals for harmful effects on children’s brain development — now is the time to make that testing mandatory.”

Fracking Takes Its Toll on Texas Water

Posted February 26th, 2014
Shortage

Fracking accounts for half of total water consumption in some Texas counties

Oil and gas companies in Texas may face a severe shortage of water for their fracking operations if they continue to drill at current rates, especially in the southern part of the state, a report by Boston-based sustainability advocacy group Ceres has shown.

Water consumption for hydraulic fracturing operations varies significantly from county to county, the report found. Although the amount of water used for hydraulic fracturing in the whole state accounts for less than 1 percent of its total water use, in McMullen County, where the population is below 1,000, the amount of water used for fracking in 2012 was larger than the amount used in the entire county in 2011. In several other counties, the use of water for fracking in 2012 represented at least at 50 percent of the county’s water usage in 2011.

In counties located in the southern part of the state, where production is increasing in the Eagle Ford Shale and new wells are being drilled on a daily basis, the use of water for fracking in 2012 seems alarming, according to the Texas Tribune.

Overall figures for water consumption in Texas counties for 2012 have not yet been published by the Texas Water Development Board, but predictions are for higher figures than in 2011. The increase is expected mostly because of a pickup in fracking activity on the one hand and a rise in population on the other.

Mark Ruffalo Says The Global Water Crisis Is In Your Town

Posted February 24th, 2014
Water and Health, Water Testing

The Global Drinking Water Crisis That Is Hitting Close to Your Home

by Mark Ruffalo

 

This week, I spent about 20 minutes on HuffPost Live chatting with Alyona Minkovski about the global crisis threatening drinking water. That phrase — global crisis — seems to desensitize people, unfortunately. When I tell you that one in five people around the world lacks access to safe drinking water, you’re likely to find that unfortunate, but you’re not likely to assume that this statistic affects you. So, perhaps I should start over.

Yesterday, I spent about 20 minutes on HuffPost Live chatting with Alyona Minkovski about the local crisis that threatens your drinking water. If you live in Alabama, Georgia, Maryland, Arkansas or New York, and certainly if you live in West Virginia or North Carolina, you know how tenuous and precious our water supplies are — or you should.

Climate change, extreme energy extraction methods and preventable accidents spurred by loosening restrictions mean that more of us in more parts of the U.S. can’t find water that’s safe for drinking, cooking and bathing, or we can’t find test results to reliably prove our water is safe. That’s become painfully apparent to the people of West Virginia, where the governor is now stepping back from his earlier assurances about the safety of drinking water after a chemical spill into the Elk River.

The ways in which we test water safety contribute to this distrust. For example, in Eden, North Carolina, where contaminants from a Duke Energy coal ash dump are still leaching into the Dan River, the government is using instantaneous testing to ascertain water safety levels. Instantaneous testing is exactly what it sounds like; officials dip a glass jar at the surface of the water and pull up a small sample. Whatever they get in that jar at that moment and at the surface of the river is what they use to determine the health of the entire water column. That approach makes little sense when the people who will consume, cook with and bathe in that water will do so for many, many instants. Alternatively, cumulative testing is far more indicative of what we should know about the chemicals in our water. By absorbing contaminants over time, we are sampling not just from the surface, but at all levels of the water column.

Next week, I’ll be on Cape Cod talking about emerging technologies that will fingerprint, monitor and help reduce water pollution. Scott Smith, Water Defense chief scientist and founder of OPFLEX Technology, and I will hold a town hall meeting at Cape Cod Community College. The event is open to the public, and I hope you’ll come out to learn more about a global crisis that matters where you live, and what we should be doing in response.

Get involved: http://www.waterdefense.org

Source: Huffington Post.

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B. Sharper Reports on “Sick Water”

Posted February 22nd, 2014
B. Bea Sharper, Water and Health

The UN Says that Water Pollution is Deadlier Than War

by B. Sharper

Gazette Numerical Wizard Bee Sharper Indexes the Numbers that Harper’s Misses

Editor’s note: The facts reported here a few years old, but the concepts they teach us are as true today as they were when the UN report was issued.

Tons of sewage and waste from industry and agriculture that are dumped into global waterways each year –2,000,000.

Children that are killed worldwide each year by the resulting contamination — 1,800,000.

Children under five that die each minute from water pollution–3.

Rank of water pollution among all means of violence, including war, as a killer of humans — #1.

Percentage of the world’s hospitals beds that are occupied by victims of water contamination worldwide — >50%.

Percentage of wastewater in underdeveloped countries that is dumped directly without treatment into lakes, rivers, and oceans — 90%.

Estimated area of marine ecosystems that are being turned to de-oxygenated “dead zones” in seas and oceans by dumping — 245,000 km2.

Increase in nitrous oxide and methane emissions which affect our climate expected because of wastewater dumping between 1990 and 2020 — 25%.

Source of facts is a 2014 report of UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme).

 

US Is Facing A Water Infrastructure Disaster

Posted February 20th, 2014
Infrastructure, Privatization of Water, Water Issues

Years of Neglect and Underfunding of Water Infrastructure Are Taking Their Toll

 Editor’s Note: The combination of unusually cold weather and years of neglect have produced a nightmare this winter in Detroit.  The excepts below, featuring comments from a veteran city plumber, illustrate the dire need for increased funding for repair of our aging water and sewerage systems.–Hardly Waite.

Water main breaks are causing major problems in cities in Michigan and across the country. Pontiac and Bay City in Michigan, as well as Atlanta, Georgia, are experiencing catastrophes as a result of water mains giving way.

The water distribution infrastructure, like that of many US cities, can be over 150 years old in parts. The Society of Civil Engineers, which estimates there are 240,000 water main breaks per year in the US, concluded in its assessment, “at the dawn of the 21st century much of our drinking water infrastructure is nearing the end of its useful life.” The cost for replacing the aging infrastructure over the coming decades could reach more than $1 trillion, according to the American Water Works Association. Instead of meeting these pressing needs, last year, the Obama administration cut funding to water infrastructure programs.

Water Main Break, Detroit, February 7, 2014

Stephen Paraski, a disabled master plumber from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department,  spoke to the WorldSocialist Web Site about the infrastructure. “Whenever you’ve got the extremes in the temperatures, you have water main breaks. We averaged maybe 10 percent more in the coldest versus the hottest weather, but we got water main breaks in hot weather too. A lot of it can be attributed to lack of maintenance and the cutbacks over the past ten years in particular.”

Referred to the age of the infrastructure, he added, “In 1995, when we were replacing water mains in Eastern Market we removed an iron pipe that was put in in 1835. We dug up a section of this old cast iron pipe where there was about a six foot section of wood pipe that was still in use. The records show that was put in back in 1825 and then cast iron replaced it in 1835. It had been in service for that long. They used Tamarack logs to make the pipes then.”

Concerning the maintenance of the infrastructure, Paraski continued, “In the late nineties they stopped the policy of going through and issuing contracts for water main replacements. It got to be where we wouldn’t fix them until they broke. We had a job—a main break—at Harper and Moross on the eastside. Every time we repaired it, cut out a section, put on a clamp and turned it back on, it would break again further in.

“In the nineties we stopped the program of replacing projects in-house and virtually everything started getting farmed out to the contractors. Every day, I’d see private contractors coming and making 20-30 percent more than city workers. Now the water has been running from a broken main for six days because the DWSD doesn’t have the personnel anymore. On top of that, a couple of weeks ago they said they’re going to lay off 600 more DWSD workers. So what are they going to do? They’re going to give it all to contractors.”

Excerpted from World Socialist Web Site.

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Fear and Marketing

Posted February 16th, 2014
Gene Franks, Water and Health

Are Water Treatment Dealers Being Too Nice?

by Gene Franks

“Most of the time no one is testing most of the water for most of the chemicals.”

In the wake of the West Virginia chemical leak and subsequent drinking water crisis, a company that markets its advertising services to water treatment professionals put out a statement that says, in part:

No water dealership should ever use scare tactics as a marketing strategy.

In Pinellas County, FL, the municipality actually cautions homeowners in their markets to be aware of companies who . . . try to scare consumers under the guise of public awareness. In Minnesota, the Department of Health is warning homeowners to beware of companies using bottle drops accompanied with misleading and frightening statistics about the local water quality. Our own industry organization, The Water Quality Association,  also takes a hard stance against scare tactics in the WQA Code of Ethics.

But every time another instance of water contamination occurs, it reaffirms people’s concerns with their water. They worry about the levels of prescription drugs and fertilizer run-off in their water and how it might affect their families. They worry about the taste and smell of their water. They worry about studies in the news equating levels of lead [and] arsenic with their children’s development.

 

Fear has always been a key feature of American marketing.  Whether the product being sold is a physical object or a political slogan, fear always gets people’s attention.

Most of us in the water treatment business don’t descend to the tactic mentioned above — using “drops” (a precipitation test) to conger up bogus deadly contaminants –but we are way too polite, I think, when it comes to talking about genuine health issues involving water.

Many conventional “dealerships” embrace a code of ethics which focuses attention on aesthetic issues (as the marketing company statement suggests) and speak not a word about the hard health-related issues.  This means portraying the failure of soap to lather as a life-and-death dilemma while failing to mention the (literally!) 100,000 or so unregulated, un-tested chemicals that are being sprayed on lawns, peed into toilets,  and leaked into reservoirs from rusted-out tanks.  Since talking about bladder cancer might be viewed as impolite or politically incorrect,  we stick to the real issues,  like spot-free dishes.

I have always been a strong supporter of municipal water systems.  I’m truly impressed by the job they do.  Every day, our local water company takes millions of gallons of  grim-looking lake water and turns it into clear,  mainly pathogen-free liquid that is wonderful for watering lawns, washing cars. flushing toilets, and washing dishes.  The water company also carries out periodic testing,  as mandated by law, of a short list of  items that are regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency.  If their water exceeds standards in any of the EPA’s regulated contaminants–like Lindane or chloroform or lead–they are required to notify us. What we aren’t often told, though, is that there are thousands upon thousands of known but unregulated chemicals, plus certainly thousands of unknown chemicals, that are not being regulated by the EPA or tested for by the water company or by anyone else. By “unknown chemicals,” I mean compounds that haven’t yet been discovered.  As a single example, we had been using chlorinated water for decades before the spin-off byproducts of chlorination that are now regulated by the EPA were discovered.

These chemicals should be a concern, and I think we should be worried about them.  Worried enough to tell our customers that there is a real danger from chemicals that no one has heard of or no one is testing for coming into our homes.

It is naive to believe that the recent West Virginia chemical incident is unique or to be reassured because the water company eventually turned off the water.  In reality, the water provider “discovered” the obscure chemical not because they were testing for it but because it had a strong, odor and because their customers smelled it and called in complaints. Had the chemical been colorless, odorless, and tasteless,  it would certainly have gone unreported and unnoticed unless it caused immediate and severe symptoms in water users.

It would be equally naive to not suspect that chemical and biological contaminants go unnoticed in public water systems with a fair degree of regularity.  It has been suggested, for example, that much of what is assumed to be food poisoning is often mild sickness caused by water contamination.  Highly publicized cases show that military bases have delivered chemically contaminated water to soldiers and their families over a decade or more before the situation was brought to light.

A fact about public water supplies that should not be forgotten is one that I read over thirty years ago: “Most of the time no one is testing most of the water for most of the contaminants.”

I think that instead of fretting so much about saving laundry soap we should be talking about protecting ourselves from chemicals and microbes, not because we are nervous nellies but because we are practical people.  We  put locks on our doors and circuit breakers on our electrical boxes to protect against the unexpected.  We should also have carbon filters as a barrier against chemicals, known and unknown, plus a superb drinking water system like reverse osmosis, the most comprehensive in-home protection against water contaminants.  And as infrastructure ages and the pipes that carry water to our homes lose their integrity, we should be more concerned about microbes as well, making ultraviolet a sensible addition even to homes receiving municipal water.

As a vendor of water treatment equipment, I don’t plan to start scaring people with bogus tests, but I am going to start being more forthcoming  with information about the real dangers we face in our chemical-laden world.

 

 

 

What Are Endocrine Disruptors?

Posted February 16th, 2014
Water and Health

 

Endocrine Disruptors: Latest Threat to Surface Waters

By Cornelius B. Murphy, Jr.

 

The United States has one of the world’s best systems for both wastewater and potable water treatment and distribution; however, that doesn’t mean we are without challenges.

We are familiar with the impact of various synthetic organic chemicals on the human endocrine system and their ultimate stress on human reproduction, growth and/or development. The endocrine disruptors mimic or block hormones and disrupt the way the body normally works through the functional impairment of the endocrine glands: pituitary, thyroid, adrenal, thymus, pancreas, ovaries and testes. Each of the endocrine glands releases hormones that serve as messengers to various areas of the body to control essential functions.

Environmental-based endocrine disruptors, including some of the PCB arochlors, dioxin, DDT and other synthetic organic compounds that we might inhale, eat or otherwise have contact with, are seen as contaminants when they get into our water in undetermined amounts. These compounds mimic our body’s natural hormones, causing the body to overreact or react at inappropriate times.

It is now recognized that humans can be exposed to endocrine disruptors through drinking water. Endocrine disruptors have been detected in both ground and surface water. Under the Safe Drinking Water Act, there is no requirement to analyze for the presence of endocrine-active chemicals such as bisphenol A, alkylphenols, ethinylestradiol and others in our treated drinking water. Likewise, there is no such requirement under the Clean Water Act to test for these chemicals in our wastewater.

In our surface waters, the most significant sources of endocrine-active chemicals most likely are the effluent from municipal wastewater treatment plants. Many estrogenically active compounds, such as estradiol and derivative compounds, are treated to levels of 80 percent or greater by secondary treatment of municipal wastewater. [1]

That still leaves significant concentrations of endocrine-active chemicals that are discharged to receiving waters via treated municipal wastewater. These and other sources of these compounds have significant impacts on the aquatic system including, but not limited to, reproductive impacts on fish populations and invertebrates.

Municipal wastewater is clearly not the only source of endocrine-active chemicals. Hormones are introduced into livestock feed to increase meat production. Significant amounts of these growth hormones end up in surface water systems from storm water that flows across agricultural land.

We need to be concerned that our potable water might be contaminated at low levels by medications, antibiotics and hormones that we take in hopes of improving our health, and by hormones used in agriculture.

It is vital that we better understand the concentrations of these contaminants in our municipal, industrial, and agricultural wastewaters and storm water. We need clearer information about the concentration and distribution of these endocrine-active chemicals in our surface and ground waters. More resources need to be dedicated to monitoring our receiving waters, wastewater, storm water and drinking water.

We need to implement the recommendations of the Endocrine Disruptor Screening and Testing Advisory Committee and develop a strategy to mitigate the risk to human health and the environment. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has received $131,514,000 since 1999 to screen nearly 89,000 synthetic organic chemicals for endocrine disruption activity. [2] This represents only a beginning in our attempt to understand this issue and its impact on human health and the health of our biosphere. This pervasive human health problem deserves more attention.

References:

1. Ternes TA, Stumpf M, Mueller K, Haberer K, Wilken R-D, Servos M: Behavior and occurrence of estrogens in municipal sewage treatment plants — I. Investigations in Germany, Canada and Brazil” Sci Total Environ 1999, 225: 81-90

2. Reference: Minn Post “Endocrine disruptors in water: Minnesota is ahead of Wis. in testing” 4/22/13, page 4 of 7

Plastic Microbeads May Be Banned from Cosmetics

Posted February 16th, 2014
Environmental

Bill banning sale of cosmetics containing microbeads to be proposed

Pending bill targets the tiny plastic beads that end up in waterways, the ocean and potentially the food chain.

by Ricardo Lopez

California is lining up to become the largest state to ban the sale of cosmetic products, such as facial scrubs, containing tiny plastic beads that find their way into waterways and the ocean.

Assemblyman Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica) plans to introduce a bill Thursday that would ban the sale of products containing the microbeads, which are too small to be removed by water treatment processes after they drain out of sinks and showers.

A New York legislator introduced a similar measure Tuesday after scientists found high concentrations of the tiny exfoliating beads in the state’s lakes and other waters.

Researchers warn that the microbeads, which are not biodegradable, are ingested by fish and other animals, potentially ending up in the food chain. The tiny plastic orbs have already been found in California waters and in the Pacific Ocean.

The bill, which would impose civil penalties, isn’t as far reaching as New York’s, which would ban not just the sale, but also the manufacture of products containing plastic particles 5 millimeters or smaller in diameter.

Nonetheless, its introduction is a victory for the 5 Gyers Institute, a Santa Monica environmental and advocacy nonprofit with just five staff members. The group, which found high levels of microbeads in the Great Lakes in 2012 and is researching plastic pollution in California, helped craft the legislation in both states.

“5 Gyers is a really nimble organization,” said Stiv Wilson, the group’s policy director. “We take pride we were able to get this bill introduced in two really important states.”

Major cosmetic companies, including Procter & Gamble Co. and Johnson & Johnson, have already pledged to phase out the use of the plastic microbeads from their products.

“We are discontinuing our limited use of micro plastic beads as scrub materials in personal care products as soon as alternatives are qualified,” said Mandy Wagner, a Procter & Gamble spokeswoman. “In addition, we have decided not to introduce micro plastic beads into any new product category.”

Wagner did not immediately provide a timeline for when the company would end the use of the plastic beads.

In a statement on its website, Johnson & Johnson said it hopes to complete the first phase of reformulations for about half of its products by the end of 2015. The remaining products will be reformulated once substitutes are identified.

Other cosmetic companies already use ingredients, such as apricot and walnut shells, that accomplish the same job without harming the environment.

A spokeswoman for the Personal Care Products Council, a trade group in Washington, D.C., declined to comment on the pending legislation until the organization completes a full review of the proposed bills.

Cosmetics makers over the last decade have increasingly added microbeads to facial scrubs, soaps, toothpaste and other products. 5 Gyres said that a single product can contain as many as 350,000 of the polyethylene or polypropylene microbeads.

“Microbeads may seem insignificant, but their small size is what’s the problem,” Wilson said. The beads act as a sponge for toxic pollutants, which fish and other aquatic life can mistake for food, he said.

Bloom, who was instrumental in passing a plastic bag ban in Santa Monica when he was mayor there, said he expects some push-back from business groups but that he’s encouraged that large companies appear to be phasing out the plastic orbs.

“If … the industry is roughly on the same page in recognizing the long-term danger to sea life and habitat … this is going to be a very easy process,” he said.

Though research hasn’t yet established that fish and other aquatic life are ingesting microbeads and contaminating the food chain, Bloom said early evidence on plastic pollution in general is sufficient.

“It’s important to get to this before it becomes a wide-scale problem — before it requires a very expensive response,” he said. “We know enough about marine biology to know that it will grow in magnitude and continue to be a problem.”

Source: LA Times.

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