6 ms·

Uranium Contaminates Water Across California's Central Valley (2015)

59 points by HillaryBriss 7y ago

squirrelicus 7y ago
Ah scare mongering. The safety limits are put in place such that the exposure causes no measurable effects, plus a buffer for safety. The precision of our instruments is very, very high. Naturally occurring uranium has a very long half life. Which means it radiates very small amounts in comparison to other radioactive elements like certain isotopses of cesium and iodine. By many orders of magnitude. You could drink 10x the "safe" levels of uranium your whole life and have no ill effects. Holding a kg rod of pure uranium gives you exposure between normal background and a plane flight. The outrage you're looking for isn't here. It's not another Flint.
- 7952 7y ago
  I agree that the likelihood of an individual suffering is probably very low. But that also means that it will be very difficult to attribute an illness to this. Cancer and kidney disease are common after all. Just because you can't measure something it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Public policy has to accept this uncertainty.
- mark-r 7y ago
  Lead has an infinite half-life, since it's not radioactive. How much would you be willing to accept in your water?
  - MapleWalnut 7y ago
    I feel your comment isn’t very constructive and is a little demeaning.
    - lightedman 7y ago
      Quit reading their words in your internal voice. You're the one attributing emotion to a statement with no emotionally-charged words. We even had that story here on HN and yet nobody seems to have learned from it.
    - mark-r 7y ago
      You assume that radioactivity is the only danger emanating from Uranium in the water. I was merely pointing out that it is not the only thing to be worried about. Elements can be poisonous without being radioactive. Was that a little more constructive?
  - manfredo 7y ago
    This is nonsensical. Lead's danger isn't from its radioactive decay, though. It's from its chemical properties that make it harmful to the nervous system.
    - throwaway2048 7y ago
      Uranium's danger isn't from its radioactivity when ingested either, its a toxic heavy metal much like lead.
      - manfredo 7y ago
        Sure, but why are you referring to half life if you're talking about toxicity other than radiation? Half lives are irrelevant to chemical toxicity (at least, not unless something decays into something with different chemical properties).
        EdwardDiego 7y ago
        The commenter you're replying to made no mention of half-life. The commenter who did make mention of half-life with regard to lead, was doing so to show that framing the uranium issue solely as a radiation issue was misguided, at best.
- fromthestart 7y ago
  Not to add to the sensationalism, but it is worth noting that U-238 is probably dangerous to ingest moreso because of its behavior as a heavy metal rather than it's radioactivity. In which case because of the bioaccumlative properties of heavy metals, drinking 10x the limit as you say may not actually be so harmless. But I don't know what safe limits really are.
  - squirrelicus 7y ago
    Excellent point! I wonder if safety levels are set based on heavy metal toxicity or radiation, since one is likely to be the dominating factor.
    - Filligree 7y ago
      The heavy metal toxicity definitely dominates. Uranium is barely radioactive.
  - EdwardDiego 7y ago
    It appears to have a particular toxicity on the kidneys from my brief googling.
- EdwardDiego 7y ago
  > Naturally occurring uranium has a very long half life. It's nothing to do with radiation, it's chemistry. Uranium compounds are nephrotoxic. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5457699/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5457699/
- sandworm101 7y ago
  As others have said, we all hear "uranium + cancer" and assume the problem is radiation. Uranium is poisonous chemically too. Chemical poisons can also cause cancer. "The health effects associated with oral or dermal exposure to natural and depleted uranium appear to be primarily chemical in nature and not radiological [...] Because natural uranium produces very little radioactivity per mass of uranium, the renal and respiratory effects from exposure of humans and animals to uranium are usually attributed to the chemical properties of uranium. " https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK158798/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK158798/ It's a very big, very heavy metal. That it may impact kidney function should be no surprise.
- HillaryBriss 7y ago
  The article itself mentions the non-radioactive component of the risk: Though people think mainly about uranium's radioactivity, the danger in water mainly comes from the toxic chemical effects of the metal.
- a-b 7y ago
  Besides the radiation, uranium is very toxic.
SubiculumCode 7y ago
Well water was used to produce many crops throughout the California Central Valley during the recent long drought, vegetables and fruits that are then shipped for consumption throughout the States.
- your-nanny 7y ago
  That California's farmers were watering crops (almonds, for petes sake) with ever deeper wells is a scandal.
  - your-nanny 7y ago
    apparently somebody feels compelled to defend abuses by California farmers of a critical resource held in common, for personal profit. It is a scandal.
willidiots 7y ago
(2015)
whateveryou381 7y ago
From 2015, scare mongering with little content other than vague statements like "Before treatment, Westport's water tested up to four times state and federal limits. After treatment, it's safe for the children, teachers and staff to drink." This does not point to a specific limit such as Maxiumum Contanminant Level (MCL) or Maximum Contaminant Limit Goal (MCLG). MCLG is a non-legally binding limit, which is as it states is a goal. MCLG for urainum contaminants is 0 ug/L. Any measurement of any drinking water will always have more uranium than this limit. The MCL is 30ug/L for uranium. Additionally, the EPA has changed the way in which they have approached limits, previously they quoted something like the World Health Organization limits [3], which are average daily consumption limits. Average implies that some measurements could be high or low. WHO estimates natural concentration of uranium in drinking water is 0.08 ug/L (0.001 Bq/L), which is obviously above the EPAs MCLG. WHO is a much better resource for information on these limits, and the EPA appears to just take their limits and do a divide by ten. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_Contaminant_Level https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_Contaminant_Level [2] https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPDF.cgi?Dockey=30006644.txt https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPDF.cgi?Dockey=30006644.txt [3] https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/272995/9789241513746-eng.pdf https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/272995/9789...
rjplatte 7y ago
Yay. Now HN can explain how it's not a big deal and moms on Facebook everywhere can panic. There's nothing new under the sun.
- lightedman 7y ago
  Most HN people aren't chemists of any sorts by trade or profession, and don't understand that it's not the radiation but other chemical effects of uranium compounds found in water that causes the real problem. They're all toxic to kidneys, for starters. They're also toxic to the intestinal tract and skeleton. Every time I go out mining for uranium minerals, I wear full PPE. Trying to do chelation for uranium isn't as simple (or as cheap) as say lead, because calcium DTPA can actually allow for easier absorption into the bones. Been there, done that. Not fun.
thanatosmin 7y ago
This has always been the case, at least in the Bakersfield area, unless a well actively filters these out. Our well water in the 90's would usually be 2-3x the EPA limits.
sandworm101 7y ago
>> Other Central California farm schools opt to buy bottled water in place of drinking fountains, which are off limits because of uranium and other contaminants Has anyone tested the bottled water? Most of it comes from domestic water supplies anyway. Since uranium doesn't have any impact on taste, I doubt the bottling companies are looking for it. Also see: Recovery of uranium from seawater using amidoxime hollow fibers "The fixed‐bed adsorption column, 30 cm in length and charged with the bundle of AO‐H fibers, was found to adsorb uranium from natural seawater at a sufficiently high rate: 0.66 mg uranium per g of adsorbent in 25 days." https://aiche.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/aic.690340308 https://aiche.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/aic.69... That sort of tech could not just clean uranium from water, but at a commercial scale could produce very interesting amounts of uranium relatively quickly.
- DoctorOetker 7y ago
  could uranium powered boats and submarines use this in full cycle somehow, extracting their own uranium as they travel?
ilaksh 7y ago
So apparently it's not very radioactive but does have toxicity. Should we not be concerned about the food supply? Is produce tested?
- HillaryBriss 7y ago
  I don't think produce is tested. The article states: ... uranium also sticks to potatoes, radishes and other root vegetables if they're not properly washed. (While studies have confirmed livestock and people can ingest high levels of uranium by eating contaminated vegetation, scientists have yet to fully research the dangers involved.)
imjustsaying 7y ago
Galen Winsor, who worked on the Manhattan Project and at GE, eating uranium on camera https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqwYHmgB3Xc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqwYHmgB3Xc
- whateveryou381 7y ago
  Is he alive or dead? Cause of death? There are of course the radiothor incidents (where people actually died from eating uranium and thorium products, note this is selectively consumed for many years at concentrated levels, much higher than in rocks)[1]. Also the Baltimore Radium girls, who ingested concentrated radium to make glow in the dark watches. [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radithor https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radithor
  - beefman 7y ago
    He died in 2008 at age 82, from Parkinson's disease.
  - khuey 7y ago
    Radium is ~500000x as radioactive as uranium.
    - whateveryou381 7y ago
      Half-life is longer for uranium, but I would say they are just as radioactive, as they are in secular equilibrium and apart of the same decay chain [1]. They are just as "radioactive" in this configuration, as they go through the same number of decays. Their concentrations can change. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decay_chain#/media/File:Decay_chain(4n+2,_Uranium_series).svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decay_chain#/media/File:Decay_...
      - erik_seaberg 7y ago
        SI measures radiation in decay events per second. The rate is important because we mostly worry about decay product exposure during our lifetimes, or maybe how long a mass must be contained until it stops being an acute risk to our species, rather than the grand total of decay over astronomical time scales.

59 points by HillaryBriss 7y ago

Ah scare mongering. The safety limits are put in place such that the exposure causes no measurable effects, plus a buffer for safety. The precision of our instruments is very, very high. Naturally occurring uranium has a very long half life. Which means it radiates very small amounts in comparison to other radioactive elements like certain isotopses of cesium and iodine. By many orders of magnitude. You could drink 10x the "safe" levels of uranium your whole life and have no ill effects. Holding a kg rod of pure uranium gives you exposure between normal background and a plane flight. The outrage you're looking for isn't here. It's not another Flint.

7952 7y ago
I agree that the likelihood of an individual suffering is probably very low. But that also means that it will be very difficult to attribute an illness to this. Cancer and kidney disease are common after all. Just because you can't measure something it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Public policy has to accept this uncertainty.
mark-r 7y ago
Lead has an infinite half-life, since it's not radioactive. How much would you be willing to accept in your water?
- MapleWalnut 7y ago
  I feel your comment isn’t very constructive and is a little demeaning.
  - lightedman 7y ago
    Quit reading their words in your internal voice. You're the one attributing emotion to a statement with no emotionally-charged words. We even had that story here on HN and yet nobody seems to have learned from it.
  - mark-r 7y ago
    You assume that radioactivity is the only danger emanating from Uranium in the water. I was merely pointing out that it is not the only thing to be worried about. Elements can be poisonous without being radioactive. Was that a little more constructive?
- manfredo 7y ago
  This is nonsensical. Lead's danger isn't from its radioactive decay, though. It's from its chemical properties that make it harmful to the nervous system.
  - throwaway2048 7y ago
    Uranium's danger isn't from its radioactivity when ingested either, its a toxic heavy metal much like lead.
    - manfredo 7y ago
      Sure, but why are you referring to half life if you're talking about toxicity other than radiation? Half lives are irrelevant to chemical toxicity (at least, not unless something decays into something with different chemical properties).
      - EdwardDiego 7y ago
        The commenter you're replying to made no mention of half-life. The commenter who did make mention of half-life with regard to lead, was doing so to show that framing the uranium issue solely as a radiation issue was misguided, at best.
fromthestart 7y ago
Not to add to the sensationalism, but it is worth noting that U-238 is probably dangerous to ingest moreso because of its behavior as a heavy metal rather than it's radioactivity. In which case because of the bioaccumlative properties of heavy metals, drinking 10x the limit as you say may not actually be so harmless. But I don't know what safe limits really are.
- squirrelicus 7y ago
  Excellent point! I wonder if safety levels are set based on heavy metal toxicity or radiation, since one is likely to be the dominating factor.
  - Filligree 7y ago
    The heavy metal toxicity definitely dominates. Uranium is barely radioactive.
- EdwardDiego 7y ago
  It appears to have a particular toxicity on the kidneys from my brief googling.
EdwardDiego 7y ago
> Naturally occurring uranium has a very long half life. It's nothing to do with radiation, it's chemistry. Uranium compounds are nephrotoxic. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5457699/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5457699/
sandworm101 7y ago
As others have said, we all hear "uranium + cancer" and assume the problem is radiation. Uranium is poisonous chemically too. Chemical poisons can also cause cancer. "The health effects associated with oral or dermal exposure to natural and depleted uranium appear to be primarily chemical in nature and not radiological [...] Because natural uranium produces very little radioactivity per mass of uranium, the renal and respiratory effects from exposure of humans and animals to uranium are usually attributed to the chemical properties of uranium. " https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK158798/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK158798/ It's a very big, very heavy metal. That it may impact kidney function should be no surprise.
HillaryBriss 7y ago
The article itself mentions the non-radioactive component of the risk: Though people think mainly about uranium's radioactivity, the danger in water mainly comes from the toxic chemical effects of the metal.
a-b 7y ago
Besides the radiation, uranium is very toxic.

SubiculumCode 7y ago

Well water was used to produce many crops throughout the California Central Valley during the recent long drought, vegetables and fruits that are then shipped for consumption throughout the States.

your-nanny 7y ago
That California's farmers were watering crops (almonds, for petes sake) with ever deeper wells is a scandal.
- your-nanny 7y ago
  apparently somebody feels compelled to defend abuses by California farmers of a critical resource held in common, for personal profit. It is a scandal.

willidiots 7y ago

(2015)

whateveryou381 7y ago

From 2015, scare mongering with little content other than vague statements like "Before treatment, Westport's water tested up to four times state and federal limits. After treatment, it's safe for the children, teachers and staff to drink." This does not point to a specific limit such as Maxiumum Contanminant Level (MCL) or Maximum Contaminant Limit Goal (MCLG). MCLG is a non-legally binding limit, which is as it states is a goal. MCLG for urainum contaminants is 0 ug/L. Any measurement of any drinking water will always have more uranium than this limit. The MCL is 30ug/L for uranium. Additionally, the EPA has changed the way in which they have approached limits, previously they quoted something like the World Health Organization limits [3], which are average daily consumption limits. Average implies that some measurements could be high or low. WHO estimates natural concentration of uranium in drinking water is 0.08 ug/L (0.001 Bq/L), which is obviously above the EPAs MCLG. WHO is a much better resource for information on these limits, and the EPA appears to just take their limits and do a divide by ten. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_Contaminant_Level https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_Contaminant_Level [2] https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPDF.cgi?Dockey=30006644.txt https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPDF.cgi?Dockey=30006644.txt [3] https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/272995/9789241513746-eng.pdf https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/272995/9789...

rjplatte 7y ago

Yay. Now HN can explain how it's not a big deal and moms on Facebook everywhere can panic. There's nothing new under the sun.

lightedman 7y ago
Most HN people aren't chemists of any sorts by trade or profession, and don't understand that it's not the radiation but other chemical effects of uranium compounds found in water that causes the real problem. They're all toxic to kidneys, for starters. They're also toxic to the intestinal tract and skeleton. Every time I go out mining for uranium minerals, I wear full PPE. Trying to do chelation for uranium isn't as simple (or as cheap) as say lead, because calcium DTPA can actually allow for easier absorption into the bones. Been there, done that. Not fun.

thanatosmin 7y ago

This has always been the case, at least in the Bakersfield area, unless a well actively filters these out. Our well water in the 90's would usually be 2-3x the EPA limits.

sandworm101 7y ago

>> Other Central California farm schools opt to buy bottled water in place of drinking fountains, which are off limits because of uranium and other contaminants Has anyone tested the bottled water? Most of it comes from domestic water supplies anyway. Since uranium doesn't have any impact on taste, I doubt the bottling companies are looking for it. Also see: Recovery of uranium from seawater using amidoxime hollow fibers "The fixed‐bed adsorption column, 30 cm in length and charged with the bundle of AO‐H fibers, was found to adsorb uranium from natural seawater at a sufficiently high rate: 0.66 mg uranium per g of adsorbent in 25 days." https://aiche.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/aic.690340308 https://aiche.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/aic.69... That sort of tech could not just clean uranium from water, but at a commercial scale could produce very interesting amounts of uranium relatively quickly.

DoctorOetker 7y ago
could uranium powered boats and submarines use this in full cycle somehow, extracting their own uranium as they travel?

ilaksh 7y ago

So apparently it's not very radioactive but does have toxicity. Should we not be concerned about the food supply? Is produce tested?

HillaryBriss 7y ago
I don't think produce is tested. The article states: ... uranium also sticks to potatoes, radishes and other root vegetables if they're not properly washed. (While studies have confirmed livestock and people can ingest high levels of uranium by eating contaminated vegetation, scientists have yet to fully research the dangers involved.)

imjustsaying 7y ago

Galen Winsor, who worked on the Manhattan Project and at GE, eating uranium on camera https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqwYHmgB3Xc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqwYHmgB3Xc

whateveryou381 7y ago
Is he alive or dead? Cause of death? There are of course the radiothor incidents (where people actually died from eating uranium and thorium products, note this is selectively consumed for many years at concentrated levels, much higher than in rocks)[1]. Also the Baltimore Radium girls, who ingested concentrated radium to make glow in the dark watches. [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radithor https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radithor
- beefman 7y ago
  He died in 2008 at age 82, from Parkinson's disease.
- khuey 7y ago
  Radium is ~500000x as radioactive as uranium.
  - whateveryou381 7y ago
    Half-life is longer for uranium, but I would say they are just as radioactive, as they are in secular equilibrium and apart of the same decay chain [1]. They are just as "radioactive" in this configuration, as they go through the same number of decays. Their concentrations can change. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decay_chain#/media/File:Decay_chain(4n+2,_Uranium_series).svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decay_chain#/media/File:Decay_...
    - erik_seaberg 7y ago
      SI measures radiation in decay events per second. The rate is important because we mostly worry about decay product exposure during our lifetimes, or maybe how long a mass must be contained until it stops being an acute risk to our species, rather than the grand total of decay over astronomical time scales.