6 ms·

Filter your water if you live anywhere near an airport or military base anywhere, it's not just California. In Satellite Beach, Florida, the contamination from

by jen_h 7y ago

Filter your water if you live anywhere near an airport or military base anywhere, it's not just California. In Satellite Beach, Florida, the contamination from Patrick AFB was discovered after a group of Satellite Beach High alumni realized they all developed cancer around the same time and decided to start digging. [https://pfasproject.com/2018/08/08/satellite-beach-florida-finds-cancer-causing-chemicals-in-groundwater/ https://pfasproject.com/2018/08/08/satellite-beach-florida-f...] They dumped everything in a trench...not realizing there was an underground waterflow there. :/

hanniabu 7y ago
> not realizing there was an underground waterflow there I'm amazed whenever I see this. (A) what makes it okay to just dump stuff in a ditch? (B) are these people really clueless that no leaching through soil occurs?
- heavyset_go 7y ago
  > what makes it okay to just dump stuff in a ditch? Lack of accountability. They did a calculation, and decided the risk of lawsuits several decades down the line is worth not paying to properly dispose their waste today.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    There's a big difference between accountability and having to base your actions around what makes you the least sue-able and I think we can all agree that the latter has some serious side effects.
- jen_h 7y ago
  See also: "burn pits."
- MisterTea 7y ago
  The various secret government programs did whatever it took to protect our precious bodily fluids from foreign contamination. Visible hazardous waste disposal is a great indicator that something interesting going on. So you hide it in a hole and pretend it's for the greater good of whatever dogma you sold your soul to. Lord knows how much hazardous waste has been carelessly buried under orders from dogmatic maniacs obsessed with "winning" at all cost, including our future.
- hadlock 7y ago
  "Earth Day" was an event that happened only every decade up until 1990 when it became an annual event. This concept that what we do has a direct impact on the environment has only been a mainstream idea since the mid-1990s. Outside of super liberal areas like California, things didn't really kick off until Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth came out in 2006. By the standards of the day, just digging the ditch and covering it afterwards was considered forward-thinking in most rural locales.
alexhutcheson 7y ago
Any sources on what filters are effective?
- jen_h 7y ago
  Looks like reverse osmosis or carbon filters -- found this from Michigan State University: "To know if a filter is NSF certified for the removal of PFOA and PFOS look for NSF P473 or NSF Certified to Standard P473 on the product, packaging, or specifications. Two types of filters recommended are granular activated carbon (GAC) and reverse osmosis (RO) filters." (https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/list-of-household-filters-approved-for-certain-pfas-removal https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/list-of-household-filters-appr...)
nate 7y ago
I'd also just filter/test your water everywhere :( I'm in Chicago, and my daughter and I decided to test some public water fountains near the city zoo for lead. Thought it would be an interesting way to expose her to more science. I also had a suspicion of water fountains I've been finding now "capped" and no longer working. One of the fountains we tested with a home test kit from Home Depot came up positive for lead. Luckily I know some folks in the city we reached out too about our test and now that water fountain has been capped too. This has made me super paranoid now of all water everywhere.
- jen_h 7y ago
  There's also an epidemic of cyanobacterial (also known as blue green "algae") contamination around the US. We've traveled all over the country and have personally encountered it everywhere -- from Oregon to New York to central Florida...it's all over the midwest, in the Great Lakes -- seems to be anywhere there's farming. I'm not sure what you do for that, though -- not sure it can be filtered, and boiling just makes it worse as it's toxic when it's dead. I'm honestly more terrified of cyanobacteria than PFAS, and it's everywhere.
  - swampthing 7y ago
    It's cumbersome, but I think you can use something like Steripen for that (UV).
    - s0rce 7y ago
      That might kill the algae but likely won't destroy most of the toxins in the water that the algae produce. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanotoxin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanotoxin
      - masklinn 7y ago
        Do the toxins get carried on along with distillation as well? That's ridiculously energy-intensive and you'd probably have to re-mineralise it before storage or consumption to be on the safe side. Cooking might actually be the worst issue here, low-mineralisation cooking water would leech minerals out, leading to lower nutrient intake (unless yo keep the cooking water for drinking).
whafro 7y ago
My father, who was in the aircraft refueling industry for decades until his passing earlier this year, would routinely rant about his customers' (the airports, generally) tolerance for leaking jet fuel into the ground. He reported, and I have no source aside from him, that JFK allows up to 10,000 gallons of jet fuel to leak into the ground. Per day. And he claimed that most airports with hydrant systems had similarly large allowances.
- lightedman 7y ago
  I used to live across from the FedEx section of Memphis International, could see it over my fence. I used to watch with binoculars. They absolutely spill(ed) tons of fuel and did nothing to try cleaning it up.
sambull 7y ago
My dad used to talk about this in the 80's and 90's just dumping solvents etc from maintenance shops right into the creek behind the air force base. It was just SOP. That creek runs straight to a river (about 4 miles) in a major metro area of California.

by jen_h 7y ago

hanniabu 7y ago

> not realizing there was an underground waterflow there I'm amazed whenever I see this. (A) what makes it okay to just dump stuff in a ditch? (B) are these people really clueless that no leaching through soil occurs?

heavyset_go 7y ago
> what makes it okay to just dump stuff in a ditch? Lack of accountability. They did a calculation, and decided the risk of lawsuits several decades down the line is worth not paying to properly dispose their waste today.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  There's a big difference between accountability and having to base your actions around what makes you the least sue-able and I think we can all agree that the latter has some serious side effects.
jen_h 7y ago
See also: "burn pits."
MisterTea 7y ago
The various secret government programs did whatever it took to protect our precious bodily fluids from foreign contamination. Visible hazardous waste disposal is a great indicator that something interesting going on. So you hide it in a hole and pretend it's for the greater good of whatever dogma you sold your soul to. Lord knows how much hazardous waste has been carelessly buried under orders from dogmatic maniacs obsessed with "winning" at all cost, including our future.
hadlock 7y ago
"Earth Day" was an event that happened only every decade up until 1990 when it became an annual event. This concept that what we do has a direct impact on the environment has only been a mainstream idea since the mid-1990s. Outside of super liberal areas like California, things didn't really kick off until Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth came out in 2006. By the standards of the day, just digging the ditch and covering it afterwards was considered forward-thinking in most rural locales.

alexhutcheson 7y ago

Any sources on what filters are effective?

jen_h 7y ago
Looks like reverse osmosis or carbon filters -- found this from Michigan State University: "To know if a filter is NSF certified for the removal of PFOA and PFOS look for NSF P473 or NSF Certified to Standard P473 on the product, packaging, or specifications. Two types of filters recommended are granular activated carbon (GAC) and reverse osmosis (RO) filters." (https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/list-of-household-filters-approved-for-certain-pfas-removal https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/list-of-household-filters-appr...)

nate 7y ago

I'd also just filter/test your water everywhere :( I'm in Chicago, and my daughter and I decided to test some public water fountains near the city zoo for lead. Thought it would be an interesting way to expose her to more science. I also had a suspicion of water fountains I've been finding now "capped" and no longer working. One of the fountains we tested with a home test kit from Home Depot came up positive for lead. Luckily I know some folks in the city we reached out too about our test and now that water fountain has been capped too. This has made me super paranoid now of all water everywhere.

jen_h 7y ago
There's also an epidemic of cyanobacterial (also known as blue green "algae") contamination around the US. We've traveled all over the country and have personally encountered it everywhere -- from Oregon to New York to central Florida...it's all over the midwest, in the Great Lakes -- seems to be anywhere there's farming. I'm not sure what you do for that, though -- not sure it can be filtered, and boiling just makes it worse as it's toxic when it's dead. I'm honestly more terrified of cyanobacteria than PFAS, and it's everywhere.
- swampthing 7y ago
  It's cumbersome, but I think you can use something like Steripen for that (UV).
  - s0rce 7y ago
    That might kill the algae but likely won't destroy most of the toxins in the water that the algae produce. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanotoxin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanotoxin
    - masklinn 7y ago
      Do the toxins get carried on along with distillation as well? That's ridiculously energy-intensive and you'd probably have to re-mineralise it before storage or consumption to be on the safe side. Cooking might actually be the worst issue here, low-mineralisation cooking water would leech minerals out, leading to lower nutrient intake (unless yo keep the cooking water for drinking).

whafro 7y ago

My father, who was in the aircraft refueling industry for decades until his passing earlier this year, would routinely rant about his customers' (the airports, generally) tolerance for leaking jet fuel into the ground. He reported, and I have no source aside from him, that JFK allows up to 10,000 gallons of jet fuel to leak into the ground. Per day. And he claimed that most airports with hydrant systems had similarly large allowances.

lightedman 7y ago
I used to live across from the FedEx section of Memphis International, could see it over my fence. I used to watch with binoculars. They absolutely spill(ed) tons of fuel and did nothing to try cleaning it up.

sambull 7y ago

My dad used to talk about this in the 80's and 90's just dumping solvents etc from maintenance shops right into the creek behind the air force base. It was just SOP. That creek runs straight to a river (about 4 miles) in a major metro area of California.