Well, remmeber, everything there is a limit.
Just thing of it, why the earth is suspended in the emptiness??
Why, at certain time one would feel hungry or thirsty, who need to eat or drink at that particular time.
In the "I-Medical Sutra" the 5 eleements , Water, Wood, Earth, Metal, Fire must be balance, any element imbalance would cause illness & eventure death.
The other thing is, it is a common sense that once too much water in the stomarch, the body would react & there is more load for the Kidney & bladder. Once these two organs give way then obviously it death.
Therefore, for your Great Heath, Never Ever Drink Excessive Water.
Fraternity pledge died from excessive water intake, coroner says
BY KELLI PHILLIPS Knight Ridder Newspapers
CHICO, Calif. - (KRT) - Coroner's officials said a 21-year-old Chico State student died from the effects of over-consumption of water, complicated by low body temperature, during a fraternity initiation.
Matthew Carrington, who grew up in Pleasant Hill, died Wednesday morning trying to become a member of Chi Tau fraternity.
He had been up all night, drinking large quantities of water from a 5-gallon jug, doing push-ups and answering trivia questions about other fraternity members, said Chico police Sgt. Dave Barrow.
During the night, a fan was used to blow air on him, family members said.
Carrington suffered a seizure and stopped breathing.
"It was just more than he could handle," said Kristi Vahl, a longtime friend.
According to the Butte County Coroner's Office, the cause of death was cardiac dysrhythmia due to electrolyte imbalance from water intoxication. A contributing factor was environmental hypothermia.
Drugs and alcohol were not a factor, police said. No arrests have been made, but it will be up to the district attorney whether to file charges, Barrow said.
On Thursday, as fraternity and sorority "rush week" activities continued, Chi Tau members refused to comment on Carrington's death or their pledge activities.
A former Chi Tau member, who asked that his name not be used because he still attends Chico, said that during a 2002 Chi Tau pledge activity, he was forced to drink milk until he threw up.
"I think for some guys there's a pressure to please," said J.W. Dell'Orto, a member of the agricultural fraternity Alpha Gamma Rho. "Seems like the younger guys are trying to impress the older frat brothers. It's like being a freshman in high school and getting invited to a senior party. You want to show them you're up for it."
Dell'Orto, a senior majoring in animal sciences, said Alpha Gamma Rho doesn't haze new members. Instead they host a barbeque and interview pledge candidates.
Molly Priest, 22, one of Carrington's roommates, said he didn't complain about the pledge activities, which included standing against a wall for hours and dressing up like a female prostitute.
"They were pushed to their limits," Priest said. "And Matt was pushed too hard."
Students said the university and police have cracked down on fraternities and alcohol-related activities since a 18-year-old fraternity pledge from Palo Alto died in 2000.
"Everyone parties here, not just the Greeks," said Dani Jimenez-Cruz, of Lambda Theta Nu. "It's what you make of it. You don't have to party if you don't want to, but the temptation is definitely there."
Two weeks ago, an 18-year-old Chico student nearly died from alcohol poisoning during a Sigma Chi pledge activity that involved drinking two 1.75 liter bottles of vodka. Butte County prosecutors said Thursday they plan to file charges against the fraternity member who provided the alcohol.
On Thursday afternoon, Erin Bixon, of Foothill Distributing Inc., wheeled cases of Budweiser into Riley's bar, a popular hangout frequented by members of nearby fraternities and sororities.
"Some kids try to find their limits and see what they can take," he said.
KRT Wire | 02/04/2005 | Fraternity pledge died from excessive water intake, coroner says
Saturday, February 05, 2005
Friday, February 04, 2005
NSF International Releases Final Report On Testing of Arsenic Treament Technologies
NSF is a Not-for-Profit Certification organization that research & report includes Water Contaminations & Drinking Water Safety standard..
The following press release is beneficial for all that concern about the Arsenic Treament in our Drinking Water System.
NSF Releases Final Reports on Testing of Arsenic Treatment Technologies
Helping Protect the Public from Exposure to High Levels of Arsenic in Drinking Water
(ANN ARBOR, MI USA) – To ensure drinking water technologies are available for consumers to reduce exposure to arsenic, the not-for-profit NSF International today announced the release of four final verification reports through the EPA/NSF Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) Drinking Water Systems (DWS) Center. These new reports were produced to specify testing results of drinking water treatment technologies that help consumers avoid exposure to arsenic, which can increase cancer risk and cause other serious health problems.
“These reports are an important step in protecting the public from arsenic exposure,” said Bruce Bartley, NSF’s technical manager in the ETV DWS Center. “By providing consumers with proven results of product evaluations, these evaluation reports accelerate the implementation of new drinking water technologies into the marketplace.”
The ETV DWS Center reports demonstrate a significant reduction of arsenic in drinking water. These tests were performed in small communities in three states in conjunction with Delta Industrial Services and the University of Alaska at Anchorage in Anchorage, Alaska; Watts Premier and MWH in Thermal, California; Kinetico, Inc. and Alcan Chemicals with Gannett Fleming in Carroll Township, Pennsylvania; and ADI International with Gannett Fleming in Sellersville, Pennsylvania.
In 2001, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a new arsenic maximum contaminant level (MCL) of 10 micrograms per liter (µg/L). Since that time, public health officials throughout the United States have detected varying amounts of arsenic in many drinking water supplies, some well above EPA's new MCL. As of January 23, 2006, all public water systems will be required to comply with the 10 µg/L MCL.
With assistance through an EPA grant, NSF International entered into an agreement on October 1, 2000 with the EPA to form the ETV DWS Center. The ETV DWS Center is dedicated to providing independent performance evaluations of drinking water technologies and helping small communities comply with the 10 µg/L MCL.
The reports can be accessed at the following web pages:
Delta Industrial Services, Anchorage, Alaska Full Report: http://www.nsf.org/business/drinking_water_systems_center/pdf/Delta_Report.pdf
Watts Premier, Thermal, California Full Report:
http://www.nsf.org/business/drinking_water_systems_center/pdf/Watts_Report.pdf
Kinetico, Inc. and Alcan Chemicals, Carroll Township, Pennsylvania Full Report: http://www.nsf.org/business/drinking_water_systems_center/pdf/Kinetico-Alcan_ETV_Report.pdf
ADI International, Sellersville, Pennsylvania Full Report:
http://www.nsf.org/business/drinking_water_systems_center/pdf/ADI_Phase1_Report.pdf
“NSF expects the release of three additional reports on arsenic reduction technologies for drinking water in 2005,” concluded Bartley.
For additional information on these final reports, please contact Bruce Bartley at 1-800-NSF-MARK ext. 5148, (734) 769-5148, or bartley@nsf.org.
NSF International : Newsroom : News and Press Releases
The following press release is beneficial for all that concern about the Arsenic Treament in our Drinking Water System.
NSF Releases Final Reports on Testing of Arsenic Treatment Technologies
Helping Protect the Public from Exposure to High Levels of Arsenic in Drinking Water
(ANN ARBOR, MI USA) – To ensure drinking water technologies are available for consumers to reduce exposure to arsenic, the not-for-profit NSF International today announced the release of four final verification reports through the EPA/NSF Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) Drinking Water Systems (DWS) Center. These new reports were produced to specify testing results of drinking water treatment technologies that help consumers avoid exposure to arsenic, which can increase cancer risk and cause other serious health problems.
“These reports are an important step in protecting the public from arsenic exposure,” said Bruce Bartley, NSF’s technical manager in the ETV DWS Center. “By providing consumers with proven results of product evaluations, these evaluation reports accelerate the implementation of new drinking water technologies into the marketplace.”
The ETV DWS Center reports demonstrate a significant reduction of arsenic in drinking water. These tests were performed in small communities in three states in conjunction with Delta Industrial Services and the University of Alaska at Anchorage in Anchorage, Alaska; Watts Premier and MWH in Thermal, California; Kinetico, Inc. and Alcan Chemicals with Gannett Fleming in Carroll Township, Pennsylvania; and ADI International with Gannett Fleming in Sellersville, Pennsylvania.
In 2001, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a new arsenic maximum contaminant level (MCL) of 10 micrograms per liter (µg/L). Since that time, public health officials throughout the United States have detected varying amounts of arsenic in many drinking water supplies, some well above EPA's new MCL. As of January 23, 2006, all public water systems will be required to comply with the 10 µg/L MCL.
With assistance through an EPA grant, NSF International entered into an agreement on October 1, 2000 with the EPA to form the ETV DWS Center. The ETV DWS Center is dedicated to providing independent performance evaluations of drinking water technologies and helping small communities comply with the 10 µg/L MCL.
The reports can be accessed at the following web pages:
Delta Industrial Services, Anchorage, Alaska Full Report: http://www.nsf.org/business/drinking_water_systems_center/pdf/Delta_Report.pdf
Watts Premier, Thermal, California Full Report:
http://www.nsf.org/business/drinking_water_systems_center/pdf/Watts_Report.pdf
Kinetico, Inc. and Alcan Chemicals, Carroll Township, Pennsylvania Full Report: http://www.nsf.org/business/drinking_water_systems_center/pdf/Kinetico-Alcan_ETV_Report.pdf
ADI International, Sellersville, Pennsylvania Full Report:
http://www.nsf.org/business/drinking_water_systems_center/pdf/ADI_Phase1_Report.pdf
“NSF expects the release of three additional reports on arsenic reduction technologies for drinking water in 2005,” concluded Bartley.
For additional information on these final reports, please contact Bruce Bartley at 1-800-NSF-MARK ext. 5148, (734) 769-5148, or bartley@nsf.org.
NSF International : Newsroom : News and Press Releases
Thursday, February 03, 2005
Salt water and waste heat equal drinking supply - Shall Consider Alternative Energy
Obviously, these is a significant development for Country like Middle East, Australia, Singapore. Hong Kong, .... those country that short of Drinking Water Supply.
But 3 issue that shall address is :-
1. Distilled Water is not Suitable for Human Drinking
2. Reverse Osmosis removed all the minerals is not Suitable for Drinking Either.
3. The cost of Productions.
Using Waste heat may be a better solution. However, the electrical plant that use coal or gasoline or even Bio-Mass may emit more polluted air to the atmosphere. Therefore, the environment factor & a Air, filtrations system shall be part of these system , so as to prevent further polluting the air.
Salt water and waste heat equal drinking supply
By John K. Borchardt, The Christian Science Monitor
HOUSTON — Every day, some 10,350 plants around the world create more than 8.3 billion gallons of drinking water for a growing thirsty population.
High-pressure plant pumps, such as these in Apollo Beach, Fla., desalinate salt water via forced filtration. By Scott Martin, AP
They do it by turning salt water into fresh, using steadily cheaper techniques. Now, two engineering professors at the University of Florida have taken that technology a step further with a novel idea.
Since power plants need water for cooling purposes and desalination plants need heat, why not combine the needs of both? The professors — James Klausner and Renwei Mei — calculate that their process would shave a sixth of the cost from today's most efficient technology.
"Water is critical to power production which requires a large amount of it," says Barbara Carney, desalination project manager with the National Energy Technology Laboratory, an arm of the United States Department of Energy in Morgantown, W.Va. Now, "instead of power plants being a net user of water, they will be producers of water."
Currently, desalination plants — most of them located in the Middle East — use one of two processes to turn salt water into fresh. One involves boiling salt water and condensing the vapor to produce fresh water, a process called distillation. The other uses high-pressure pumps to force salt water through fine filters that trap and remove waterborne salts and minerals in a process called reverse osmosis. Both technologies are energy intensive and not cost-effective on a large scale, except in areas such as Saudi Arabia where water is short and energy is cheap.
The new technique — called diffusion-driven desalination or DDD — uses heat wasted by electrical power plants.
Since that heat lacks the intensity to boil salt water, Klausner and Mei simply use it to heat the water. The water is then sprayed into the top of a diffusion tower — a column packed with a matrix that creates a kind of slow-motion waterfall. Meanwhile, warm air is pumped up from the bottom of the tower. As the trickling salt water meets the air, evaporation occurs. The evaporated — and now salt-free — water is captured. "Instead of releasing the evaporated water, it will be condensed to produce fresh water," explains Carney.
Thermoelectric power plants consume about 39% of the water used in the U.S., second only to agriculture. Most of the water is used for cooling to condense steam. Each kilowatt-hour of electricity requires about 25 gallons of water to produce. So indirectly, Americans may be using as much water when they turn on lights and run appliances as they do when taking showers and watering lawns.
So far, a prototype DDD plant is producing about 500 gallons of fresh water daily. Klausner and Mei calculate that a DDD plant tapping the waste heat from an average 100-megawatt power plant could produce 1.5 million gallons of fresh water daily. The estimated cost: $2.50 per thousand gallons, compared with $10 per thousand gallons for conventional distillation and $3 per thousand gallons for reverse osmosis.
Though DDD plants designed to produce up to 5 million gallons of fresh water daily appear reasonable, "market studies suggest that we have less barriers to market entry when working with smaller facilities," Klausner says. He estimates the cost to build a facility producing 1 million gallons per day would be about $2 million.
Utilities could build DDD plants next to their power stations and take advantage of their waste heat to produce fresh water for sale, he adds. Other industries that produce waste heat and use lots of fresh water — such as refineries, pulp and paper plants, and chemical- and food-processing plants — could also build their own DDD plants and supply themselves.
"We are very interested in moving the technology out of the laboratory into the commercial sector," Klausner says. To do this, the University of Florida is working with Global Water Technologies Inc. (GWT), a water purification company in Golden, Colo., and seeking to license the technology to other firms.
USATODAY.com - Salt water and waste heat equal drinking supply
But 3 issue that shall address is :-
1. Distilled Water is not Suitable for Human Drinking
2. Reverse Osmosis removed all the minerals is not Suitable for Drinking Either.
3. The cost of Productions.
Using Waste heat may be a better solution. However, the electrical plant that use coal or gasoline or even Bio-Mass may emit more polluted air to the atmosphere. Therefore, the environment factor & a Air, filtrations system shall be part of these system , so as to prevent further polluting the air.
Salt water and waste heat equal drinking supply
By John K. Borchardt, The Christian Science Monitor
HOUSTON — Every day, some 10,350 plants around the world create more than 8.3 billion gallons of drinking water for a growing thirsty population.
High-pressure plant pumps, such as these in Apollo Beach, Fla., desalinate salt water via forced filtration. By Scott Martin, AP
They do it by turning salt water into fresh, using steadily cheaper techniques. Now, two engineering professors at the University of Florida have taken that technology a step further with a novel idea.
Since power plants need water for cooling purposes and desalination plants need heat, why not combine the needs of both? The professors — James Klausner and Renwei Mei — calculate that their process would shave a sixth of the cost from today's most efficient technology.
"Water is critical to power production which requires a large amount of it," says Barbara Carney, desalination project manager with the National Energy Technology Laboratory, an arm of the United States Department of Energy in Morgantown, W.Va. Now, "instead of power plants being a net user of water, they will be producers of water."
Currently, desalination plants — most of them located in the Middle East — use one of two processes to turn salt water into fresh. One involves boiling salt water and condensing the vapor to produce fresh water, a process called distillation. The other uses high-pressure pumps to force salt water through fine filters that trap and remove waterborne salts and minerals in a process called reverse osmosis. Both technologies are energy intensive and not cost-effective on a large scale, except in areas such as Saudi Arabia where water is short and energy is cheap.
The new technique — called diffusion-driven desalination or DDD — uses heat wasted by electrical power plants.
Since that heat lacks the intensity to boil salt water, Klausner and Mei simply use it to heat the water. The water is then sprayed into the top of a diffusion tower — a column packed with a matrix that creates a kind of slow-motion waterfall. Meanwhile, warm air is pumped up from the bottom of the tower. As the trickling salt water meets the air, evaporation occurs. The evaporated — and now salt-free — water is captured. "Instead of releasing the evaporated water, it will be condensed to produce fresh water," explains Carney.
Thermoelectric power plants consume about 39% of the water used in the U.S., second only to agriculture. Most of the water is used for cooling to condense steam. Each kilowatt-hour of electricity requires about 25 gallons of water to produce. So indirectly, Americans may be using as much water when they turn on lights and run appliances as they do when taking showers and watering lawns.
So far, a prototype DDD plant is producing about 500 gallons of fresh water daily. Klausner and Mei calculate that a DDD plant tapping the waste heat from an average 100-megawatt power plant could produce 1.5 million gallons of fresh water daily. The estimated cost: $2.50 per thousand gallons, compared with $10 per thousand gallons for conventional distillation and $3 per thousand gallons for reverse osmosis.
Though DDD plants designed to produce up to 5 million gallons of fresh water daily appear reasonable, "market studies suggest that we have less barriers to market entry when working with smaller facilities," Klausner says. He estimates the cost to build a facility producing 1 million gallons per day would be about $2 million.
Utilities could build DDD plants next to their power stations and take advantage of their waste heat to produce fresh water for sale, he adds. Other industries that produce waste heat and use lots of fresh water — such as refineries, pulp and paper plants, and chemical- and food-processing plants — could also build their own DDD plants and supply themselves.
"We are very interested in moving the technology out of the laboratory into the commercial sector," Klausner says. To do this, the University of Florida is working with Global Water Technologies Inc. (GWT), a water purification company in Golden, Colo., and seeking to license the technology to other firms.
USATODAY.com - Salt water and waste heat equal drinking supply
NRDC: What's on Tap? - The Karma of Health??
Ignorance is always the cause of the health concern later.
That is exactly the "Cause - Effect" rather call "Karma"
This article is produced by NRDC.
This is a useful reference for all concern.
What's on Tap?
Grading Drinking Water in U.S. Cities
Executive Summary
Every day more than 240 million of us in this country turn on our faucets in order to drink, bathe, and cook, using water from public water systems. And as we do, we often take the purity of our tap water for granted. We shouldn't. Before it comes out of our taps, water in most cities usually undergoes a complex treatment process, often including filtration and disinfection. As good as our municipal water systems can be (and they can be very good), they also can fail -- sometimes tragically. In 1999, for example, more than 1,000 people fell ill at a county fair in upstate New York after ingesting an extremely virulent strain of E. coli bacteria; a three-year-old girl and an elderly man died when their bodies could not fight off the pathogen.
1 This is just one incident; health officials have documented scores of similar waterborne disease outbreaks in towns and cities across the nation during the past decade.
So, just how safe is our drinking water? In a careful and independent study, NRDC evaluated the quality of drinking water supplies in 19 cities around the country.
2 We selected cities that represent the broadest range of American city water supplies and reviewed tap water quality data, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) compliance records, and water suppliers' annual reports (material required by law in order to inform citizens of the overall health of their tap water; also called "right-to-know reports").
3 In addition, we gathered information on pollution sources that may contaminate the lakes, rivers, or underground aquifers that cities use as drinking water sources. Finally, we evaluated our findings and issued grades for each city in three areas:
* water quality and compliance
* right-to-know reports
* source water protection
NRDC found that, although drinking water purity has improved slightly during the past 15 years in most cities, overall tap water quality varies widely from city to city. Some cities like Chicago have excellent tap water; most cities have good or mediocre tap water. Yet several cities -- such as Albuquerque, Fresno, and San Francisco -- have water that is sufficiently contaminated so as to pose potential health risks to some consumers, particularly to pregnant women, infants, children, the elderly, and people with compromised immune systems, according to Dr. David Ozonoff, chair of the Environmental Health Program at Boston University School of Public Health and a nationally known expert on drinking water and health issues.
While tap water quality varies, there is one overarching truth that applies to all U.S. cities: unless we take steps now, our tap water will get worse. Two factors pose imminent threats to drinking water quality in America:
* First, we are relying on pipes that are, on average, a century old. The water systems in many cities -- including Atlanta, Boston, and Washington, D.C. -- were built toward the end of the 19th century. Not only is our water supply infrastructure breaking down at alarming rates (the nation suffered more than 200,000 water main ruptures in 2002), but old pipes can leach contaminants and breed bacteria in drinking water.
* Second, regulatory and other actions by the Bush administration threaten the purity of American tap water. These actions include: weakening legislative protections for source waters, stalling on issuing new standards for contaminants, delaying the strengthening of existing standards, and cutting and even eliminating budgets for protective programs. Read More...
NRDC: What's on Tap? - Executive Summary
That is exactly the "Cause - Effect" rather call "Karma"
This article is produced by NRDC.
This is a useful reference for all concern.
What's on Tap?
Grading Drinking Water in U.S. Cities
Executive Summary
Every day more than 240 million of us in this country turn on our faucets in order to drink, bathe, and cook, using water from public water systems. And as we do, we often take the purity of our tap water for granted. We shouldn't. Before it comes out of our taps, water in most cities usually undergoes a complex treatment process, often including filtration and disinfection. As good as our municipal water systems can be (and they can be very good), they also can fail -- sometimes tragically. In 1999, for example, more than 1,000 people fell ill at a county fair in upstate New York after ingesting an extremely virulent strain of E. coli bacteria; a three-year-old girl and an elderly man died when their bodies could not fight off the pathogen.
1 This is just one incident; health officials have documented scores of similar waterborne disease outbreaks in towns and cities across the nation during the past decade.
So, just how safe is our drinking water? In a careful and independent study, NRDC evaluated the quality of drinking water supplies in 19 cities around the country.
2 We selected cities that represent the broadest range of American city water supplies and reviewed tap water quality data, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) compliance records, and water suppliers' annual reports (material required by law in order to inform citizens of the overall health of their tap water; also called "right-to-know reports").
3 In addition, we gathered information on pollution sources that may contaminate the lakes, rivers, or underground aquifers that cities use as drinking water sources. Finally, we evaluated our findings and issued grades for each city in three areas:
* water quality and compliance
* right-to-know reports
* source water protection
NRDC found that, although drinking water purity has improved slightly during the past 15 years in most cities, overall tap water quality varies widely from city to city. Some cities like Chicago have excellent tap water; most cities have good or mediocre tap water. Yet several cities -- such as Albuquerque, Fresno, and San Francisco -- have water that is sufficiently contaminated so as to pose potential health risks to some consumers, particularly to pregnant women, infants, children, the elderly, and people with compromised immune systems, according to Dr. David Ozonoff, chair of the Environmental Health Program at Boston University School of Public Health and a nationally known expert on drinking water and health issues.
While tap water quality varies, there is one overarching truth that applies to all U.S. cities: unless we take steps now, our tap water will get worse. Two factors pose imminent threats to drinking water quality in America:
* First, we are relying on pipes that are, on average, a century old. The water systems in many cities -- including Atlanta, Boston, and Washington, D.C. -- were built toward the end of the 19th century. Not only is our water supply infrastructure breaking down at alarming rates (the nation suffered more than 200,000 water main ruptures in 2002), but old pipes can leach contaminants and breed bacteria in drinking water.
* Second, regulatory and other actions by the Bush administration threaten the purity of American tap water. These actions include: weakening legislative protections for source waters, stalling on issuing new standards for contaminants, delaying the strengthening of existing standards, and cutting and even eliminating budgets for protective programs. Read More...
NRDC: What's on Tap? - Executive Summary
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
Tallevast's toxic plume gets bigger
The issue of Ground water contaminations is not happening over night or yesteryear.
You see due to the industrailization & blooming populations especially the baby bloomer's era, the heavy use of chemical fertilizer & also years of using animal waste can add up altogether.
Therefore, the issue of Contaminations, if it is checked earlier, it would not be having a major issue today..
In my opinion, the whole mother earth ground water are contaminated.. The thing for us to do is to size up the contaminations & take step to put things right for our Great health.
Tallevast's toxic plume gets bigger
SCOTT RADWAY Herald Staff Writer
TALLEVAST - Groundwater contamination from the old American Beryllium plant has spread across 50 acres in this small community.
That area is double the size of the most recent estimate of the plume, according to a report released Tuesday.
"We were originally told the plume was contained to the (plant) site and had seeped off-site just a bit," said Laura Ward, president of the Tallevast community group FOCUS.
"And look at where they report put it today," she said.
It was in late 2003 that residents here were told not to worry, the cancer-causing solvents from the old plant had remained mostly on site.
The old plant sits like a hub of a wheel with spokes of homes running out in nearly every direction. But experts said only a few properties adjacent to the plant might be impacted, if any.
Then in 2004, state tests showed the plume was three times larger and some resident wells were contaminated. The report released Tuesday aims to finally map the plume, except for three remaining edges.
Lockheed Martin, which is responsible for cleaning up the contamination, prepared the report as part of a state consent order. The deadline for the report was Tuesday.
"I think we were all surprised the plume got as far as it did," said Gail Rymer, spokeswoman for Lockheed. "But now we know what we are dealing with and we can move very quickly to the (clean-up) phase."
Lockheed did not include a map of the plume with its report. Once the final three areas of contamination are plotted a map will be prepared, officials said.
Rymer explained that this round of tests was aimed primarily at determining the exact area of the contamination so it could be remediated.
If the Florida Department of Environmental Protection reviews and approves the report, Lockheed can begin hammering out the clean-up plan. Lockheed would have 45 days to offer a plan and then another 15 days to finalize it, said DEP Tallevast project manager William Kutash.
Rymer said some drilling continues in three areas of Tallevast where the last three edges of the plume need to be defined. Those areas - one northeast in a wooded area, one southwest on a golf course, and one southeast on farmland - still show small traces of contaminants and Lockheed will stop drilling only when no traces are found, she said.
The report on that work is expected to be sent to the DEP in early March. But a clean-up plan can be developed when DEP approves Tuesday's report, she said.
Kutash said a review usually takes 30 days, but this one will be expedited.
Rymer said even though the plume is larger, Lockheed believes no one in the community is still at risk to exposure. In May of 2004, the remaining residents using wells for drinking water were put on county water.
The plume runs out about 500 feet north of the plant on Tallevast Road, about 2,000 feet east, 1,000 feet west and 1,500 feet south of the site, Rymer said. A half mile is 2,640 feet.
County health officials said they could not comment on the report - which runs to more than 2,000 pages - until they had time to review it. County health officials have said on several occasions that drinking water wells in a half-mile radius around the plant were tested in 2004 to ensure no one was being exposed to contamination in the area.
Tim Varney, a health and environmental consultant for Tallevast residents, said once the report is reviewed, it can help the state ensure a cleanup is done properly and it can help county officials study what the health impact on the community has been.
"But there is an awful lot of work that has been done and it will take a while to review it," Varney said.
Manatee County was also awaiting the report to help it design an overlay district for Tallevast that could potentially require builders to take special care because of the contamination. The county also needs the data to evaluate a planned road widening project for Tallevast.
County planners and commissioners received copies Tuesday as well.
The main contaminant being tracked is trichloroethylene, or TCE.
Drinking or breathing high levels of TCE may cause damage to the nervous system, damage to the liver and lungs, abnormal heart beat, coma and possible death, according to the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
Lockheed has spent $3 million so far testing for it, Rymer said. TCE was found in highest concentration near the plant site and then its levels tapper off.
TCE is heavier than water and generally sinks until it hits an impermeable layer then moves horizontally, unless it finds a passageway to go deeper.
Rymer said the TCE is generally contained to the upper aquifer which runs down to about 30 to 40 feet where often clay layers prevent it from sinking further. The TCE in the upper aquifer was generally found at 20 feet or deeper because of its weight.
In some areas closer to the source, TCE was found deeper in the water table, going as deep as 278 feet in one site. In what is called the intermediate aquifer, Rymer said the majority of the contamination went down to 150 feet.
The deepest aquifer, called the Floridan aquifer, starts at about 300 feet and the contamination is not believed to have penetrated that layer.
As part of the report, Lockheed also did extensive soil testing. The report summary noted that sampling found low-levels of such things as arsenic in some samples. But Rymer said those levels did not present a health risk to residents.
Tallevast's toxic plume gets bigger
You see due to the industrailization & blooming populations especially the baby bloomer's era, the heavy use of chemical fertilizer & also years of using animal waste can add up altogether.
Therefore, the issue of Contaminations, if it is checked earlier, it would not be having a major issue today..
In my opinion, the whole mother earth ground water are contaminated.. The thing for us to do is to size up the contaminations & take step to put things right for our Great health.
Tallevast's toxic plume gets bigger
SCOTT RADWAY Herald Staff Writer
TALLEVAST - Groundwater contamination from the old American Beryllium plant has spread across 50 acres in this small community.
That area is double the size of the most recent estimate of the plume, according to a report released Tuesday.
"We were originally told the plume was contained to the (plant) site and had seeped off-site just a bit," said Laura Ward, president of the Tallevast community group FOCUS.
"And look at where they report put it today," she said.
It was in late 2003 that residents here were told not to worry, the cancer-causing solvents from the old plant had remained mostly on site.
The old plant sits like a hub of a wheel with spokes of homes running out in nearly every direction. But experts said only a few properties adjacent to the plant might be impacted, if any.
Then in 2004, state tests showed the plume was three times larger and some resident wells were contaminated. The report released Tuesday aims to finally map the plume, except for three remaining edges.
Lockheed Martin, which is responsible for cleaning up the contamination, prepared the report as part of a state consent order. The deadline for the report was Tuesday.
"I think we were all surprised the plume got as far as it did," said Gail Rymer, spokeswoman for Lockheed. "But now we know what we are dealing with and we can move very quickly to the (clean-up) phase."
Lockheed did not include a map of the plume with its report. Once the final three areas of contamination are plotted a map will be prepared, officials said.
Rymer explained that this round of tests was aimed primarily at determining the exact area of the contamination so it could be remediated.
If the Florida Department of Environmental Protection reviews and approves the report, Lockheed can begin hammering out the clean-up plan. Lockheed would have 45 days to offer a plan and then another 15 days to finalize it, said DEP Tallevast project manager William Kutash.
Rymer said some drilling continues in three areas of Tallevast where the last three edges of the plume need to be defined. Those areas - one northeast in a wooded area, one southwest on a golf course, and one southeast on farmland - still show small traces of contaminants and Lockheed will stop drilling only when no traces are found, she said.
The report on that work is expected to be sent to the DEP in early March. But a clean-up plan can be developed when DEP approves Tuesday's report, she said.
Kutash said a review usually takes 30 days, but this one will be expedited.
Rymer said even though the plume is larger, Lockheed believes no one in the community is still at risk to exposure. In May of 2004, the remaining residents using wells for drinking water were put on county water.
The plume runs out about 500 feet north of the plant on Tallevast Road, about 2,000 feet east, 1,000 feet west and 1,500 feet south of the site, Rymer said. A half mile is 2,640 feet.
County health officials said they could not comment on the report - which runs to more than 2,000 pages - until they had time to review it. County health officials have said on several occasions that drinking water wells in a half-mile radius around the plant were tested in 2004 to ensure no one was being exposed to contamination in the area.
Tim Varney, a health and environmental consultant for Tallevast residents, said once the report is reviewed, it can help the state ensure a cleanup is done properly and it can help county officials study what the health impact on the community has been.
"But there is an awful lot of work that has been done and it will take a while to review it," Varney said.
Manatee County was also awaiting the report to help it design an overlay district for Tallevast that could potentially require builders to take special care because of the contamination. The county also needs the data to evaluate a planned road widening project for Tallevast.
County planners and commissioners received copies Tuesday as well.
The main contaminant being tracked is trichloroethylene, or TCE.
Drinking or breathing high levels of TCE may cause damage to the nervous system, damage to the liver and lungs, abnormal heart beat, coma and possible death, according to the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
Lockheed has spent $3 million so far testing for it, Rymer said. TCE was found in highest concentration near the plant site and then its levels tapper off.
TCE is heavier than water and generally sinks until it hits an impermeable layer then moves horizontally, unless it finds a passageway to go deeper.
Rymer said the TCE is generally contained to the upper aquifer which runs down to about 30 to 40 feet where often clay layers prevent it from sinking further. The TCE in the upper aquifer was generally found at 20 feet or deeper because of its weight.
In some areas closer to the source, TCE was found deeper in the water table, going as deep as 278 feet in one site. In what is called the intermediate aquifer, Rymer said the majority of the contamination went down to 150 feet.
The deepest aquifer, called the Floridan aquifer, starts at about 300 feet and the contamination is not believed to have penetrated that layer.
As part of the report, Lockheed also did extensive soil testing. The report summary noted that sampling found low-levels of such things as arsenic in some samples. But Rymer said those levels did not present a health risk to residents.
Tallevast's toxic plume gets bigger
Monday, January 31, 2005
Researcher finds fluoride levels in tea can affect drinkers - Fluorosis
The fluoride level in Tap water is the main cause of the the patient faced - Fluorosis!!
From my research into tea production. It is unlikely due to the tea.
For these instants, it is best to check with the city authority; about their fluorosis contents.
The consummer need to know that the best thing for them to do is install a NSF certified Water Filter system, and also make sure that the replacement filter need to be change when it is due.
Researcher finds fluoride levels in tea can affect drinkers
By ALAN BAVLEY Kansas City Star
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Take it easy, tea drinkers.
A researcher at Washington University in St. Louis has found that some instant teas contain startlingly high concentrations of fluoride. When the tea is mixed with fluoridated tap water, the fluoride reaches levels that would set off alarms at the Environmental Protection Agency.
Brewed tea contains comparable amounts of fluoride, studies show.
"For someone drinking two or three glasses a day, I don't think it's a problem," said Michael Whyte, a professor at Washington University's School of Medicine. "But you can imagine somebody in Florida or Arizona drinking two or three quarts of tea a day."
That kind of imbibing caused big trouble for one of Whyte's patients.
The 52-year-old woman had a chronic backache. Her spine and hip bones were unusually thick.
Whyte determined she had fluorosis, a condition manifest by dense and dangerously brittle bones caused by excess fluoride consumption. But he couldn't figure out the source until his patient told him how much instant tea she had been drinking: 1 to 2 gallons a day. Double strength. Her entire adult life.
Whyte bought 10 kinds of instant tea, prepared it at regular strength and sent it to two labs. The fluoride ranged from 1 part per million to 6.5 parts per million. The EPA safety limit for drinking water is 4 parts per million, and the limit for bottled beverages is 1.4 parts per million to 2.4 parts per million.
Whyte wants to alert other doctors that they also may have patients with tea-induced fluorosis. "I reckon there's more cases of this," he said.
The Tea Council of the USA, reacting to Whyte's study, said that "when consumed as part of a healthy diet, tea poses no health risks and likely even provides health benefits."
KRT Wire | 01/30/2005 | Researcher finds fluoride levels in tea can affect drinkers
From my research into tea production. It is unlikely due to the tea.
For these instants, it is best to check with the city authority; about their fluorosis contents.
The consummer need to know that the best thing for them to do is install a NSF certified Water Filter system, and also make sure that the replacement filter need to be change when it is due.
Researcher finds fluoride levels in tea can affect drinkers
By ALAN BAVLEY Kansas City Star
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Take it easy, tea drinkers.
A researcher at Washington University in St. Louis has found that some instant teas contain startlingly high concentrations of fluoride. When the tea is mixed with fluoridated tap water, the fluoride reaches levels that would set off alarms at the Environmental Protection Agency.
Brewed tea contains comparable amounts of fluoride, studies show.
"For someone drinking two or three glasses a day, I don't think it's a problem," said Michael Whyte, a professor at Washington University's School of Medicine. "But you can imagine somebody in Florida or Arizona drinking two or three quarts of tea a day."
That kind of imbibing caused big trouble for one of Whyte's patients.
The 52-year-old woman had a chronic backache. Her spine and hip bones were unusually thick.
Whyte determined she had fluorosis, a condition manifest by dense and dangerously brittle bones caused by excess fluoride consumption. But he couldn't figure out the source until his patient told him how much instant tea she had been drinking: 1 to 2 gallons a day. Double strength. Her entire adult life.
Whyte bought 10 kinds of instant tea, prepared it at regular strength and sent it to two labs. The fluoride ranged from 1 part per million to 6.5 parts per million. The EPA safety limit for drinking water is 4 parts per million, and the limit for bottled beverages is 1.4 parts per million to 2.4 parts per million.
Whyte wants to alert other doctors that they also may have patients with tea-induced fluorosis. "I reckon there's more cases of this," he said.
The Tea Council of the USA, reacting to Whyte's study, said that "when consumed as part of a healthy diet, tea poses no health risks and likely even provides health benefits."
KRT Wire | 01/30/2005 | Researcher finds fluoride levels in tea can affect drinkers
Sunday, January 30, 2005
Chlorine factories a mercury mess?
This is serious!!!!!!
I am sure as a Businessmen , they ought to think about their social responsibility about people. Just imagine, if all their customer died of mercury poisoning. Then, their business have no customer's. What is the end result??
When I visit My parents home town in China again during the early 90's, I was sad to knew that the family Drinking well have to shut down after my 1st ancestor set up the 1st drinking water well in this island. The Well history is over 2,000 years. This Drinking water well actually served for the township with 5,000 population. I am told by the official that the well shut down due to Mercury poisoning.
Therefore, the coast of the that island is also affected as well. The fishes that along the straight opposite Taiwan may also contaminated. So you can imagine, if the action were not taken, the island total population of 600,000 may all be affect by mercury.
So, be it in China..Europe or USA..there must be a high standard & enforcement on contamination to our drinking water.
Chlorine factories a mercury mess?
Activists, industry spar over toxic metal emissions
The Associated Press Updated: 3:33 p.m. ET Jan. 26, 2005
WASHINGTON - Environmentalists on Wednesday released a report claiming that the nine factories in the United States still making chlorine with mercury are emitting dangerous amounts of the toxic metal. The industry acknowledged that tons of mercury are unaccounted for each year, but did not believe that the mercury is being dumped into the air or water.
Chlorine at such plants is made by pumping electrically charged salty water through a vat of mercury, a process devised more than 100 years ago. Environmentalists say these plants are a largely ignored and unchecked source of mercury pollution.
Mercury settles in waterways and accumulates in fish. In humans who eat those fish, the metal can cause neurological and developmental problems, particularly in fetuses and children.
Citing chlorine factories as a “major global source of mercury,” the Washington, D.C.-based environmental group Oceana called on the Environmental Protection Agency to require all the plants to convert to mercury-free technology by 2008.
“Fifteen years ago, Congress amended the Clean Air Act, which requires companies like these to continually improve to cut down releases of hazardous chemicals like mercury,” Andrew Sharpless, Oceana’s chief executive officer, said at a news conference. “But rather than enforce this law, the EPA is still giving these chlorine plants a pass and letting them continue to release tons of mercury every year with their 19th century technology.”
Industry's response
Arthur Duncan, vice president of safety and health for The Chlorine Institute, a trade group based in Arlington, Va., said emissions have been significantly reduced in the past decade.
“Certainly mercury has been a concern for a long time to people and it’s an environmental issue that we’re working to address,” he said.
The calculations of how much mercury is dispersed into the environment are in dispute. The industry, in reports to the EPA, says eight tons — about three 50-gallon barrels — were emitted in 2003.
For example, the companies said a plant in Muscle Shoals, Ala., emitted 1,757 pounds of mercury that year; another, in New Castle, Del., released 2,863 pounds.
But the environmentalists say these calculations may be wrong, because while the companies monitor the amount of mercury that goes out of their smokestacks, they merely estimate the amount that evaporates and leaves the factories through vents.
In addition, industry officials acknowledge that they cannot account for an additional 30 tons a year. They say that it could be stuck in factory pipes, and they are trying to find it.
The environmentalists are skeptical. They think even more mercury is missing, pointing out that more mercury is delivered to the plants each year than is going out — 65 tons more in 2000 alone, said Oceana’s Jacqueline Savitz, co-author of the report.
But industry officials say that mercury purchases do not necessarily equal mercury use, because some of it is simply stored to be used later.
EPA spokeswoman Cynthia Bergman said the question of where all this mercury went is very important to her agency, but that the EPA’s “best information indicates that the mercury is not being emitted into the air.”
Curbs on power plants
While total mercury emissions in the United States have fallen substantially since 1990, power plants remain the largest remaining human-caused source. They released 90,370 pounds of mercury into the air in 2002, the most recent year for which EPA data are available.
Federal guidelines released last February place strict limits on the amount of mercury that power plants can release.
They place no similar caps on chlorine plants, but do require more frequent emission measurements and equipment inspections, “significantly more stringent requirements” than had been in force before, said Vito Fiore, a vice president of Vulcan Chemicals, which has a plant in Port Edwards, Wis.
MSNBC - Chlorine factories a mercury mess?
I am sure as a Businessmen , they ought to think about their social responsibility about people. Just imagine, if all their customer died of mercury poisoning. Then, their business have no customer's. What is the end result??
When I visit My parents home town in China again during the early 90's, I was sad to knew that the family Drinking well have to shut down after my 1st ancestor set up the 1st drinking water well in this island. The Well history is over 2,000 years. This Drinking water well actually served for the township with 5,000 population. I am told by the official that the well shut down due to Mercury poisoning.
Therefore, the coast of the that island is also affected as well. The fishes that along the straight opposite Taiwan may also contaminated. So you can imagine, if the action were not taken, the island total population of 600,000 may all be affect by mercury.
So, be it in China..Europe or USA..there must be a high standard & enforcement on contamination to our drinking water.
Chlorine factories a mercury mess?
Activists, industry spar over toxic metal emissions
The Associated Press Updated: 3:33 p.m. ET Jan. 26, 2005
WASHINGTON - Environmentalists on Wednesday released a report claiming that the nine factories in the United States still making chlorine with mercury are emitting dangerous amounts of the toxic metal. The industry acknowledged that tons of mercury are unaccounted for each year, but did not believe that the mercury is being dumped into the air or water.
Chlorine at such plants is made by pumping electrically charged salty water through a vat of mercury, a process devised more than 100 years ago. Environmentalists say these plants are a largely ignored and unchecked source of mercury pollution.
Mercury settles in waterways and accumulates in fish. In humans who eat those fish, the metal can cause neurological and developmental problems, particularly in fetuses and children.
Citing chlorine factories as a “major global source of mercury,” the Washington, D.C.-based environmental group Oceana called on the Environmental Protection Agency to require all the plants to convert to mercury-free technology by 2008.
“Fifteen years ago, Congress amended the Clean Air Act, which requires companies like these to continually improve to cut down releases of hazardous chemicals like mercury,” Andrew Sharpless, Oceana’s chief executive officer, said at a news conference. “But rather than enforce this law, the EPA is still giving these chlorine plants a pass and letting them continue to release tons of mercury every year with their 19th century technology.”
Industry's response
Arthur Duncan, vice president of safety and health for The Chlorine Institute, a trade group based in Arlington, Va., said emissions have been significantly reduced in the past decade.
“Certainly mercury has been a concern for a long time to people and it’s an environmental issue that we’re working to address,” he said.
The calculations of how much mercury is dispersed into the environment are in dispute. The industry, in reports to the EPA, says eight tons — about three 50-gallon barrels — were emitted in 2003.
For example, the companies said a plant in Muscle Shoals, Ala., emitted 1,757 pounds of mercury that year; another, in New Castle, Del., released 2,863 pounds.
But the environmentalists say these calculations may be wrong, because while the companies monitor the amount of mercury that goes out of their smokestacks, they merely estimate the amount that evaporates and leaves the factories through vents.
In addition, industry officials acknowledge that they cannot account for an additional 30 tons a year. They say that it could be stuck in factory pipes, and they are trying to find it.
The environmentalists are skeptical. They think even more mercury is missing, pointing out that more mercury is delivered to the plants each year than is going out — 65 tons more in 2000 alone, said Oceana’s Jacqueline Savitz, co-author of the report.
But industry officials say that mercury purchases do not necessarily equal mercury use, because some of it is simply stored to be used later.
EPA spokeswoman Cynthia Bergman said the question of where all this mercury went is very important to her agency, but that the EPA’s “best information indicates that the mercury is not being emitted into the air.”
Curbs on power plants
While total mercury emissions in the United States have fallen substantially since 1990, power plants remain the largest remaining human-caused source. They released 90,370 pounds of mercury into the air in 2002, the most recent year for which EPA data are available.
Federal guidelines released last February place strict limits on the amount of mercury that power plants can release.
They place no similar caps on chlorine plants, but do require more frequent emission measurements and equipment inspections, “significantly more stringent requirements” than had been in force before, said Vito Fiore, a vice president of Vulcan Chemicals, which has a plant in Port Edwards, Wis.
MSNBC - Chlorine factories a mercury mess?
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