Last month, PBS Frontline aired a new, enthralling documentary, Poisoned Waters, in which journalist Hendrick Smith asks, “What’s poisoning America’s waters?’
Smith’s discoveries are shocking. You can watch the full Poisoned Waters documentary online (for free) at pbs.org. There is also a Poisoned Waters website chock-full of valuable information.
If you don’t have time to watch the entire documentary, here are some highlights:
Three decades after the passage of the Clean Water Act, many of our waterways are still too polluted for fishing or swimming. Chemicals banned long ago continue to enter our drinking water, and new chemicals are so disruptive to life that male fish and frogs are becoming feminized and producing eggs. That’s just not right! Imagine what these chemicals are doing to our children. Poisoned Waters explores some sources of this persistent water pollution.
Chesapeake Bay, the country’s largest estuary, is like a canary in a coal mine, warning of environmental disasters which lie ahead. In Chesapeake Bay, it’s not uncommon to find frogs with six legs or male frogs with ovaries. Like most of American’s waterways, Chesapeake Bay is in trouble.
Agricultural Pollution and Dead Zones
Agriculture is the main source of water pollution for Chesapeake Bay. I’m not talking about mom and pop organic farmimg – I’m talking about industrial agricultural production that produces industrial waste.
Agricultural pollution causes “dead zones” in waterways. The pollution, consisting primarily of animal waste and chemical fertilizers, contains high levels of chemicals like nitrogen and phosphorus. When these chemicals wash into streams that lead to Chesapeake Bay, they cause an algae boom in the bay (because the algae feeds off these waste products). However, when the algae begin to die off, the decomposition process sucks up all the oxygen in the water. The result: Nothing that requires oxygen can live; this includes crabs, oysters, clams, fish, etc. Dead zones.
Dead zones account for 40% of Chesapeake Bay. And there’s a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico that’s the size of Massachusetts! Sadly, dead zones are popping up in waterways all over the world.
Endocrine Disruptors and Intersex
Don’t be surprised if you see hundreds of fish floating belly-up in the water. Looking for the cause behind massive fish kills, researchers discovered something very interesting about the male bass fish in the Potomac: they were producing eggs in their testes. Again, that’s just not right!
Endocrine disruptors are causing intersex among fish and amphibians. Unfortunately, these chemicals are everywhere in our environment – in personal care products, cleaning products, lawn care products, rubber products, plastic products, etc. Most endocrine disruptors are petroleum-based chemicals that were developed during or since World War II. (The oil industry has devastated our planet like no other!)
Endocrine disruptors mimic natural hormones in the body. That’s why they caused the feminization of male fish in the Potomac. These chemicals not only disrupt estrogen and testosterone levels, but they also disrupt thyroid function, reproductive function, and immune system function.
In fact, nobody really knows how much damage these chemicals are causing – because the even EPA doesn’t know how to measure, much less regulate, many of these new chemicals . . . but scientists do know that they are extremely powerful at infinitesimally small quantities. It doesn’t take much poison to cause a male fish to start producing caviar.
“The long-term, slow-motion risk is already being spelled out in epidemiologic data, studies – large population studies,” says Dr. Robert Lawrence of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.
“There are 5 million people being exposed to endocrine disruptors just in the Mid-Atlantic region, and yet we don’t know precisely how many of them are going to develop premature breast cancer, going to have problems with reproduction, going to have all kinds of congenital anomalies of the male genitalia, things that are happening at a broad low level so that they don’t raise the alarm in the general public.”
Again, the EPA does not regulate these chemicals because they don’t even know how to measure many of them. Water treatment is not intended to remove these chemicals, and tests show that about 2/3 of them are still in drinking water after the treatment process.
Are you worried yet? You should be! But there’s no reason to panic. You can make sure that your family has safe water by investing in a home water filter.
PCBs and Storm Water Runoff
On the other side of the country, Puget Sound off the coast of Seattle faces its own environmental catastrophe.
PCBs, cancer-causing chemicals which are so toxic that congress banned them decades ago, are still flowing into Puget Sound. The carcinogens can be found in the local salmon, whales, and yes, humans, too – even mothers’ milk. Sadly, little ones are more susceptible to the dangers of PCBs.
PCBs are still entering the Puget Sound because they’re still in the environment, even though they were banned in the 1970s. Scientists refer to them as “legacy pollutants.” (Some legacy, huh?)
In many cases, PCBs are in industrial equipment and building materials; as the materials erode, storm water runoff carries these chemicals from industrial areas to streams and rivers that lead to Puget Sound.
Overdevelopment plays a big role in storm water runoff pollution. When the natural earth gets covered by pavement and concrete, the water cannot seep into the ground. Storm water runs along these man-made surfaces, picking up all the pollutants in its path. Then it carries these pollutants into waterways. To solve the problem of water pollution, we’ll have to address some fundamental flaws in our culture. We must control the pace of development and leave room for nature.
We don’t have much time to act, and yet it seems like we’re a long way from a lasting solution. Until then, if I were you, I wouldn’t eat the fish from any rivers downstream from American cities.
