Water Filters News

Hudson River polluted by 100,000 gallons of raw sewage, baby wipes float down the river

Vicki Batts — Wed, 29 Mar 2017 04:26:26 +0000

The Hudson River is primarily located in the state of New York, where it stretches for hundreds of miles before breaking off into New Jersey. Industrial pollution, and the dumping of sewage and other wastes, has been a chronic problem for the river. Despite state and local governments’ attempts at keeping the water clean, it seems that the waterway is without respite. Like many other bodies of water in the world, pollution is a serious issue.

Recently, New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) revealed that thousands of gallons of raw, untreated sewage mysteriously spilled into the Hudson. The flow of wastewater is thought to have begun at around 4:00p.m. on Sunday, March 19. According to the DEC, the untreated sewage gushed into the river for an entire hour, and officials believe that some 100,000 gallons of wastewater was released into the waterway. The spill took place near the state’s capital city, Albany.

Snow causes sewage spill?

What could cause such a thing? The DEC has attributed the spill to a “snow melt event,” meaning that melting snow was too much for the local sewer systems to handle. This led to an estimated 75 minutes of untreated sewage flowing into the Hudson.

The sewage system in Albany that caused the spill is one of 76 “combined sewer systems” in the state of New York. As Time Out explains, “Those systems are generally associated with older municipalities, and are set up to have water from storm drains pour into the sewer system. When there is simply too much water in the system, the excess sewage pours into the adjacent waterway.” It appears in this case, the adjacent waterway is the Hudson River. “Combined sewer overflow” is what the entire phenomenon is called, but having a name for it doesn’t really make it any less disconcerting.

Many communities in the Hudson Valley obtain their drinking water from the river, though eating fish caught from the river is not recommended. The DEC reports that floating waste like baby wipes and other items have been seen making their way down the river, though that may not really be an unusual occurrence for one of the nation’s most polluted rivers.

The Hudson river has a history of pollution

In 2012, Environment New York conducted a survey of 1,900 rivers nationwide, and the Hudson was ranked as the 24th most polluted river in the United States. Environment New York is a citizen-based environmental advocacy group and their report, “Wasting Our Waterways: Industrial Toxic Pollution and the Unfulfilled Promise of the Clean Water Act,” investigated toxic discharges in waterways across the country.

Their report noted that the Finch Paper facility located in Glens Falls had released 1.4 million pounds of toxic waste into the Hudson in the year 2010. But that isn’t the only company to dump their leftovers into the waterway. For thirty years, General Electric dumped toxic polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, into the Hudson. Between 1947 and 1977, an estimated 1.3 million pounds of the toxic compounds were dumped into the river. GE did not begin to clean up the hazardous, toxic mess until 2009. According to the DEC, the level of PCBs and other contaminants in the water of the Hudson River, remains high enough to negatively affect the survival, growth and reproduction of the river’s inhabitants.

The DEC reports that it will take many more cleanups to deal with the PCBs and other existing contaminants, and notes that their efforts will not completely eliminate the problem. The agency also admits that research has revealed that there are many other contaminants being found in the river, such as antibiotics and hormones from drugs or personal care products.

The Hudson River has a history rife with contamination and pollution, and many of the toxic things poured into the waterway are sadly a lot worse than sewage.

Sources:

BIOSLUDGE BREW? California brewery now making beer out of recycled human sewage water… for real

Earl Garcia — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 17:10:38 +0000

Stone Brewing, the country’s ninth largest brewery based in Southern California, has recently introduced a beer made with treated sewage water. The company unveiled five barrels of their latest brew, called Full Circle pale ale, at an event Thursday last week to the approval of curious customers. The craft beer was made with 100% recycled water from San Diego’s Pure Water demonstration plant in Miramar.

“This particular water will just help us not require so much natural water to come in and give us a more reliable source. So for us to be able to reuse, that’s part of our mantra, that’s part of what we do,” said Stone Brewing’s chief operating officer Pat Tiernan.

The recycled water used in the beer only required some salts prior to the brewing process. The craft beer was made with three malts and three hops. Full Circle features a clean beer taste with a hint of caramel and tropical fruit notes. Full Circle is currently not available to the public.

The launch of their new craft beer was part of the city’s $3 billion initiative called Pure Water San Diego. The program aims to get a third of its water supply from recycled sources by 2021. That equates to about 30 million gallons of treated water consumed per day. San Diego City officials hope to process enough recycled water by 2035 to meet at least a third of the city’s drinking water supply.

San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer said the creation of Full Circle is an example of what the water treatment project may hold in the future.

San Diego pushes for self-sufficiency with $3 billion reclaimed water project

San Diego City’s water treatment initiative, which began in 2011, aims to counter the effects of drought on water supply, and to prevent the city from relying too much on outside sources for water. Roughly 85% of the city’s water supply comes from outside sources that are located hundreds of miles away. The project has the potential to help San Diego secure its own water supply by transforming up to 83 million gallons of waste water into safe, potable water for daily consumption by 2035. According to Brent Eidson, Deputy Director of External Affairs at San Diego’s Public Utilities Department, the project’s water filtration process goes through five stages of purification and nearly clears the water of everything.

The city has moved to expedite the program to secure its water supply from potential calamities concerning two of its primary water sources. The Colorado River, being one, has become notorious for its history of droughts. New research indicates that global warming may further exacerbate its already-depleting flow by as much as 35% by 2100. “If you’ve been aware of the hydrology over the last few years, it’s been stressful, it’s been strained. We know here in California droughts are cyclical in nature and become a little bit more longstanding and harder to predict when they’re going to break. We want to make sure we’re not at the whim of some atmospheric rivers that may or may not come this year,” Eidson stated.

On the other hand, the Northern California Bay Delta is likely to suffer greatly when a major disaster such as a massive earthquake strikes the area, Eidson said. “The levees [along the San Francisco Bay] are definitely old and in need of infrastructure. If certain ones were to fail we could have significant seawater intrusion into the raw water supply, which means we would be cut off anywhere from six months to a year,” Eidson added.

We can only hope the water recycling system also removes all the pharmaceuticals, pesticides, hormone disruptors and heavy metals found in human biosludge. Watch the video documentary trailer at Biosludged.com to learn more.

Sources:

Fluoridated water found to be a factor in the development of ADHD

Ethan Huff — Tue, 21 Mar 2017 03:27:54 +0000

Many health experts claim that it’s an important part of maintaining healthy teeth that are free of cavities. But new research published in the journal Environmental Health says that artificially fluoridating public water supplies with the toxic waste byproducts of aluminum and fertilizer production is harming children, and appears to be directly linked to rising rates of learning disabilities like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD.

Ingesting fluoride chemicals like hydrofluorosilicic acid via treated drinking water was shown in the research to contribute to a problem that more than six percent of American children currently face. Children who have trouble paying attention in class, are hyperactive, or who have trouble controlling their impulses could be the victims of a chemical assault that, for many decades, has been disguised as one of the “greatest” public health interventions of all time.

Contrary to popular belief, the synthetic fluoride chemicals added to most public water supplies in the United States are not the same as naturally-occurring calcium fluoride, a mineral that occurs in some places in nature. These synthetic fluoride chemicals are a major environmental risk factor for ADHD, the study found, and yet almost no research has taken place into this possible link, despite ever-rising rates of ADHD and similar learning disorders in children.

“States in which a greater proportion of people received artificially-fluoridated water in 1992 tended to have a greater proportion of children and adolescents who received ADHD diagnoses [in later years], after controlling for socioeconomic status,” Ashley Malin, one of the lead authors of the Environmental Health study, from York University in Toronto, Canada, is quoted as saying by Newsweek.

Fluoride exposure linked to damaged thyroid, decreased cognition, and lowered IQ

Similar research out of the U.K. linked fluoride ingestion to thyroid disease, noting that fluoride displaces minerals in the thyroid that keep it functioning normally. Both children and adults are affected by exposure to fluoride, the study found, noting that exposure just from drinking water alone — this doesn’t take into account exposure from food, toothpaste, and other sources — is enough to push some people over the edge.

Pregnant women are especially vulnerable, as fluoride has been shown to directly cross the placenta and accumulate in the brain of a developing baby inside the womb. As its pathological effects proceed, these fluoride chemicals can continue accumulating until they reach a point of causing severe neurotoxic effects, damaging attention span, learning, and memory.

Tests revealed that children who are exposed to typical levels of fluoride in water — between 1.2 – 3 milligrams per liter (mg/L) — showed increased urinary concentration of fluoride. This marker is indicative of problems like poor visual-spatial organization, slowed reaction times, and an impairment of ability to read and write.

Ingesting fluoride at “optimal” doses is also linked to decreased IQ levels in children, as evidenced in numerous studies looking at intelligence and brain development. No matter how you look at it, fluoride is always a detriment, and almost never shows any positive benefits whatsoever in independent tests.

Sadly, millions of children are exposed to fluoride from other sources than just public water supplies. Concentrated fruit juices, processed foods, and conventional toothpastes are often loaded with fluoride chemicals, adding to the overall fluoride burden that is poisoning the bodies and brains of children and adults alike. It’s an epidemic that requires just one solution: to immediately stop fluoridating all public water supplies for the safety of the public.

“Fluoride appears to fit in with a pattern of other trace elements such as lead, methylmercury, arsenic, cadmium and manganese — adverse effects of these have been documented over time at exposures previously thought to be ‘low’ and ‘safe,'” says Caroline Martinez, a pediatrician and researcher at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital.

Follow more news about fluoride at Fluoride.news.

Sources for this article include:

NaturalHealth365.com

Newsweek.com

How to find water in the city after a collapse

JD Heyes — Mon, 20 Mar 2017 17:12:08 +0000

Many social and political scientists have said they’ve never seen our country as divided as it is now, at least not in their lifetimes. A good number of them even worry that someday soon, some event – a protest, a riot, a murder of a top figure – will trigger a series of events that will leave many of our urban centers in utter chaos and ruin.

Some financial experts think the end times will come as a result of a major economic collapse which, given our national debt of around $20 trillion, is entirely possible.

Either way, one commodity that will be in short supply, and very quickly, is water. Most people are aware that water is the key to life, but they don’t understand just how quickly the human body perishes without water. On average, a person dies after only three days without water – 72 hours. We can go a longer time without food, but not without water. (RELATED: Know And Understand These Water Survival Myths So You Can Better Protect Your Family.)

As noted by Business Insider, some people could survive three full weeks without food (Ghandi did it – 21 days). But because our bodies are about 65 percent water and every living cell needs it to function, it’s much more vital.

“You can go 100 hours without drinking at an average temperature outdoors,” Claude Piantadosi of Duke University told NBC News. “If it’s cooler, you can go a little longer. If you are exposed to direct sunlight, it’s less.”

Many Americans who live in rural areas have water on their property – a well. But for city dwellers, where most of the population lives, that’s not an option. So, in an urban collapse scenario, where would you find a regular supply of potable water?

— Your own stash: A good rule of thumb is to always have a supply of emergency rations and water at your own home or apartment. A stash may just get you by long enough for water service to be restored if it is interrupted by civil strife. How much should you stash? Considering that under normal circumstances we consume about a half-gallon per day, you can take it from there. If you have little storage space, that will also influence how big your stash can be. To make your water last longer, buy store-able foods that don’t need water to reconstitute, like military MREs.

Tip: Keep water in your car, too, so that you have some if you have to get out of the area quickly.

— Water-containing devices: If the water in your dwelling shuts off, that doesn’t necessarily mean all water to your city is off. Maybe all you need to do is travel a few blocks in any direction to find a building with a working sink.

If sinks don’t work, for the first few weeks anyway, you may be able to find water in toilets or water heaters in abandoned homes and businesses. Office buildings very often have bottled water coolers, and that water may remain fresher longer.

Tip: No matter where you find water, after a few days it is liable to begin attracting or growing bacteria or otherwise become fetid. Make sure you have a way to boil your water, no matter where you find it. You can also cleanse it with bleach, but that takes some figuring; review this procedure well in advance before relying on it. Too much bleach ingestion will make you sick; too little won’t properly cleanse your water and make you sick. Boiling is the best way; boiling for just a few minutes is all you need.

— Water all around: In many cities there are parks with lakes and other bodies of water running through them, like rivers and streams. These, of course, will become decent sources of water. But again, you’ll have to have some way of cleaning the water; you can either boil it, or purchase a decent water filtration system. Whatever you do, you don’t want to get sick; you can dehydrate quickly and die from diarrhea very quickly.

Tip: Get a map of your city and find out if or where potential sources of water are located. Take time to go there so you know how to find those sources in an emergency.

— Gather things that hold water: Anything like an empty soda bottle with a lid or similar product can be gathered and used to hold water when you do find some. If you’ve got your own bottled water stash, you’ve already got a built-in replenishment system, of course.

A little planning now before a major emergency in the city will go a long way towards ensuring you have a water supply to help you survive. Learn more at NaturalNews.com.

J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.

Sources:

NBCNews.com

Bugout.news