Clean water is the lifeblood of a community, yet homes across America are able to get Cable TV and the Internet, but have no ability to get clean water. Jennifer Hall-Massey of Charleston, W. Virginia, relies on drinking water that is trucked in and stored in barrels on her front porch.
The bathwater is so heavily contaminated with lead, nickel and other heavy metals, it has produced painful rashes, which have caused her youngest son to have scabs on his arms, legs and chest. Many of his brother’s teeth have had to be capped in order to replace enamel that has been eaten away.
A lot of people in the neighborhood apply special lotions after showering, because of skin burns.
Instead of being real life, this all sounds as if it is a scene from a sci-fi movie. Tests have revealed that the tap water holds arsenic, barium, lead, manganese and other chemicals, at levels that federal regulators allege could contribute to cancer, damage the kidneys and cause harm to the nervous system.
Hall-Massey joined 264 of her neighbours in prosecuting nine local coal mines, blaming them for letting dangerous waste material to seep into the local water supplies. A few of the companies divulged that they were pumping illegal concentrations of chemical into the ground. The exact same pollutants that flowed from the residents’ taps.
Yet, state authorities neither penalized nor fined those companies, even though they were contravening four decade-old pollution laws.
In America alone, in just the last five years, chemical factories, manufacturing plants and other industries have violated the pollution laws. There have been more than 500,000 breaches registered, ranging from failing to report emissions, to unlawfully removal unacceptable levels of toxins. However, the polluters in large, continue unpunished.
Lisa P Jackson ,the new E.P.A. administrator state “Despite many successes since the Clean Water Act was passed in 1972, today the nation’s water does not meet public health goals and enforcement of water pollution laws is unacceptably low”.
Research has illustrated that on average, one in ten Americans have been exposed to drinking water that contains dangerous chemicals, or fails to meet federal health requirements. This includes being exposed to carcinogens in tap water and harmful chemicals in wells. It is believed that unregulated wells are more possible to contain contaminants than municipal water systems.
National Resources Defense Council’s four-year study disclosed that one third of the 103 brands of bottled water they investigated, had levels of contamination. One brand sampled, that was labeled ‘Spring Water’, actually came from an industrial parking lot next to a toxic waste site.
The idea of moving to a tropical island where there is fresh air, clean water and organic food is becoming more and more attractive. However, it is a life-style that only a few will experience, such as on the tropical island of Vanuatu.
A four-year study by National Resources Defense Council found one third of the 103 brands of bottled water contained levels of contamination. One brand sampled, that was labeled ‘Spring Water’, actually came from an industrial parking lot next to a hazardous waste site.
The thought of moving to a tropical island where there is clean air, clean water and organic food is becoming more and more attractive. A life-style that only a very few will experience, such as on the tropical island of Vanuatu.
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