A Little Home Truth
I hate to say "I told you so." But it keeps happening.
Scientific Panel Says Erin Brockovich Was Right. "Sixteen years after activist Erin Brockovich first suggested that hexavalent chromium in drinking water might be a health hazard, a federal scientific panel has agreed with her. " That's a direct quote. And to be accurate, you have to add on a year or two more to get to the day I first started looking into and talking about the undocumented underestimated dangers of hexavalent chromium.
Now there's another batch of scientists who are verifying what I've been talking about. Again. There's an article titled AP Probe Finds Drugs in Drinking Water which says "A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows."
I won't say I told you so. It only means that it takes science a little while to catch up with what people observe. (Wait...haven't I been saying that too?)
I won't say I told you so. Though I have been talking about the importance of clean water all along. The importance of having clean water should be apparent to everyone who drinks water. (That includes all of us, right?) Where else do all the groundwater contamination lawsuits come from? There is contamination out there. Water contamination is more widespread than any of us would like to believe.
Other people are saying "I told you so" too. Even Environmental Sociologists like Michael R. Meuser, M.A. Take a look at this website that maps 179 groundwater contamination sites in Santa Clara County alone. 179 contaminated sites in a single county. Why isn't everyone up in arms over the contaminated state of our most essential resource?
But I shouldn't say "I told you so." It's not just industrial solvents, like trichloroethylene, or TCE, a potentially potent carcinogen typical of what industry allows to leach into the water table. This latest probe reveals unexpected findings like prescription drugs dissolved into our drinking water. After all, it makes sense. People take pills; pills dissolve and that water eventually re-enters the water system. The probe talks about pharmaceuticals like medications for pain, infection, high cholesterol, asthma, epilepsy, mental illness and heart problems, anti-epileptic and anti-anxiety medications, mood-stabilizers, even sex hormones. Adding chlorine, which kills biotic toxic agents, makes it worse. Reverse osmosis--a water purification method--does remove even pharmaceuticals that we don't test for but it is prohibitavely expensive, and it can't be done at every source of contamination, like leaky private septic tanks.
But I won't say "I told you so."
Currently, I am the President of the consulting firm, Brockovich Research & Consulting, where I am involved in numerous major environmental cases 
Comments
I wish people listened more. I live in Arlington, Tx -one of the cities which refuses to cite what drugs were found in the water due to 9/11 threats. Seriously-are terrorists really going to say "Wow we can add x to their water and it will kill out that suburb and get our point across!"-very unlikely. If they were going to mess with the water supply I think they would have already. Now they know they dont have to. We are killing ourselves drinking it the way it is! Minute amounts or not there should either be a full release of what I put in my body as well as my children and pets or get with the reverse osmosis. The sad thing is that many bottled water companies use tap water and people feel that it is safer. Instead its just expensive water in a bottle. We are doomed if we dont start taking care of our earth. Maybe instead of doping everyone up we can figure out what is depressing them and help that. I understand heart medicines etc but so many doctors just toss meds at people if they say they have been down lately. Its a horrible practice and it does effect all of us.
Posted by: Amy Wood | March 11, 2008 3:30 PM
You know? Isn't it funny? Once it was just negligent utility companies screwing up the water and now?????
Posted by: Dean Elyjah | March 13, 2008 5:26 AM
Erin,
I hope that you will broaden you clean water fight to include the cessation of water fluoridation. It makes these trace pharmaceuticals look like child's play. I also think it's related to your lawsuit against the alumina factory in Australia.
If you read Christopher Bryson's "The Fluoride Deception," or visit http://www.fluoridealert.org
you can find lots of information about environmental pollution outside those types of plants in the US in the 40's and 50's. The hydrofluorosilicic acid dumped into our drinking water is caught in the pollution scrubbers at superphosphate fertilizer plants in Florida. It's never been approved or tested by the FDA.
Much thanks!
Posted by: Julie | March 13, 2008 11:15 AM
Hi Erin,
I wish you were here in Naperville, IL. right now.
We are having a battle with our school board. They are wanting to build a New High School on property owned by Midwestgen and currently has a peaker plant on it! There is an organization called NSFOC trying to fight them.
Here's the kicker, Midwestgen is doing their own inspection of the property!
The school board already admitted that they wouldn't buy the property before because it was contaminated and now they are purchasing it when they could easily build the school elsewhere. Any ideas?
Posted by: Margie | March 19, 2008 12:05 PM
"Reverse osmosis--a water purification method--does remove even pharmaceuticals that we don't test for but it is prohibitavely expensive..."
When I saw the movie, and realized Hinkley was only about 40 miles away from Fort Irwin, I became very interested in the quality of our water here on post. Indeed our water table does have far too much floride, and trace elements of arsenic, but we do have Reverse Osmosis in every home and most building structures on post.
Is that really all that is necessary to ensure the water is safe? It seems too simple.
A few years ago I lived in a trailer home they had here on post, and there was a cross contamination in the water lines near the home. I wasn't notified, while others were, and I only learned about it the following year while reading the anual water report. I sort of lost confidence in the RO water after that. Maybe I should give it another chance? Which would you recommend? RO or bottled?
Posted by: Susanna | April 17, 2008 12:58 PM
The toxins that are in Concrete Wastewater are the same cancer causing agents that are in Cement Dust, Drano etc. However, the regulators in Arizona and Nevada still allow Concrete to be washed out onto the ground. Is it going to take our grandchildren and their childern to get sick before anything is done in that industry? I appreciate all your work and education Erin.
Posted by: Steve | May 2, 2008 8:25 AM
I found your site by looking to see if anyone had ever tried a class action lawsuit against the drug companies for marketing too many drugs for profit and killing our water supply.
Anyone aware of any attempt at this?
Posted by: Linda Rex | June 16, 2009 5:44 AM