Paging Erin Brockovich
- Posted by: Cord Jefferson
- on July 17, 2009 at 9:00 am
No one seems to want to admit when American water isn’t safe to drink. Instead, they try to hide it.
For years, U.S. health officials have claimed that although the drinking water at North Carolina’s Camp Lejeune is contaminated, it poses no danger to Marines or their families. This April, the government reversed itself, saying that its assessment of the water contained “omissions” and “inaccuracies,” and adding that a million people over the course of three decades may have been exposed to the carcinogen benzene in their water. Fifteen hundred former Lejeune Marines, some of whom are now afflicted with rare lymphomas, have filed lawsuits seeking more than $33 billion. Sadly, Lejeune is just one of the many recent poisoned-water cover-ups in American history. There are others going on all the time. Here are some more of the worst.
Location Brooklyn, New York
Years 1800s to 1950s
In the largest petroleum spill in American history—three times bigger than the one caused by the Exxon Valdez—between 17 and 30 million gallons of oil and waste were gradually dumped from Brooklyn’s once-bustling refineries into Newtown Creek, an estuary dividing Brooklyn from Queens. In the decades since, the spill has seeped into the groundwater and now gurgles under a 55-acre swath of the Greenpoint neighborhood. While the area’s drinking water comes from distant reservoirs, benzene-laced sludge is slowly making its way to the surface. The cleanup remains only half complete.
Location Niagara Falls, New York
Years 1950s to 1970s
Why would Hooker Chemical sell the charming Love Canal neighborhood to the city of Niagara Falls for just $1? Perhaps because Hooker had used the canal as a dumping site for 20,000 tons of its waste. When the city built low-income housing and a school on the buried canal and its surrounding land, it failed to warn citizens about the mountain of poison beneath them. Soon, children were coming home with chemical burns, women passed poison on to their children through breast milk, and neurological problems and cancer rates rose sharply. In 1979, the EPA called the town’s miscarriage rate “disturbingly high.” Eventually forced to intervene, the federal government relocated all 800 Love Canal families.
Location Woburn, Massachusetts
Years 1964 to 1979
In the mid-1970s, when children in East Woburn began dying of leukemia at unusually high rates, parents correctly feared tainted groundwater. Since the 1960s, workers at a W. R. Grace & Co. Cryovac food-packaging facility had been dumping waste trichloroethylene, a toxic solvent, onto the ground behind the plant. And Beatrice Foods, which owned a local tannery, was storing 55-gallon drums of waste near the Aberjona River. Seven families sued, and a notoriously loopy trial (documented in the book A Civil Action) saw Beatrice acquitted and Grace fined only $8 million, most of which went to legal fees.
Location Hinkley, California
Years 1970s to 1980s
A small town near natural-gas pipelines in the middle of the Mojave Desert, Hinkley was the perfect place for one of Pacific Gas and Electric’s compressor stations. The company began storing cooling-tower water in unlined ponds, assuring residents that the hexavalent chromium added to the water to prevent rust was safe for consumption. But when the chromium leached into the groundwater, Hinkley citizens began experiencing a number of ailments, including cancers and birth defects. In 1993, with the help of a legal clerk named Erin Brockovich, the townspeople sued and won $333 million in damages.
Location Washington, D.C.
Years 2001 to 2004
Washington’s Water and Sewage Authority became aware that dangerous amounts of lead had seeped into the city’s drinking water. The water authority hid its findings until a 2004 Washington Post article exposed the elevated lead levels. Along with many others, a father of twin boys exposed to the contaminated water is now suing the WASA for $200 million, alleging that problems associated with his sons’ lead poisoning costs his family upwards of $40,000 per year.
DISCUSSION: 286 Comments
We need to do more to protect our waterways! Check out Christopher Swain (www.changents.com/christopherswain), a change agent swimming in some the dirtiest water in the U.S. to promote the importance of protecting our waterways.
we all can do something about our water problems. For instance we can drink cleaner water and help the enviornment http://www.mygvbiz.com/jaeshampton we just have to make a change. like making clener water from air
Pay attention people. This is about to happen to all New Yorkers both NYC and residents of the Southern Tier of NY State. There will be drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale formation via hydro fracking, a process that has been notoriously associated with benzene and other toxics finding their way into the water supply. The gas industry and the politicians who support it and seek the revenue for NY State tell us that the process will be closely monitored. Not possible for many reasons. . A beautiful pristine part of the country, the source of clean water for millions, is about to become the next superfund site. Check out http://www.un-natural gas for more info. Learn more and cry out
I am all for clean water and conservation of our resources. Can someone tell me why our highly technological society does not make desalination plants and use the vast oceans of water at our disposal. This certainly would alleviate issues in the state of California and western states. It may even contribute to the replenishment of our groundwater. It certainly should be green and accepted by the communities it could serve. Thank you!
If we can’t trust our official reports on our drinking water-what can we do?
And this is surprising? At FT Drum last year I saw a sign in one of the military buildings that flat out said it was unsafe for civilians to drink from the water fountain. Military personnel are either more expendible, or have higher tolerancy to contaminated water sources.
I agree and found that Watermill Express out of Colorado has the best answer to this problem – look at http://www.watermillexpress.com Quick, Fast, Affordable solutions on many fronts. They have locations around the country and it is only a matter of time until they are in all major markets.
I wonder if bottled spring water is safe to drink. Tequila is getting kind of old, now
Well in Cedar Rapids,IA right after the flood of 08.I’ve had alot of health problems due to the live mold particles in the air and water here and no one is saying anything about it.Affraid everyone will run away and the money will be gone.Iowa is a bunch of greedy people.Let us die here just so they don’t lose the money.
How about 3M’s widespread contamination of ground water in Washington county, MN? The problem is far more widespread than suggested by these few stories.
How about Shell Oil and their benzene contamination of North Phoenix in the late 1980s? Cancer clusters followed by complete denial of responsibility on their part
why don,t people go to jail who do this to us !!!!!!! this is such B.S. get it together America, we are your backbone!!!!!FREEDOM!
90 plus percent of our water the the US is full of fluoride also.
Oh no the sky is falling the sky is falling. Ok lets look at this blurb for what it is, we have a population of Marines that get cancer. Hmmm I think that is natural. Second our technology to detect trace elements has increased immensely in the last decade to levels unseen previously. Third, a new administration has come on board that has changed the mentality of the different government agencies to an attitude that we are nanny state and everyone is a victim so these Marines need to sue.
Come on people wake up…. The benzene in this water should be cleaned up and we should not allow this to happen but correlating this to a health issue is a stretch. The trial lawyers are going to have a hay day with this. I tell you what, lets take the money we use to pay of the lawyers and use it to clean up the water. HMMMM know that’s an idea.
Regarding the water pollution at Camp Lejeune, I never would have known there was a problem until waiting in line to pay for groceries I saw a Newsweek that looked interesting. Within it’s pages I saw the large blue seal of the Dept. of the Navy, Camp Lejeune Historical Water Project. Of course I was interested as our family was stationed there during the late 50’s. As I read it I found that the well water had been polluted with PCE and ECE the same pollutants in the Brockovich saga. This makes it the third class action suit I belong to due to my father’s lifelong service to this country. Soes anyone else find the title give this debacle just a bit ironic: The Camp Lejeune Historical Water Project?
My children and I were in Camp Lejeune 40 years ago, my daughter was borned there, and my son was conceived there also, we still suffering the consequences of the polluted waters in Camp Lejeune, probably they will do something after we all die. I ended up in a psychiatric hospital, my daughter and my son were borned with birth defects. My life was miserable. But I paid the consequences of somebody elses irresponsabilities. I believe we all are.
I’m employed by a large metropolitan water company as a water quality analyst. Given the information I’ve gathered over 16 years in this industry, I’ve determined that we can’t expect the local and federal government to protect us. It’s up to us to protect ourselves. The best solution is point of use treatment. I have a reverse osmosis unit at my drinking water tap, followed by UV disinfection. Unfortunately, it’s become a matter of personal responsibility.
I moved to a small town next to an electricty plant and I just assumed that after all the law suits and supposed regulations, it would be safe for me and my family until I finished school but now I know its not safe and I have no money to leave. With the same electricty company telling us that it is safe they should help me move but you know that is not happening. They are just going to continue overcharging for power and distroying everthing around.
Hi – I’m Angel from San Jose, California. I have lived a healthy lifestyle all my life – never drank or smoked, etc. Growing up in San Jose I thought the water tasted terrible but I drank it because I was thirsty and we couldn’t afford bottled water. As I got older I came down with Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma – a form of cancer. I have had it three times. I have survived two bone marrow transplants and all kinds of chemo. I have always wondered if the water was the cause of my cancer. Could all the chemicals in the water effect the immune system and lead to cancer?
I lived at Camp Lejeune for 10 years. There are many, many families that finally received some help after suffering family members had numerous problems from infertility, brain cancers, prostrate problems, spina bifida, just to name a few. It’s awful what “they” are getting away with…. “They” are responsible for and should be charged with attempted murder and murder! Who is going to hold these officials responsible?
To LabRat being employed at a large metropolitan water company you can afford the extra filters and don’t spout off with how you don’t really make that much because you make more than minumum wage. And just so you know I go to school full time (4.0GPA) and work full time with 3 kids and a husband who also works. I will not always be without money but not everyone has the opprtunity and support to dig themself out of a hole that they were born in.
In college I took a death eduacation course which required a behind the scenes tour of a funeral home. During the visit I learned that the blood removed from the body before embalming is poured directly down the drain, no matter the illnesses or medications that may be in their blood. There are no regulations that prevent this although blood samples at a lab must be disposed of as hazardous material. Millions of people die every year and thier medication and disease tainted blood is in our water system. Anyone else concerned about this!?
Does anybody wonder what risk Patient’s in Hospitals might be in? If they are already sick doesn’t bathing in and drinking this water pose a potential threat to their recovery?
Invest a good water filter treatment at home/office.
Move to the midwest!