Fluoride – it’s more than just toothpaste!

©2011 Inorganic Ventures, Inc.

Fluoride.  It’s good for your teeth and bones!  It’s a communist mind control plot!  It prevents cavities!  It’s highly toxic!  These arguments have raged for many, many years over the practice of adding fluoride to drinking water, and will likely rage for many years to come.  Fluoride is the (-1) oxidation state of the element fluorine, and if you don’t remember about oxidation states, see the previous article on chromium (VI).  It does indeed help prevent cavities by forming an acid resistant coating on your teeth which is less likely to break down in the presence of the acids formed by plaque causing bacteria in your mouth.  And it can be toxic in high enough doses; but just like with most things, it’s the dose that makes the poison.  A little can be good, too much can be bad. The effects of fluoride on tooth decay were first discovered in the late 1800’s as scientists began researching the cause of the tooth streaking and mottling people get when exposed to high concentrations of naturally occurring fluoride.   It was also noticed that in these same areas, the incidence of tooth decay was a great deal lower than the average.  It didn’t take long before someone put two and two together, and by about 1945 municipalities started adding fluoride to the drinking water in an attempt to prevent tooth decay.  By the early 1950’s, studies had been conducted that showed significant reduction in the number of cavities in those areas where fluoride was being added.  And to this day, not a single one of those areas has been over-run by communists!  Public health and wellness organizations, such as the American Dental Association and the Centers for Disease Control, still recommend the addition of a small amount of fluoride to drinking water in those areas where it is not naturally occurring.  Fluoride has been in the news quite a bit recently in the United States because changes as to the recommendations on the amount of fluoride to be added to drinking water have been proposed.  Currently, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommended range is 0.7 mg/L to 1.2 mg/L, but they are proposing to change it to just 0.7 mg/L, making it the same as the current recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control.  The EPA is also reviewing the Primary Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) for fluoride, which is currently 4.0 mg/L, and the Secondary Maximum Contaminant Level (SMCL), which is 2.0 mg/L; California has its own primary MCL of 2.0 mg/L.  There is some fluoride in almost all groundwater, but generally it is below the current MCL’s and SMCL’s.  However, there are many places in the U.S. where the fluoride levels may be at or slightly exceed 0.7 mg/L.  If this level were to become an enforceable standard, then many water systems would have to implement fluoride removal treatment, which can be quite costly.

A little hexavalent chromium information.

©2011 Inorganic Ventures, Inc.

On December 20, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) released a report on a “study” they did regarding chromium (VI) in drinking water.  Since then there have been a lot of newspaper and other media reports coming out talking about the same thing, so here’s some background info on the whole issue.  Chromium (VI), which you’ll also see as chrome(VI), chrome-6, chromium-6, Cr (VI), hexavalent chromium, and many other variations on that theme, is a form of the metallic element chromium, which you used to be able to find on the bumper of every car.  Other uses for this metal have included plating of other metallic parts; manufacturing stainless steel; producing dyes; as a wood preservative; and as an additive for anti-corrosion purposes.  The (VI) or 6 part is a chemical designation that refers to what’s called the oxidation state of the element, which relates to the number of electrons the atom has. In this case, it is the highest oxidation state of chromium, the others being (II) and (III), with (III) being by far the most common. Although too much chromium in any state would not be good to eat, it is the highest oxidation form, chromium (VI) which is most reactive, and therefore of greatest concern from a health perspective. Small quantities of chromium (III) are actually required by all of us for proper sugar metabolism, but because chromium (VI) is so much more reactive, it can be disruptive to cellular metabolism and is a proven cancer causing agent when inhaled; it’s effect when ingested at low levels is still open to debate.   Although there is no EPA or state regulation requiring monitoring or treating for Cr (VI), a Public Health Goal (PHG) of 0.02 ug/L has been proposed in California.  Once a PHG has been formalized, then the process for determining an MCL will begin, and will take into consideration the economic and technical aspects of treating for this compound.

What the Heck is Perchlorate?

With the problems with perchlorate in many areas of the United States that have been in the news and that many, if not all of you, have heard about, you may be wondering what this chemical is and why it’s a problem. So I thought I’d talk a little bit about that, as well as some rather peculiar relationships between perchlorate and another chemical a lot of people in the drinking water and waste water business work with every day – more on that later.
Perchlorate is the most highly oxygenated form of chlorine – a chlorine atom with 4 oxygen atoms attached (see chart below). Usually, the more oxygenated something is, the more unstable and reactive it is. But perchlorate is quite stable, although definitely reactive, and having a stable molecule that packs a lot of oxygen atoms and is normally found as a solid is what makes it so important in manufacturing. Of course, when it dissolves in water is when it’s a problem for many of us.

Perchlorate is valuable as a source of oxygen for combustion, which is why the solid rocket boosters of the space shuttle contain 350 metric tons of the stuff. That’s also why it’s widely used in road flares, fireworks, and other explosives, like the detonators that fill the airbags if your car is in an accident. When perchlorate gets into the groundwater or surface water and then into our drinking water, it can have serious health effects. Perchlorate is an endocrine disrupting compound (EDC) in that it affects the proper uptake of iodine by the thyroid gland, a part of the human endocrine system. Improper thyroid function can lead to osteoporosis, as well as problems with metabolism and body temperature regulation, among other things.
A related, but less highly oxygenated compound that is use every day in many drinking water systems to disinfect the water supply is hypochlorite, generally applied as sodium hypochlorite, a liquid, or calcium hypochlorite, a solid. Hypochlorite is a chlorine atom with one oxygen atom attached (see chart), and is an excellent disinfectant, ensuring that the water we drink is free of the harmful pathogens, such as cholera, that plague so many people in the world. But hypochlorite can change form and add oxygen atoms as it ages, changing into chlorite and chlorate, and eventually becoming perchlorate. That’s one reason it is recommended that hypochlorite is never stored for more than 30 days, because small amounts of perchlorate may be formed given the right conditions.

Unsafe drinking water, in the developing world, and in this world.

Louisville, KY shoe donation drive to provide safe, clean drinking water for developing countries - http://goo.gl/Uwe5



Pescadero, CA farm owner Marchi gets two more weeks to remove nitrates from farm laborers water supply; endless delays - http://goo.gl/gQOI

I often see news stories like the one in the first Tweet above – good people in America working hard through one means or another to help provide clean safe drinking water to some developing nation. And what a worthy goal that is – unsafe drinking water kills over 3.5 million people each year, almost half of which are children under 5 years old, and makes millions more sick. That’s a horrible, horrible tragedy, and it’s great that people here in this country spend their time, give their effort, and donate their money and materials to help try and save some of those lives and alleviate some of that pain and suffering. It makes you proud to be an American, and I salute those people.


The news story behind the second Tweet above makes me not so proud to be an American. Pescadero, CA is a small farm town about 20 miles west of the Silicon Valley, home to dot com and other computer industry multi-millionaires and billionaires. The laborers at this particular farm were supplied by the farm owner with drinking water containing 6 times the Maximum Contaminant Level of nitrate, enough to kill an infant. And this is not the only place this is happening; nitrates in particular, but other contaminants as well, are a serious and growing problem all over California and the country. When a relatively affluent, large metropolitan area is faced with these issues, the municipal water supply invests the money to treat the water and make it safe for the people living there to consume. But when these issues occur in rural areas, areas inhabited by the poor, by farm laborers and migrant workers, there is no money many times to provide treatment. And since these people have no political voice, since they are not only “The huddled masses”, but the hidden masses, many times no one comes to their aid. They are either forced to consume water with unsafe levels of contaminants or spend an inordinate amount of their income on bottled water. And this is not in some developing, third world country; it’s here, in our backyards, very likely just a few miles from where you now sit. This is an even worse tragedy, which in a country as great as ours, where most of us take a safe water supply for granted, there are those who may be ill and possibly die for lack of clean water.


I still think that good Americans taking the time to help those in developing countries is really great; they really are to be commended. But it would be nice to see a few more headlines extolling the virtues of those Americans who help people living right here in America who struggle with the same problems as those in the developing world.

Water System control: Public vs. Private

Rialto, CA to discuss outsourcing Water Department to American Water - http://goo.gl/OMhc

CDPH Questions Livingston's financial ability to provide safe water  - http://goo.gl/lCdP

Two of my recent Tweets are an excellent example of the issues facing water systems all over California and the entire country in regard to how those systems will continue to provide clean, safe drinking water to their customers in a world where providing that service gets ever costlier.

 

Rialto, CA, a Southern California city of 100,000 whose motto is “Bridge to Progress”, wants to outsource the operation of its drinking water, waste water, and recycled water systems to American Water (AWK), the largest investor owned water utility in the United States. Existing Rialto employees are concerned they will lose their jobs when the private operator takes control, and rate payers are worried that rates will increase – a lot. Both concerns are valid. Some, perhaps many, of those employees will indeed lose their jobs, no matter what anyone in the Rialto city government or American Water says. It’s just a fact, and everyone should acknowledge that. And rates will rise – how could they not? Rialto is selling off the operations because it’s costing them too much money and they can’t make ends meet. As elected officials, the City Council has a hard time raising rates to make ends meet, because it will mean the end to their political career. What better answer for them than to sell of the operations and let someone else be the bad guy for raising rates? And rates will need to be raised, not because American Water are greedy capitalists, but because water systems are expensive to operate, get more costly every day, and the money to run them has to come from the rate payers. It’s that simple. People have to get used to paying for water what its worth, something completely foreign to most Americans, who pay more for their entertainment in the form of a cable TV bill than they are willing to pay for life sustaining water. Go figure.

Livingston, CA, is located in California’s great central valley half way between Stockton and Fresno with a population of 14,000. The city motto is “The Last Stop”, and I have no idea what that means. But they are approaching their last stop in their operations of their water and waste water systems; combined budgets for those services are $1.6 million in the red, or $114 per capita, and the total is growing by the day. The situation is growing serious enough that the California Department of Public Health is concerned that the city may not be able to operate their water systems, and that the citizens of Livingston are in jeopardy of losing their source of safe, clean water. And all because those same citizens don’t think it’s their responsibility to pay for the guarantee of safe water; that they should not have to pay for water based on how much water they actually use; and that they should pay only a fraction (less than half) of what it would actually take to keep the utilities solvent. And by refusing to pay, they immediately put themselves and their children at risk: one of Livingston’s wells, a well used as a source of supply, exceeds the secondary Maximum Contaminant Level for manganese, which has been identified in recent studies as a potential cause of reduced intelligence. Perhaps that explains things.

Both of these cities are facing issues of how to pay for rising costs of providing drinking water and waste water services to their citizens. Each is going through pain and suffering, in a very real sense, in dealing with those issues and we can only hope that those same citizens will see the importance of supporting the very services that keep them alive.

Coliform Bacteria - How to Define "Safe" Water

How to Define "Safe" Water? Southern California study highlights the limits of bacteria used as fecal indicators - http://goo.gl/C9LF

I recently made reference to this headline in a Twitter post, and how true it is. For both water in the environment and drinking water, the EPA relies on the occurrence of fecal indicators, which are usually bacteria that can be found in sewage. These are often referred to as Coliform bacteria, or total Coliform. The 14th Edition of Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Wastewater defines total Coliform as a group of bacteria which is aerobic and facultative anaerobic, gram-negative, nonspore-forming, rod shaped bacteria which ferment lactose with gas formation within 48 hours at 35°C. This definition may define a particular type of bacteria, many of which may be found in mammalian intestinal tracts, and particularly in human intestinal tracts, but there are, unfortunately for us, many bacteria that fit this definition that can also exist quite nicely in the “outside world”, so to speak. When these bacteria are found in a water sample, it is looked upon by most of the regulatory community as an indication of possible fecal contamination of that water. But in fact, that may be very far from what is actually happening. It may just be indicative of a case where that bacterium is naturally prominent in the local area.

For example, I have seen test results from groundwater wells that are total Coliform positive, indicating a potential for fecal contamination. When the bacteria causing this sample of water to be total Coliform positive is analyzed further to see exactly what species of bacteria are present, it turned out to be Enterobacter cloacae. This bacterium does indeed occur in the intestinal tract of humans and other mammals. It also occurs in the guts of insects; in the soil; in surface and ground waters; on plants; and even inside of various fruits. The point here is that many of these bacteria that are used as indicators of potential fecal contamination can live almost anywhere. They are the epitome of an opportunistic life form: they don’t need oxygen, but can live in its presence; they can tolerate a wide range of temperatures, pH’s, moisture conditions, etc.; and they can use many sources of energy as a food source. Because of their flexibility, they can live almost anywhere, not just the mammalian gut, so their use as an indicator of fecal contamination of water is questionable. A better method would be to use a more specific group, such as fecal Coliform bacteria, or even a single organism, such as Escherichia coli, also known as E. coli. And, in fact, the regulatory community, with the EPA in the lead, is beginning to come around to this way of thinking as exhibited in new and pending regulations. The recently enacted Groundwater Rule uses E. coli or other very specific fecal organisms as the indicator; and the EPA is proposing changes to the Total Coliform Rule that also reflect the reality of the ubiquitous nature of Coliforms in the environment. That, in my opinion, is a trend worth furthering.

This Is A Truly Awesome Video, And It's Why I Think The Water Industry Is So Important.


Solidarités International: Water talks from La Boite Concept on Vimeo.