I-Team: Radiation in your tap water - part 1

Comment:  The nut cases in our part time VA govt thinks uranium mining will not hurt us, put look at the EPA statement: “All you need is one cell to go bad,” he said, to initiate the beginning stages of a cancerous event."!  The uranium coming out of VA ground hitting the fracture rock will spread to our wells and rivers and ruin our water!  Texas did not tell their residents right away, does VA do the same?  No to u mining!

by Mark Greenblatt /
11 News Chief Investigative Reporter
khou.com, Posted on November 9, 2010 at 10:00 PM

HOUSTON -- Hundreds of water providers around the Gulf Coast region are providing their customers with drinking water that contains radioactive contaminants that raise health risks, according to state lab results and public health scientists.

The revelations came to light during a four-month KHOU-TV investigation, which examined thousands of state laboratory tests from water providers across Texas. The data, provided by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), ranged from 2004 to the present.

The radiation was first discovered as a part of required testing, under federal regulations, of all drinking water provided by community water systems in America.

In Texas, the Department of State Health Services provides an independent lab to test the water for potential contaminants of all kinds and forward results to both the water system and TCEQ. Much to the surprise of many people, hundreds of water companies along the Gulf Coast and all across Texas pump water with some amount of radiation inside.

One particular type of radiation that popped up again and again in water provided by utilities all across Texas, was something called alpha radiation, which public health scientists say can be particularly problematic when consumed.

“The alpha particle -- this is the 800-pound gorilla of radioactive particles,” said Dr. David Ozonoff, an environmental health professor and chair emeritus of the Boston University School of Public Health.

Ozonoff obtained a medical degree from the Cornell University School of Medicine and serves on the Massachusetts Cancer Advisory Committee.

He said drinking water with any amount of alpha particles, even when consumed in amounts below federal legal limits, raises your risk to develop health problems or, in rare cases, cancer. Examples of alpha particles found in the Gulf Coast region are those from uranium, radium and other minerals.

Ozonoff describes alpha particles as a type of radiation that would not typically harm you unless inhaled or ingested. He warns, once you take it inside your body, your health risks immediately begin to rise.

“It can't penetrate very far, but when it hits something it does a ferocious amount of damage,” he said.

“If I were to drink it, then many parts of your body are within knife-wielding distance of an alpha particle.”

Ozonoff said the danger in drinking alpha particles is that you bring them inside your body and right up against sensitive organs, where the alpha particles can damage DNA and create a possible mutation in your cells. He says the more you drink, the more you raise your risk for cancer.

In fact, even the EPA says "a single 'wild’ cell can give rise to a cancer,” and that “a single alpha passing through a cell is sufficient to induce a mutational event.”

The EPA made the disclosure in the federal register as part of the National Primary Drinking Water Regulations 2000 final rule that regulates all forms of radioactive elements in drinking water.

The “zero-threshold” allowance for radionuclides, from a health-based standard, is one reason why the EPA set the drinking water federal health goal, called the MCLG (Maximum Contaminant Limit Goal), at zero for all forms of ionizing radiation. Other potential contaminants in drinking water such as copper, selenium, barium, chlorine residuals, trihalomethanes, and many others that are not radioactive elements, all have goals set above zero.

The EPA notes there are some who disagree with its conclusion that any amount of radiation has the ability to cause a mutation. However, it states in the federal register that EPA “believes its position is based on weight of evidence and support from national and international groups of experts interested in radiation protection.”

However, the EPA sets a “legal” limit for these contaminants above zero, which it calls the MCL (Maximum Contaminant Level). The government cannot force a water system to take action to clean up radioactive drinking water until the system exceeds that legal limit. However, as it pertains to radioactive materials in particular, Ozonoff says you are still put at risk if they are present, even in quantities below that legal limit.

“All you need is one cell to go bad,” he said, to initiate the beginning stages of a cancerous event.

While potential mutations could take place at any time when radionuclides are consumed, the risks are relatively small. For instance, the EPA estimates “a radiogenic cancer risk of slightly less than one in 10,000” for communities that consume drinking water over a lifetime with enough alpha radiation from uranium to reach the MCL of 30 micrograms. The odds have been calculated to be even lower for alpha derived from other isotopes.

But MUD #105 did disclose those violations to residents in two annual water-quality reports. However, neighborhood resident Kareen Tolbert thinks both the MUD and regulators had a moral obligation to do more.

Attorney Taylor Goodall, who represents the board of directors for MUD 105, says the MUD also began mailing out more detailed warning notices in December of 2009. The notices contained language in capital letters saying “THIS IS NOT AN EMERGENCY” and also telling residents “you do not need to use an alternative water supply.”

Goodall says as soon as the MUD’s board was notified of a legal violation, it also began to take steps to limit the flow of water from the most radioactive water well that the utility owns, which he says still remains in limited service during high-demand times.

But residents like Felicia Byford and Tolbert, who both have young children, believe the MUD should have reduced the flow of that well long ago.

But KHOU found out that MUD 105 is not alone.

In fact, there are water providers all over Harris County that show alpha particles, according to state testing.
In the water system’s last six tests for alpha, performed in 2009 and 2010, it more than doubled the legal limit for that type of radiation as well. The federal legal limit is set at 15 picocuries (a measurement for radiation), and the water system measured between 33 and 43 picocuries in all six of its most recent tests. In addition, the Suburban Mobile Home Park 2 exceeded the federal legal limit for uranium in eight of its last 10 tests.

The only two test results that did not exceed the legal limit for uranium include one where the result equaled the legal limit and another where it fell one microgram below the legal limit.

KHOU also obtained a database of every enforcement action TCEQ has taken over the last six years and noted no actions had been taken against Harris County MUD #105.

However, seven days after TCEQ released its database of enforcement actions to KHOU, the agency then entered into a compliance agreement with MUD 105, but has not fined the utility.

Read more:
http://www.khou.com/home/I-Team-How-safe-is-your--water--107010754.html#