Bad Water and The Axis of Evil
Sounds like a monster—movie, doesn’t? As I sat in a friend’s
office we chatted for an hour about society, behavior patterns and such. She, a
new grandmother not nearly age sixty stated,
“You know what I’ve noticed around this area?”
I replied, “What would that be?”
“There are quite a few children nowadays with disabilities
in our area.”
“Well, I’ll tell you a reason.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. In my town we have a great child-study team in our school
system. We also accommodate many of the county’s hearing impaired children. And
with that, may come other ailments with the hearing-impaired children. And
perhaps some people move into town for better access to such services.”
“Oh, that makes senses.”
“Yeah. Now are you ready to hear why else that may have that influx in our town along with a few of the surrounding towns around us?”
“What else?”
“We have been advised by our water company that our drinking
water is not potable to pregnant women, the elderly, small children, neither the
immune-compromised. And the cancer rates are high for our little town.”
In lieu of this conversation…So goes our drinking water. We’ve
been notified that the PFOA and PFOS numbers of 31 plants, 24 being currently active in the third quarter of 2022—well
exceeded the MCL (maximum containment levels) PFOA safe guidelines placed by
the NJDEP for drinking water of 14 parts per trillion.[1] This
is based on the running annual average of four most recent quarters. As of the
third quarter 2022 in twenty of the plant’s point of entry—The parts per trillion
ranged between 18 parts per trillion to 30 parts per trillion.[2] Those
numbers far exceed what the NJDEP’s 14 parts per trillion of PFOA safe standard
by at least 28.5%, and as much as more than double the NJDEP’s safe MCL standard
of PFOA in drinking water. Too, the NJDEP’s MCL for PFOS is 13 parts per
trillion. And those PFOS numbers exceeded that standard by over 25%.[3]
In the title here, I’m comedically using the phrase “Axis of
Evil”, used by our 43rd POTUS George W. Bush. It is to demonstrate how
many of us may feel overwhelmed. Perhaps even apathetic at so much bad news at
the same time with things we may or may not be able to control. The axis of
evil I see, are some back seat drivers convincing people to forget about
what truly matters. These people who have or had much power, are wielding it to
destroy democracy for their own egos. They are convincing some that others are
to blame. That all the problems, some quite common and normal in society are
somebody else’s fault. That it’s not about greed, nor power. But you see it is all
about greed and power. When people invite hatred and intolerance. And use their power to submit a country
because their ego has been bruised by not winning an election it imparts evil
doings on a global scale. Which includes the mishandling of the safety of our
drinking water.---Jody-Lynn Reicher
[1]
https://water.ridgewoodnj.net/pfas-resources/
[2]
https://water.ridgewoodnj.net/pfas-resources/
[3]
https://www.nj.gov/health/ceohs/documents/pfas
drinking%20water.pdf and http://www.nj.gov/dep/pfas/index.html
Comments
Post a Comment