Are you drinking the water? Seattle Mom? Anyone else???

My email jwade83@hotmail.com

Thanks again.

Hi Lynnwood Grandmother and PNW Mom!

I would love to connect and discuss these issues with you. I live near Lynnwood. :-) My email: seamom@ymail.com

Since May, I have been emailing and calling our local Region 10 EPA office for the updated drinking water testing, which they finally promised to post mid-August. (Their last sample was taken on March 28, prior to the late Spring/summer snow melt which if it contained fallout from Fukushima, could possibly affect our water supplies.) As of Sept. 4, still nothing has been posted. I am wondering if they are being restricted in what they are allowed to report? Or are they just so underfunded/staffed they don't have the manpower to adequately update their own database?

Their latest email response to my inquiry:

"Your email is being forwarded to our Drinking Water Unit for review. You
should receive a response soon."

Note they've been stalling on this issue about getting updated drinking water test results since May.

However, interestingly, their last email to me also included these two links, one to the state EPA website on our drinking water:

http://www.epa.gov/ow/states/wa.html

and the other link, to a report on the dangers of Radon in our drinking water:

http://www.epa.gov/radon/rnwater.html

Quote from the EPA website link above: "The NAS report (BEIR VI) issued earlier this year confirmed that radon is a serious public health threat. This report goes on to refine the risks of radon in drinking water and confirms that there are drinking water related cancer deaths, primarily due to lung cancer. The report, in general, confirms earlier EPA scientific conclusions and analyses for drinking water, and presents no major changes to EPA's 1994 risk assessment."

Is this "Radon" dangers report a euphemism for the dangers of the potential presence of any and all other radioisotopes in our water, which perhaps the EPA's local offices are not authorized to mention? Perhaps. I can't help wonder, what with all the silence and delays in updating their regular "quarterly" results. But if in fact it were only the presence of Radon we needed to be concerned about, that of course would be enough reason for the public to try to do as much of our own filtering of our water as possible.

However, the other very real concern I have is due to what I learned from reading the recent AP three-part expose about how a majority of our nuclear power plants are leaking Tritium (and who knows what else?) into the groundwater (some of which has reached local drinking wells).

My concern (which I think should be EVERYONE'S concern) is that according to the EPA, tritium CANNOT be completely filtered out of water. This to me would mean it is likely difficult to filter other radioisotopes in general out of our drinking water. (Perhaps our water treatment companies in the U.S. are just not properly equipped to do such filtering? And with current budget cuts, how likely would it be they would get such updated filtering equipment???)

It appears their current solution apparently is to simply DILUTE the contaminated water; i.e. add uncontaminated drinking water supplies to the tritium-tainted supply, so the levels of contamination are "permissible" (In my book, ZERO levels should be permissible, given the fact that any amount of exposure to radiation could cause cancer, or other health problems.)

However, the BIG question which no one in our government agencies seem to be asking (at least to my knowledge) is:

What happens when --due to the ongoing "permissible releases of radiation" into our environment from the venting of radioactive steam from our 100+ U.S. nuclear power plants, as well as leaks into groundwater from improperly stored radioactive waste such as the #1 EPA Super Fund site at Hanford (some of whose millions of gallons of previously improperly-stored radioactive waste from the Cold War area is moving in groundwater towards the Columbia River), and radiation releases into our atmosphere from burning and mining of coal and from uranium mining, and the ongoing releases into the atmosphere from Fukushima--What happens when our water supplies become so tainted that there are NO MORE clean water supplies to dilute with???

Which of our representatives in our state or federal government are asking this VERY IMPORTANT question??? We cannot simply pretend this issue doesn't exist and "pass the buck" on to our children and grandchildren's generations. That is IMMORAL. We need to do whatever is humanly possible to STOP any further releases of generations-lasting radiation into our environment. (Read online about how the entire nuclear fuel cycle, from mining, transporting and processing uranium even prior to powering up nuclear power plants poisons our environment. The lie of "clean" nuclear energy generation is just that: a lie, as it obfuscates the fact that the entire cycle is involved, not just the power plant operation.) :-(

FYI: The EPA Website Statement on Radon in Drinking Water:

"National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Report on Radon in Drinking Water "Risk Assessment of Radon in Drinking Water."

A report released September 15, 1998, by the National Academy of Sciences is the most comprehensive accumulation of scientific data on the public health risks of radon in drinking water. The report was required by the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). The NAS report (BEIR VI) issued earlier this year confirmed that radon is a serious public health threat. This report goes on to refine the risks of radon in drinking water and confirms that there are drinking water related cancer deaths, primarily due to lung cancer. The report, in general, confirms earlier EPA scientific conclusions and analyses for drinking water, and presents no major changes to EPA's 1994 risk assessment."

P.S. Read a recent GAO report on the EPA's drinking water reports...It found there were quite a number of states who were IMPROPERLY reporting their drinking water test results to the EPA: http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-381.

(Obviously not the EPA's fault, but what an eye-opener...If we can't trust our states to do proper testing and reporting and the EPA is dragging its feet on updated test result reporting, who CAN we turn to for trusted, transparent reporting of this very real public health concern???

Anyway, contact me at: seamom@ymail.com and let's talk.

And thank you for your interest and concern for the health and safety of our children! :-)

P.S. I am sad to report that after playing outside at a park with my child yesterday, last night my child had a bloody nose, and again this morning. It was just spots of blood, not flowing like the poor children in Fukushima are experiencing, but it makes me very concerned that whatever radiation has made its way here to Seattle, it is in the dirt and air and our children are breathing it in. Was the blood from that? I do not have proof, but perhaps a medical test could tell us?

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11257320&whse=BC&Ne=4000000&eCat=BC|114|49255|87111&N=4042064&Mo=15&No=2&Nr=P_CatalogName:BC&cat=87111&Ns=P_Price|1||P_SignDesc1&lang=en-US&Sp=C&hierPath=114*49255*87111*&topnav=

This is the one we got right away when I realized exactly how long our stored water was going to last. Just cooking too so much and all my daughter drinks is water. It was easy to install if you already have a hole in your sink for a soap dispenser or a dishwasher gap that you can mount the faucet into. Costco had a coupon when we got ours so it was cheaper. There is also a zero waste one but we can't have it here in CA, maybe you can in Washington.