ICR's Global Source Center

What you need to know about chlorine.

“Dear EarthTalk: I am very concerned about the amount of chlorine in my tap water. I called my water company and they said it is safe, just let the tap run for awhile to rid the smell of chlorine. But that just gets rid of the smell, perhaps, not the chlorine?” – Anita Frigo, Milford, CT

Thousands of American municipalities add chlorine to their drinking water to neutralize contaminants. “Chlorine, added as an inexpensive and effective drinking water disinfectant, is also a known poison to the body,” says Vanessa Lausch of filter manufacturer Aquasana. “It is certainly no coincidence that chlorine gas was used with deadly effectiveness as a weapon in the First World War.” The gas would severely burn the lungs and other body tissues when inhaled, and is no less powerful when ingested by mouth.

Lausch adds that researchers have now linked chlorine in drinking water to higher incidences of bladder, rectal and breast cancers. Reportedly chlorine, once in water, interacts with organic compounds to create trihalomethanes (THMs) – which when ingested encourage the growth of free radicals that can destroy or damage vital cells in the body. “Because so much of the water we drink ends up in the bladder and/or rectum, ingestions of THMs in drinking water are particularly damaging to these organs,” says Lausch.

The link between chlorine and bladder and rectal cancers has long been known, but only recently have researchers found a link between common chlorine disinfectant and breast cancer, which affects one out of every eight American women. A recent study conducted in Hartford, Connecticut found that women with breast cancer have 50-60% higher levels of organochlorines (chlorine by-products) in their breast tissue than cancer-free women.

But don’t think that buying bottled water is any solution. Much of the bottled water for sale in the U.S. comes from public municipal water sources that are often treated with, you guessed it, chlorine. A few cities have switched over to other means of disinfecting their water supplies. Las Vegas, for example, has followed the lead of many European and Canadian cities in switching over to ozone instead of chlorine to disinfect its municipal water supply.

As for getting rid of the chlorine that your city or town adds to its drinking water on your own, theories abound. Some swear by the method of letting their water sit for 24 hours so that the chlorine in the glass or pitcher will off-gas. Letting the tap run for a while is not likely to remove any sizable portion of chlorine, unless one were to then let the water sit overnight before consuming it. Another option to consider may be a product called WaterYouWant, which looks like sugar but actually is composed of tasteless antioxidants and plant extracts. The manufacturer claims that a quick shake of the stuff removes 100% of the chlorine (and its odor) from a glass a tap water. A year’s supply of WaterYouWant retails for under $30.

Of course, an easier way to get rid of chlorine from your tap water is by installing a carbon-based filter, which absorbs chlorine and other contaminants before they get into your glass or body. Tap-based filters from the likes of Paragon, Aquasana, Kenmore, Seagul and others remove most if not all of the chlorine in tap water, and are relatively inexpensive to boot.

GOT AN ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTION?
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BP has turned to the web in an attempt to avert further criticism of its handling of the ongoing Gulf of Mexico oil leak.

The energy company is to follow up a $50m US TV ad campaign with global digital activity aimed at defending its role in the crisis.

It will spend up to $1m a month buying keyword search terms on Google and YouTube and has dedicated resources
to responding to queries and comments made on social-media sites.

President Obama recently criticised BP’s spending on TV ads, suggesting the money could have been better used to help ‘fishermen or small businesses here in the Gulf who are having a bad time’.

Nonetheless, the company plans to continue running a series of campaigns informing the public of its efforts to clean up the oil.

The latest is a digital campaign that directs web users entering relevant search terms to a dedicated BP website. A sponsored link, running globally on Google, includes the message: ‘Learn more about how BP is helping.’

Similarly, searches on You­Tube that include keywords such as ‘oil spill’ and ‘BP’ bring up a link to a video message from embattled BP chief exec­utive Tony Hayward.

The activity, which also includes Flickr, Twitter and Facebook, is being implemented by Purple Strategies, a US agency that specialises in handling controversial public issues.

According to Giles Palmer, chief executive of Brandwatch, which measures companies’ online reputations, BP’s standing has been damaged by its poor management of the crisis. However, he believes that the company can still regain some of the trust it has lost.

“Imagine the celebrations around the world if we all felt part of the efforts to cap this leak,’ he said. ‘It could actually provide BP with an amazing platform to show just what it will do when the chips are down. This may be asking a lot, but it could happen.”

Meanwhile, BP has been targeted by environmental campaigners. Greenpeace placed a banner on the company’s London offices branding it ‘British Polluters’ and has launched a competition inviting the public to redesign BP’s logo.

Source: Marketing Magazine

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BY PAUL STAMET

Paul Stamet’s Statement on Mycoremediation and its Applications to Oil Spills.

The BP oil spill has inflicted enormous harm in the Gulf of Mexico and will continue to do so for months, if not decades, to come. While we will need a wide array of efforts to address this complex problem, mycoremediation is a valuable component in our toolset of solutions. Mycoremediation has demonstrated positive results, verified by scientists in many countries. However, there is more oil spilled than there is currently mycelium available. Much more mycelium is needed and, fortunately, we know how to generate it.

Here is what we know about mycoremediation, based on tests conducted by myself, my colleagues and other researchers who have published their results. (See attached references.)

1. More than 120 novel enzymes have been identified from mushroom-forming fungi.
2. Various enzymes breakdown a wide assortment of hydrocarbon toxins.
3. My work with Battelle Laboratories, in collaboration with their scientists, resulted in TAH’s (Total Aromatic Hydrocarbons) in diesel contaminated soil to be reduced from 10,000 ppm to < 200 ppm in 16 weeks from a 25% inoculation rate of oyster (Pleurotus ostreatus) mycelium, allowing the remediated soil to be approved for use as landscaping soil along highways. (Thomas et al., 1999)
4. Oil contains a wide variety of toxins, many of which are carcinogens.
5. Mycelium more readily degrades lower molecular weight hydrocarbons (3,4,5 ring) than heavier weight hydrocarbons. However, the heavier weight hydrocarbons are reduced via mycelial enzymes into lighter weight hydrocarbons, allowing for a staged reduction with subsequent mycelial treatments.
6. Aged mycelium from oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus) mixed in with ‘compost’ made from woodchips and yard waste (50:50 by volume) resulted in far better degradation of hydrocarbons than oyster mushroom mycelium or compost alone.
7. Oyster mycelium does not degrade keratin-based hair as it produces little or no keratinases, whereas other mold fungi such as Chaetomium species (which include some high temperature-tolerant leaf mold fungi) produce keratinases.
8. Worms die when put into contact with high concentrations of hydrocarbon saturated soils, but live after mycelial treatments reduce the toxins below the lethal thresholds.
9. Spring inoculations work better than fall inoculations as the mycelium has more time to grow-out. Bioregional specificities must be carefully considered.
10. Amplifying native mushroom species in the bioregion impacted by toxic spills work better than non-native species.
11. More funding is needed to better understand and implement mycoremediation technologies.
12. Oil spills will occur in the future—we need to be ready for them! Read more…

Source: Institute for Communications Resources

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BY JACQUI GODDARD

Jean-Michel Cousteau, one of the world’s leading ocean explorers, has spoken of his “frustration at the human species” over the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster and called for it to become a catalyst for political, industrial and environmental change.

Describing the slick as “the worst oil accident anywhere on the planet”, the 72-year-old son of Jacques Cousteau, the pioneering underwater ecologist, said that the consequences for Man and nature would be monumental. “The sad side of the human species is that we talk a lot and take very little action until we have a catastrophe on our hands,” he told The Times.

“I don’t want to call this doomsday. I want to believe we can sit down with decision-makers and industry and government and convince them that there’s a better way to manage our life support system. We can do the good thing or we can keep destroying it.”

He added: “I hope that this is the kick in the butt that’s going to make our decision-makers change the way they operate.

“It’s also a kick in the butt for those industries that are making a huge amount of money to invest that money, not just talk about it as they all do, in renewable energy.”

Mr Cousteau’s father, who died in 1997, was a marine conservation trailblazer who raised awareness of the fragility of the planet and its oceans and the devastating effects of pollution, via 120 documentaries and more than 40 books. Jean-Michel Cousteau continues his father’s work through his California-based Ocean Futures Society, whose mission is to explore the seas and fight for their protection.

After witnessing the Exxon Valdez tanker disaster 21 years ago, in which 11 million gallons of oil leaked into the sea off Alaska, he had hoped for change. But a lack of regulation and oversight of the oil and chemical industry meant that a new disaster had been waiting to happen, he said.

Remnants of the slick could ultimately reach Europe by travelling in the Gulf Stream, he believes. “So BP, your oil is coming home,” said Mr Cousteau, who visited Louisiana last week. Read more…

Source: Common Dreams & Times Newspapers

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With millions of gallons crude oil being spewed into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the focus now is on shutting down the leak. However, in the cleanup efforts to come, “extreme caution” must be exercised so as not to make a bad situation even worse, says a leading bioremediation expert with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).

“The concentration of detergents and other chemicals used to clean up sites contaminated by oil spills can cause environmental nightmares of their own,” says Terry Hazen, a microbial ecologist in Berkeley Lab’s Earth Sciences Division who has studied such notorious oil-spill sites as the Exxon Valdez spill into Alaska’s Prince William Sound.

“It is important to remember that oil is a biological product and can be degraded by microbes, both on and beneath the surface of the water,” Hazen says. “Some of the detergents that are typically used to clean-up spill sites are more toxic than the oil itself, in which case it would be better to leave the site alone and allow microbes to do what they do best.”

The Deepwater Horizon oil rig leased by energy giant BP that exploded on April 20, is now estimated to be disgorging some 210,000 gallons of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico. To contain the spreading oil slick and keep it from polluting the fragile ecosystems of the Gulf coast and the Mississippi delta, clean-up crews have deployed an array of chemical dispersants, oil skimmers and booms. They have also attempted to burn off some of the surface oil. Such aggressive clean-up efforts are fraught with unintended consequences, Hazen warns. He cites as prime examples the Amoco Cadiz and the Exxon Valdez disasters.

In 1978, an oil tanker, the Amoco Cadiz, split in two about three miles off the coast of Normandy, releasing about 227,000 tons heavy crude oil that ultimately stained nearly 200 miles of coastline. The spill-site was so large that only the areas of greatest economic impact were treated with detergents. Large areas in the more remote parts of the coast went untreated.

“The untreated coastal areas were fully recovered within five years of the Amoco Cadiz spill,” says Hazen. “As for the treated areas, ecological studies show that 30 years later, those areas still have not recovered.” Read more…

Source: Science Daily

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BY ERNEST CALLENBACH

I. Thou shall love and honor the Earth for it blesses thy life and governs thy survival.
II. Thou shall keep each day sacred to the Earth and celebrate the turning of its seasons.
III. Thou shall not hold thyself above other living things nor drive them to extinction.
IV. Thou shall give thanks for thy food, to the creatures and plants that nourish thee.
V. Thou shall educate thy offspring for multitudes of people are a blessing unto the Earth when we live in harmony.
VI. Thou shall not kill, nor waste Earth’s riches upon weapons of war.
VII. Thou shall not pursue profit at the Earth’s expense but strive to restore its damaged majesty.
VIII. Thou shall not hide from thyself or others the consequences of thy actions upon the Earth.
IX. Thou shall not steal from future generations by impoverishing or poisoning the Earth.
X. Thou shall consume material goods in moderation so all may share the Earth’s bounty. See Video…

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