For years now NSA and the Pentagon have feared foreign terrorists poisoning aquifers and municipal water supplies.
Come to find out, forget those foreign terrorists! The poisoning is already happening, internally, homespun! ISIS and al Qaeda are not needed. We’re poisoning our own people without the assistance of professional terrorists.
It’s homespun terrorism, right here in the good ole US-of-A, and the Trump administration is turbo-charging that terrorism by hacking apart the EPA.
Want proof: Ask any long-standing EPA employee about it: They’re aghast!
Trump’s motto: “Make EPA Ineffective Again.”
The Trump administration, after heavy lobbying by the chemical industry, is scaling back the way the federal government determines health and safety risks associated with the most dangerous chemicals on the market.1
Here’s what citizens need to know about Trump’s EPA Wrecking Crew: The new mandate at EPA is to focus on “possible harm caused by direct contact with a chemical in the workplace or elsewhere,” meaning that once disposal of chemicals takes place there is no longer a cause for restricting or banning the toxic chemical.
According to the New York Times’ article:
The E.P.A. has in most cases decided to exclude from its calculations any potential exposure caused by the substances’ presence in the air, the ground or water.
Or, here’s another way to look at it: If toxic chemicals happen to show up in your drinking water, well, too bad!
In that regard, it just so happens that a North Carolina resident named Emily Donovan recently appeared before a congressional subcommittee EPA hearing and asked this revealing question: “Who in authority can tell me if the 16 mystery PFASs I found in the tap water at my children’s public school are safe to drink?”2
The answer to Ms Donovan’s question: Nobody knows for sure if the water at her child’s school is safe to drink, but it does contain 16 different alliterations of base chemicals PFAS.
Wow! “Sixteen mystery PFAS chemical compounds,” and nobody knows if that drinking water is safe for children… It’s not!
Emily Donovan lives near Cape Fear, NC where discharges from chemical plants are responsible for high levels of PFAS or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluorralkyl chemical substances. Recent government testing shows PFAS to be dangerous to health “at much lower doses than previously thought,” as well as linked to cancer. But not to worry, Trump (cough, cough) is in charge now.
In point of fact, PFAS is one of the biggest emerging health threats to public water systems throughout America. Whew, not to worry, Trump is in charge now! And because of its pervasiveness, it’s now a bipartisan issue in Congress. That’s an unbelievable accomplishment!
For example, in a Congressional subcommittee meeting about the EPA’s handling of toxic chemicals, the following was said by a representative: “What is the timeline?’ asked Republican Rep. Tom Upton of Michigan, who spoke of one community in his state ordered not to drink its contaminated water for nearly a month this summer.”3
Imagine no faucet water for a month… think about it! Who’d want to drink it thereafter, forever thereafter?
Republican Congressman Upton also released a report showing groundwater at the military base in Battle Creek, Michigan with PFAS levels “up to 757 xs higher” than EPA safety standards. That’s enormous: Multiply 757 times a salary of $25,000; it equals $19 million in salary; 757xs anything is big, especially when it comes to toxic chemicals! That’s a disaster-plus-plus scenario!
Not only that, peer-reviewed studies of tens of thousands (10s of 1,000s) of people in the Ohio River Valley exposed to PFAS found “probable links to kidney cancer, testicular cancer, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, hypertension and high cholesterol.”3
But not to worry, Trump’s (ahem!) in charge now.
According to Peter Grevatt, head of the EPA’s water division, the EPA is considering formal declaration that the specific PFAS, although no longer manufactured, be classified as hazardous substances. Really?
That’s the good news!
Here’s the bad news: Mr. Grevatt claims the aforementioned PFAS compounds are not… “the no. 1 challenge we face.”
A much bigger problem exists: Tens of thousands (10s of 1,000s) of versions of PFAS exist actively today, widespread throughout the country. In other words, the toxic chemical juggernaut is totally out of control, dispersed throughout the USA, similar to turning armies of ISIS lose on American communities, but in this case Made in America.
Not only, but according to the Environmental Working Group, the EPA itself, on an internal basis, piles danger upon danger: “The Scariest Trump Appointee You’ve Never Heard Of” is Nancy Beck straight out of the American Chemistry Council ($9 million lobbying, mostly to Republicans) to serve as Deputy Assistant Administrator of the EPA to: “Protect you, your family, and the environment from potential risks from pesticides and toxic chemicals.”4 You’ve gotta be kidding!
Ms Toxicity Nancy’s career includes: (1) crafting political agendas for the chemical industry for years; (2) reprimanded by a congressional committee for “very disturbing attempts to undermine EPA science”; (3) serving as a vocal critic of EPA safety findings in the face of “her own fundamentally flawed approach to chemical safety issues.”3
During the G.W. Bush administration, she was criticized by the National Academy of Sciences for her “fundamentally flawed approach to chemical science.” Now, she’s in charge!
“Beck has been described as a “powerful critic” of EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System, or IRIS program, which researches chemical toxicity. IRIS assessments have traditionally played a big role in informing the rules that EPA and state governments adopt to protect people from toxic chemicals.”3
Well, well, well… now that members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have finally started to wise-up as to the depth and breadth of America’s toxic chemical problems, poisoning its own citizens, the Trump administration installs the archenemy of the “strongest and best EPA rulings.”
Good gracious! People should assemble in the streets and demand a recall! After all, it is known that EPA career-employees have expressed “concern,” actually “deep concern” about changes in implementation rules since Beck arrived.5
Not only is Toxic Nancy in charge but also timeliness now becomes a critical issue as school officials wonder about toxic water at fountains in school hallways. The new school year just started.
“How do we create that sense of urgency?” Rep. Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, asked Peter Grevatt, head of the EPA’s office of drinking water. ‘PFAS in Michigan is scaring people more than the Flint water crisis.”3
Maybe Trump should hold one of his infamous political rallies in Flint. He could have those life-sized poster boards of supporters in the background standing behind him (many of the supporters standing behind him are cutout poster boards of people) hold up signs saying, “Trump for Clean Water.”
Wonder if Michael Moore could be convinced to stand amongst the cutout poster boards of people in the background behind Trump? That would be special and, of course, very convincing of Trump’s sincerity.
A smiling Michael Moore (maybe a poster board cutout of him, maybe not) standing behind Trump, holding up a sign: “Trump for Clean Water.”
Postscript:
Unacceptable levels is powerful. It tells the story of toxic chemicals in just about every aspect of our lives, and the egregious lack of regulation. Our ability to protect our families is at stake.
— Joan Blades, Progressive Political Activist
- Eric Lipton, “The Chemical Industry Scores a Big Win at the E.P.A.”, The New York Times, June 7, 2018.
- “Congress Wants EPA to More Quickly Regulate Unsafe Chemicals”, AP News, September 6, 2018.
- Ibid.
- Melaine Benesh, Legislative Attorney, Environmental Working Group, May 2, 2017.
- Politico.