Lead in IBM's water: Investigation cuts to chase | poughkeepsiejournal.com
WICCOPEE — While the cause of lead contamination in drinking water at four IBM Corp. buildings is still not certain, officials are narrowing the possibilities through a continuing investigation.
So far, it appears that the lead isn't coming from the joint city-town water plant, called the Poughkeepsies' Water Treatment Facility. It is the source of water going down a 13-mile pipeline to the IBM campus and is the same plant that supplies the City of Poughkeepsie and much of the Town of Poughkeepsie.
And officials of the line's owner, the Dutchess County Water and Wastewater Authority, don't suspect the line itself because it was opened in 2007 and built with lead-free materials.
It could be old pipes. It could be how long water sits in them. It could be chemicals added to the water and how they react with lead in the pipes or fixtures. The addition of chloramines, an antibacterial treatment that the Poughkeepsies' plant has used at times, is one possibility, because there is some evidence that it can accelerate leaching of lead in some cases.
In the 2007-08 period, plant officials found that in the City of Poughkeepsie, routine sampling had picked up “lead in some samples” of water, according to the plant's published reports. The plant adds orthophosphates to reduce lead corrosion.
Enough lead can make people sick and even minute amounts can impede a child's mental development. For safety, IBM is still providing bottled water and barring use of drinking fountains on the site, where several thousand people work for IBM and tenant firms.
Jeff Couture, a spokesman for IBM's Microelectronics division, said in an e-mail, “We are providing water to all buildings.”
Routine tests in January at the site found lead levels in water in four buildings exceeded the federal action level. That was a surprise, too, because tests in previous years at this campus had not turned up any lead.
via Lead in IBM’s water: Investigation cuts to chase | poughkeepsiejournal.com | Poughkeepsie Journal.
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Our public water and health departments have failed us. The EPA and the CDC have failed us. These agencies claim that chloramine is a “safe” water disinfectant. In fact chloramine is corrosive and leaches lead out of some pipe and plumbing fixtures into the drinking water. It has NOT been studied adequately for its health effects and it is destructive to the environment.
Chloramine was introduced into our once pristine water supply here in the San Francisco Bay Area on Feb 2, 2004. Directly after the switch from chlorine to chloramine many people began experiencing skin, respiratory and digestive problems when using their tap water. Some of these symptoms were serious – even life threatening.
Most people did not know about the switch to chloramine. When news of my severe respiratory reaction to chloraminated water vapor was reported in the press, hundreds of people called me who had similar symptoms. Many like me, could not use their tap water at all and had to use bottled spring water instead.
Twelve of us formed the grassroots group, Citizens Concerned About Chloramine (CCAC), in June 2004. We began collecting the cause and effect symptom documentations of 500 local residents. We discovered that no one, not even the EPA, had done studies on the skin, respiratory or digestive health effects from chloraminated water. We worked with our lawmakers to try to stop the use of chloramine and fought hard to get the word out about the harm it causes.
In 2006 we created http://www.chloramine.org, the first website that discussed the health effects experienced by many who are exposed to chloraminated water. As a result, chloramine sufferers from more than twenty different states have contacted CCAC for help. Some of these states have now formed their own local groups to fight the use of chloramine.
It is time for our public agencies to start listening to the plight of the people they are supposed to be serving. Chloramine should not be used as a water disinfectant until the health effects studies are completed. There are other alternatives to chloramine for water treatment such as membrane filtration combined with chlorine.
We need water that is truly safe for everyone.
“..there is some evidence that it can accelerate leaching of lead in some cases”?? SOME evidence?? For 3 years in Washington DC, lead levels were 3200x higher than the EPA maximum allowable levels after chloramine replaced chlorine in the municipal water. The EPA, with the help of the CDC, covered it up. Finally, EPA scientist Dr. Marc Edwards blew the whistle and was summarily fired by the EPA who then tried to ruin his career. Today there is a class action lawsuit brought upon WASA by DC parents of children whose lives were ruined by three years of exposure to those levels of chloramine.
Listen to Dr. Marc Edwards’ account of what happened in his 5/4/04 Princeton University lecture “Imminent Danger: Lead Astray by the EPA” here: http://www.princeton.edu/WebMedia/lectures/
Read the sleazy CDC “scientific” paper Dr. Edwards refers to in his lecture here: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5312a6.htm
If that weren’t bad enough, people all over the country are suffering from digestive, skin and/or digestive symptoms from chloraminated municipal tap water. The original article in the Poughkeepsie newspaper makes a small mention of that happening in the towns receiving chloraminated water from Poughkeepsie. Check out these citizen-created websites in CA and VT of and for people who are suffering from these effects of chloramine in their tap water. http://www.vce.org/chloramine, http://www.chloramine.org.