Scenes
from
a Waste Water Forum
|
"So,
when public officials say that water meets drinking
water standards, they mean it meets criteria for
about 75 of the about 87,000 chemicals currently
being used."
--Fred Corson |
|
Click
on the television set to watch Fred Corson speaking
about waste water.
You need Quicktime to see it. You can also right
click to download the file to your machine; total
running time is about 16 minutes (13.9MB). |
The
Redwood Chapter of the Sierra Club held a forum on wastewater
on June 16, 2004. Present were Bob Rawson, a
wastewater consultant; Brenda Adelman, of the Russian River
Protection Committee; Fred Corson, President of the Dry
Creek Association and Fred Euphrat, a Forester and watershed
management expert. Mr. Euphrat also served as master
of ceremonies.
The O.W.L. Foundation recorded
the proceedings and the entire evening is
available on DVD for $20. Click here to order
the DVD.
We are offering the Dr.
Corson's presentation on the Web for free and will try
to put other speakers up in the future.
Dr. Corson, as you will
learn from the introduction, worked for Dow Chemical for
31 years and participated in the design and permitting
of sewage treatment plants. He explains that in the 1980's,
German researchers discovered pharmaceuticals in treated
wastewater by accident. They were looking for a certain
pesticide and the analytical technique used to detect the
pesticide, which is an estrogen mimicking compound, reveled
the presence of estrogen-like drugs. The discovery was
an alarming find and triggered a worldwide scrutiny of
treated wastewater. Pharmaceutical products have been detected
virtually everywhere anyone bothered to look.
Recently, in Britain, researchers
discovered Prozac in drinking water. This powerful Selective
Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor (SSRI) has apparently emerged
unscathed from treatment plants and found its way to rivers,
streams and probably underground aquifers. See the linked
article in the sidebar.
Estrogens are so powerful
that even minute amounts can affect living organisms. Sewage
treatment plants may brag about having reduced estrogenic
compounds to vanishingly small amounts, but vanishingly
small amounts of estrogen is all it takes to cause biological
havoc. Worse, estrogen is stored in fat cells and is not
excreted, meaning that over time it accumulates. Organisms,
like people, can acquire significant amounts and the more
you have the greater risk you run of disrupting the body's
natural endocrine system.
Advanced treatment plants
eliminate this risk.
The IRWP has no provision
to implement an advanced treatement plant. The wastewater
produced by Sonoma County's current treatment plant is
simply inadequate in light of what science has learned
about this ever-growing effluent. We need an advanced treatment
plant now.
