Drilling for natural gas includes pumping water and chemicals at high pressure into the ground to force out pockets of gas (Photo courtesy of Argonne National Laboratories)
The federal law that protects drinking water allows companies drilling for natural gas to inject chemicals into the ground. The exemption for gas drilling operations also allows the companies to keep the chemicals they use a secret. Conrad Wilson reports environmentalists want the exemption removed:
Transcript
The federal law that protects drinking water allows companies drilling for natural gas to inject chemicals into the ground. The exemption for gas drilling operations also allows the companies to keep the chemicals they use a secret. Conrad Wilson reports environmentalists want the exemption removed:
For decades, drilling for natural gas includes pumping water and chemicals at high pressure into the ground to force out pockets of gas.
Environmental groups believe the chemicals are contaminating wells and aquifers here in the western U.S. Now gas drilling is moving east to places closer to cities such as Philadelphia and New York.
Several Democratic Members of Congress have introduced legislation to repeal the exemption in the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Randy Udall is a co-founder of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil-USA, an environmental group. He says as more gas is found, people in the East can expect more drilling.
“For better or worse, whether you like it or not, as time goes on, were going to be drilling in places where people are living.”
The oil and natural gas industry says the chemicals they force into the ground are “trade secrets.” They say the process is safe.
Colorado Springs pumps water through the Rocky Mountains into town (Photo courtesy of the Colorado Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau)
Out West, a lot of cities figure many more people will be moving in over the next few decades. Water engineers wish those people would bring along all the water they’ll need, but of course they won’t. Shawn Allee reports these cities want to pipe more water from far away, and some people think that’s a bad idea:
Transcript
Out West, a lot of cities figure many more people will be moving in over the next few
decades. Water engineers wish those people would bring along all the water they’ll
need, but of course they won’t. Shawn Allee reports these cities want to pipe more
water from far away, and some people think that’s a bad idea:
The air in Colorado Springs is usually so dry it quickly chaps your lips.
What gives? Colorado Springs sounds wet enough.
“There’re really no springs in Colorado Springs, so when you start talking
about water, it’s a divergence between our name and reality. Sounds like we
had a lot, and in reality we didn’t.”
This is Matt Mayberry, Colorado Spring’s historian.
I’ve heard about this massive water pipeline project the town’s cooking up, and I was
curious just how long the city’s worked to quench its thirst.
Mayberry’s got an exhaustive book on that with an exhaustive title.
“Blah, blah, blah … the emergence and appropriation of rights in Colorado
Springs.”
The crib notes version?
Early on, buffalo manure poisoned Colorado Spring’s creek, so people dug wells.
Then, the wells got infested with grasshoppers.
And the town grew, and grew, and grew again.
“Very soon you had to bring water from further away, and ultimately to the
Western Slope which is a couple hours drive of here.”
Today, Colorado Springs pipes water through the Rocky Mountain range.
Doing the extraordinary for water is kinda ordinary for Colorado Springs.
Its latest pipeline project is called the Southern Delivery System, and it’ll pump nearly
80 million gallons into town each year – and it’ll pump that water forty five miles –
completely uphill.
Impressive, but some people are asking tough questions about it.
“Our concern with this project is the greenhouse gas emissions that it would
contribute to.”
Stacy Tellinghuisen is with Western Resource Advocates, a Colorado environmental
group.
She says there’s a connection between pumping water uphill and a large carbon
footprint.
“Water is heavy. Pumping it over a great distance takes a lot of energy, and
in the process it would require something along the lines of 60 MW of power,
which is about a tenth of a power plant.”
And, for the most part, the utility burns natural gas and coal to generate power. Both
emit carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.
Tellinghuisen says Western cities are considering at least five other water pipeline
projects, some with even larger carbon footprints.
She wants Colorado Springs to set an example by using dedicated low-carbon sources
like wind power for its water pumps.
I ask the Colorado Springs Utilities about that.
Keith Riley helped plan the Southern Delivery System.
“We think there are some ways we can minimize the carbon footprint by
looking at some new technologies.”
Riley says there were lots of environmental regulations to wade through before the
Southern Delivery System got approved.
But a large carbon footprint doesn’t disqualify utility projects.
Riley says, even if carbon were considered, the project might have gone forward
anyway because the city’s expected to grow over the next few decades.
“Water is the essential element for all of us, so when it comes to that level of
sustaining our own lives, then you get to some trade-offs on what we’re
willing to do to keep ourselves alive where we we live, where our cities are.
No matter what happens, we’ve got to move water to Colorado Springs, and
we’re uphill from the river, so we’ve got to get the water uphill one way or
another.”
Riley says Colorado Springs Utilities is considering low-carbon renewable power for its
new pipeline.
But it’ll be expensive, and no one’s stepped forward with all the money.
Other Western cities are engineering clever ways of moving loads of water around,
too. And it’ll be a political and financial challenge for them to pay for the carbon
footprint.
Scientists have been using tiny particles of rust to draw arsenic out of water (Source: Roger McLassus at Wikimedia Commons)
You might be surprised to hear that a lot of drinking water has arsenic in it. It’s a problem all over the globe, especially when drinking water comes from deep under the ground. Julie Grant reports that some researchers are using tiny particles – at the nano-scale – and plain old rust, to remove arsenic from the water:
Transcript
You might be surprised to hear that a lot of drinking water has arsenic in it. It’s a problem all over the globe, especially when drinking water comes from deep under the ground. Julie Grant reports that some researchers are using tiny particles – at the nano-scale – and plain old rust, to remove arsenic from the water:
You can’t see, smell, or taste arsenic – but prolonged exposure to it can lead to skin discoloration and even cancer.
Vicki Colvin studies chemistry and nanotechnology at Rice University in Houston.
She says arsenic has a chemical bond with rust – and sticks to it. So they’ve been using tiny particles of rust to draw arsenic out of water in the lab.
Now Colvin says they’re working with a city in Mexico. They’re trying to make what they call nano-rust in the field, so the city can cheaply remove arsenic from its water.
“So, we’ve developed procedures and processes that help people make nano-rust not at a major university with a nanotechnology facilty. But you know literally in a restaurant setting, more maybe in a ceramics factory.”
Colvin says they will be experimenting in Mexico over the next two years.
Ellen Peterson has lived in Florida for many years and this is the first year her well went dry. (Photo by Arthur Cooper)
A much needed storm rolling in over Lake Okeechobee. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)
Droughts are nothing new for the Western US.
But lately, even some parts of the country
surrounded by water have gotten a taste of
droughts. Rebecca Williams reports as our
population grows, some experts say we’re going
to have to learn to live with less water:
Transcript
Droughts are nothing new for the Western US.
But lately, even some parts of the country
surrounded by water have gotten a taste of
droughts. Rebecca Williams reports as our
population grows, some experts say we’re going
to have to learn to live with less water:
(sound of birds)
Even in swampy, muggy Florida, people have been running out of water.
“This is the first time the well has ever gone dry.”
Ellen Peterson remembers water gushing out of her artesian well when she’d hook up the hose. These days she’s stuck with rusty water from her shallow well.
(sound of faucet turning on)
“Now if I let that sit it would settle out orange.”
We visited Peterson at the tail end of this year’s dry season. In the weeks since then, Florida’s been pummeled by major thunderstorms. But Florida water managers say it’s too early to know how much the rain will help.
This was the driest dry season Florida’s felt in more than 75 years. And it’s the third year in a row of serious drought. That’s meant some changes for people who live here.
Many cities put rules in place that limit watering lawns to one or two days a week. One woman actually ended up with a warrant out for her arrest after she watered her lawn on the wrong day and didn’t pay the fine.
Some cities in Florida are talking about adding a drought surcharge to bills for people using the most water.
Ellen Peterson says local water managers have even been capping wells in her area. Peterson may be 85 years old, but that didn’t stop her from telling her local official to back off.
“They told me they were going to cap my well and I threatened the guy with his life if he ever came back. (laughs) It hasn’t happened yet.”
So it’s not such an easy sell to get people to cut back on water.
(sound at a lake)
But that’s Gary Ritter’s job. He’s a water manager in the Lake Okeechobee area. It’s a giant lake – 35 miles wide – and it’s nicknamed the liquid heart of the Everglades. The lake level is 2.5 feet below average.
“For water to get to the Everglades it has to come from Lake Okeechobee. Now we have a juggling act as to how we manage this water in the system you know for multiple users for the water supply and for the ecosystem.”
The lake’s the center of a huge tug of war. Farmers and cities need the water, and the lake’s also a big tourist draw. And the Everglades are in major trouble – mostly because the water flow to this fragile area has been cut off by people.
Some experts say these kinds of conflicts are just going to get worse.
Peter Gleick is president of the Pacific Institute. It’s a nonpartisan group that studies water issues.
“Places we didn’t think were vulnerable to water shortages in the past are now increasingly vulnerable. As our population continues to grow and our water supply doesn’t. As more and more people try to share that fixed resource there’s going to be growing competition for water and more natural and manmade drought.”
And he says we just don’t know what’s in store for us as the climate changes because of global warming. We could get a one-two punch.
First, from weird new weather patterns. And second, from more and more people moving into dry areas.
People have expected these kinds of problems for cities in the desert Southwest. But nobody really saw this coming in the Southeast.
Peter Gleick says even if you live in a place surrounded by water now, you shouldn’t expect to always have plenty of it.
Dan Jacin stands by his newly landscaped sewage tanks (Photo by Julie Grant)
There's no longer sewage in the water draining off Jacin's property (Photo by Julie Grant)
Water from Jacin's property drains to a nearby stream - and eventually into the drinking water source (Photo by Julie Grant)
There’s an underground threat to water that’s making it harder to clean up for drinking. Julie Grant reports – it all
depends on where you live and whether the people who live nearby are maintaining their septic systems:
Transcript
There’s an underground threat to water that’s making it harder to clean up for drinking. Julie Grant reports – it all
depends on where you live and whether the people who live nearby are maintaining their septic systems:
More than one of every four homes uses its own septic
system.
That means it’s not hooked up to a city sewer line. When a
toilet is flushed, the water doesn’t go to a central treatment
plant. Instead, it drains into a septic system buried in the
yard. It’s supposed to decompose using a natural process to
clean it up before going back to the environment.
The problem is – those septics don’t get enough attention.
When they fail, as about one-in-five does, that untreated
toilet water winds up in rivers, lakes and wells. In a lot of
places, that untreated sewage drains into our sources of
drinking water.
“Well obviously, there’s potential health risks, that’s the
number one.”
Nate McConoughey is the sewage program manager with
the Board of Health in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. He spends
a lot of his time inspecting home septics to see if they’re
working.
“We don’t want these pathogens getting out into the
environment and getting into the creeks and streams and
rivers that people come in contact with.”
Or get their drinking water from.
Even though he’s trying to protect water quality,
McConoughey is not a popular guy with homeowners.
“Nobody really wants to see you come out and take a look at
their system. Because most people with 40-plus year old
systems realize that they’re probably not working as good as
they should.”
It’s McConoughey’s job – and the other inspectors he works
with – to tell people when their system is leaking sewage,
and when it’s time to put in a new system.
“We’ve all seen people with different reactions. Whether it
be crying or very irate.”
People get so upset because replacing a septic system
costs big bucks.
Just ask Dan Jacin. Last summer he had to dig up his front
lawn and put in a new set of sewage treatment tanks.
“Oh yeah, it tears up your yard for a year and hits your wallet
pretty hard.”
But Jacin says he didn’t have a choice. His 43-year old
system was backing up atrocious-smelling sewage into his
basement.
“I wanted relief from sewage coming into my house, because
that’s just not a fun deal at all.”
Jacin also had sewage burping up in his yard.
If a septic is working right, sewage drains from the house
into a tank. And it’s slowly sent from the tank into an
underground absorption area – where it filters through the
soil.
But Jacin’s septic wasn’t working anymore. The sewage
was draining off his property into a nearby stream.
(sound of a stream)
This stream runs into the Cuyahoga River, which runs into
Lake Erie – a major source of drinking water. Jacin felt
badly about causing that pollution.
But he felt even worse about paying for his new septic
system. It cost more than $20,000!
“And just fortunately I had enough money to replace it at the
time. I don’t know what I would have done if I didn’t have the
money. Who’s going to give you a loan to replace your
septic tank?”
Now Jacin’s lawn has grown back, he’s landscaped to hide
the treatment tanks. And he’s glad he’s no longer polluting
the waterways.
But he still isn’t happy about spending all that money.
Inspector Nate McConoughey understands. But he says
there are low-interest loans available for new septics – and
they’ve got to be maintained – so the water is clean for
drinking and other uses.
Nationally, we go through more than 30 billion non-carbonated drinks every year (Photo by Lester Graham)
Most states don’t have bottle deposit laws to encourage people to return their empties. Only eleven states do. Now, some are expanding their recycling programs to include bottled water. Sadie Babits reports the states know requiring a deposit for the bottles will keep them from ending up in landfills:
Transcript
Most states don’t have bottle deposit laws to encourage people to return their empties. Only eleven states do. Now, some are expanding their recycling programs to include bottled water. Sadie Babits reports the states know requiring a deposit for the bottles will keep them from ending up in landfills:
Every time Mary Nemmers buys a bottled beverage, she’s pays a five cent deposit at the register.
She wants to get that money back eventually. So she saves up her bottles and once a month brings them here to New Seasons Market in Portland, Oregon.
(sound of bottles being sorted)
Nemmers thinks this is a pretty convenient system. She gets to shop while a store employee sorts and hand counts her bottles.
Today Nemmers is getting nine dollars and change for her empties. While she’s glad to get that money back, she’s excited to learn that Oregon’s bottle deposit program has expanded.
“I just got some news that they’ll take back all the cans for deposits. Not just the ones that they sell. That started in January and that saves me an extra trip.”
That’s only part of the change. People in Oregon now also get five cents for every water and flavored water bottle they return to stores. That ends up being a lot of bottles.
Nationally, we go through more than 30 billion non-carbonated drinks every year. And that number is growing. Most of them end up in a landfill.
For Heather Schmidt, it makes sense to require a deposit for these bottles. She runs the sustainability program at New Seasons.
“We’re getting more back from our customers and that’s a good thing (chuckles). And we know that there’s quite a bit of water purchased, you know, and we’re selling it we want to take it back.”
Out of the eleven states that have bottle deposit programs, Oregon is one of the first to include bottles for water and other non-carbonated drinks.
Maine includes just about every beverage bottle. Connecticut adds bottled water to its program in April. New York and Massachusetts are debating similar expansions.
Mary Nemmers says it was about time that her state recognize that something needed to be done to make sure water bottles stay out of landfills.
“Because I do a lot of walking and I’ve seen lots and lots of water bottles thrown around and in trash cans. I assume that the expansion will reduce that and I’d like to see Oregon stay on the cutting edge of recycling.”
Not everyone is thrilled.
I spoke with the president of the Northwest Grocery Alliance who told me stores want recycling off their property.
A spokesman for the major food outlet Winco said the same thing. Stores say it’s messy to deal with “garbage” and stores have to dedicate staff time to recycling.
Heather Schmidt says at New Seasons Market, they don’t mind.
“Operationally, because we’ve increased the volume, it does mean we’ve had to add some staff labor to that to process but it’s something that we’re committed to.”
While most of the bottles are hand counted at New Seasons Market stores, large chain grocery stores use reverse vending machines.
I can stick a redeemable bottle into the machine. The machine checks to make sure it’s the right kind of bottle. Once it’s accepted, the bottle gets crushed and I get my five cents. Those crushed bottles, along with the plastic ones, end up here.
(sound of recycling plant)
We’re inside a glass and plastic bottle recycling plant. It’s a labyrinth of conveyer belts and equipment. The last drops of stale beer and old soda pop in the bottles make it smell sort of like your gym shoes meet the town dump.
Sadie: “Can we check out where the plastic bottles go?”
John: “Yes, We’ll go back this way.”
That’s John Anderson. He’s the President of the Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative.
“Now, the plastic, we have seen an increase, but we’re only two months into this expansion at this point and it’s a slower time of year for water and flavored water.”
We stop in front of three bales of recycled plastic that remind me of massive hay bales.
I can pick out the water bottles scrunched together with a lot of soda bottles. These plastic bales will be sold to manufacturers – mostly overseas – who will turn this plastic back into something useable.
Anderson says all of the glass though, stays local and gets turned back into beer bottles.
Bottle deposits work.
The states that have bottle deposit laws have dramatically high bottle recycling rates – as high as Michigan’s 97%.
But the U.S. average is below 40%. The rest of those bottles spend forever in a landfill.
Tomatoes are posing a problem for a BPA-free lining - they are so acidic they can eat through it (Photo by Scott Bauer, courtesy of the USDA)
More than a hundred studies have linked a chemical in plastic to health problems. Things like breast cancer, prostate cancer, diabetes, and early puberty. This chemical, bisphenol-A or BPA, is used to coat the inside of baby formula cans and almost all food and soda cans. Rebecca Williams visits one company that’s found a safer can:
Transcript
More than a hundred studies have linked a chemical in plastic to health problems. Things like breast cancer, prostate cancer, diabetes, and early puberty. This chemical, bisphenol-A or BPA, is used to coat the inside of baby formula cans and almost all food and soda cans. Rebecca Williams visits one company that’s found a safer can:
(sound of forklift backing up, pumpkin seeds pouring out of roaster)
It’s pumpkin seed roasting day at Eden Foods. It’s a natural foods company based in Michigan. It sells things like rice, canned beans, and all kinds of packaged fruits and sauces.
Michael Potter is the company’s president. More than a decade ago, he came across some news reports out of Europe.
“And I learned all the can linings in the USA were lined with this lining that leaches BPA into foods from the can.”
That got him thinking, and researching. Then he started badgering his can manufacturers.
“We virtually begged them to provide us an alternative. We persisted in hounding them and eventually the Ball Corporation said they’d make a can with an old lining they used to make.”
The lining’s made from a plant resin instead of the epoxy resin with BPA. The thing was, it would cost Eden Foods 14 percent more – that’s about 2 cents a can.
But Michael Potter says he had to make the switch.
“We’re selling this not only to people that we don’t know, in the market, we’re feeding it to our children, our grandchildren and ourselves – we didn’t want to eat bisphenol A.”
But there was one problem. He couldn’t make the switch for canned tomatoes.
Tomatoes are acidic, and they can eat through the plant resin can lining. That could lead to bacteria or rust getting into the food.
“There is no alternative for high acid foods other than bisphenol-A lining at this point. We are urging, nudging, demanding a bisphenol-A free alternative. And we’re optimistic we’ll end up with one.”
But the metal can industry says those alternatives just don’t exist right now.
John Rost is with the North American Metal Packaging Alliance. He says the industry is trying to find new materials. But he says shoppers shouldn’t worry about eating canned food.
“The levels of BPA that are coming from epoxy can linings are exceedingly low. We’re talking low parts per billion. That level has been deemed safe by the European Food Safety Authority, Health Canada and the US FDA.”
That’s true, but Health Canada has declared BPA toxic. It’s making moves to limit its use.
A number of independent scientists debate that there’s any safe level of BPA.
Maricel Maffini studies BPA at Tufts University School of Medicine. She says they’ve seen harmful effects on lab animals at the same very low levels of BPA that are leaching into our food from cans.
She says that’s because BPA acts like the hormone estrogen.
“You just need a tiny little signal to trigger an effect. So I think it’s unfair to say there is a safe dose because as scientists we cannot say that yet. We have not found a dose that is low enough where we don’t see effects.”
She says babies and kids are the most at risk. She says BPA has caused lasting damage in lab animals when the animals were exposed to the chemical both before and after birth.
“I think we should be concerned, I think we should limit our consumption of canned foods especially if you are pregnant or if you have babies.”
It’s possible that US can makers will be forced to stop using BPA. Leaders in Congress have introduced bills that could soon ban BPA in all food and beverage containers.
All that energy goes into making the plastic bottles, treating the water, and, of course, shipping - sometimes from as far away as the South Pacific. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Bottled water burns up a lot of energy.
Rebecca Williams reports on a new study
that figured out how much:
Transcript
Bottled water burns up a lot of energy.
Rebecca Williams reports on a new study
that figured out how much:
Bottled water burns up a lot of energy.
Rebecca Williams reports on a new study
that figured out how much:
We Americans love our bottled water, for a lot of reasons. We actually drink more bottled water than beer.
And that bottled water uses lots of energy. As much as 2000 times more than tap water.
That’s from a new study in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
All that energy goes into making the plastic bottles, treating the water, and of course shipping. Sometimes from as far away as the South Pacific.
Peter Gleick is an author of the study. He says if you want to use less energy, tap water is the clear winner.
“Tap water may require a thousandth of the energy that it takes to bottle water. And the tap water in the United States is typically of very, very high quality, as high or higher than most of our bottled waters.”
He says buying local bottled water saves energy. So he says try to buy as close to home as you can.
Melissa Rosen and her husband Greg Horos opened Locali's - LA's first "ecovenience" mart. (Photo by Devine Browne)
The only convenience store staples you won't find on Locali's shelves are cigarettes and lotto tickets. The owners say there are no clean versions of those. (Photo by Devine Browne)
Vegan condoms are Locali's most-blogged about item for sale. (Photo by Devine Browne)
Not that long ago, if you wanted to buy eco-friendly at the grocery store, your options might have been limited to the granola and beans in the bulk bins. Then stores started carrying organic produce. Later vegetarian fast food appeared. Devin Browne reports now eco-friendly is hitting convenience stores:
Transcript
Not that long ago, if you wanted to buy eco-friendly at the grocery store, your options might have been limited to the granola and beans in the bulk bins. Then stores started carrying organic produce. Later vegetarian fast food appeared. Devin Browne reports now eco-friendly is hitting convenience stores:
They’re called ecovenience stores and they’re showing up all over the country. The point is that they sell convenience store food, only greener.
(sound of a store)
“This is our organic hot pretzel, we have organic hot pretzels. It’s organic flour.”
That’s Melissa Rosen; she co-owns a new ecovenience store in Los Angeles, called Locali. Which is actually spelled L-O-C-A-L-I.
And they’ve got hot pretzels, but organic. Hot dogs, but grass-fed. The store even looks like a convenience store: It’s in a strip mall, it’s near a freeway. They’ve got cold drinks in the fridge and impulse buys like candy near the cash register. The customers are in a hurry, but a happy hurry. They rave about the chips
“It is a flavor explosion in your mouth, it is beyond savory.”
and the slushies.
“Slushies! There you go, the slushies are amazing.”
But then you get closer and you see that the cold drinks are not soda or beer: They’re Kombucha, the fermented tea. The candy is vegan gummy bears and organic lollipops. And the slushie, their signature item, is sweetened with agave.
There are a few 7-11 staples that are missing from the shelves, like cigarettes and lotto tickets. The owners say there are no green versions of those.
Some of Locali’s products are really pragmatic and not that exciting like energy efficient light bulbs and ecological laundry drops. Others are kind of sensational, silly, really.
“For example the vegan condoms. What is that, what is Glyde? I didn’t know my condoms weren’t vegan.”
So, vegan condoms, vegan caviar. Snow cones sweetened with brown rice syrup. They have this really big variety of products that have never been greened before.
And so the question becomes: will new green products like these, however silly, really mean new green consumers? Matt Kahn is an Environmental Economist at UCLA. HE thinks maybe so.
“So the goal might be to create buzz. That if you only sell green light bulbs and a tofu turkey burger, people might say oh yeah, that’s the green place. But if you do some truly wacky stuff, generating this green buzz, might tip, that even a Dick Cheney might come with his grandson hearing that it’s this wacky.”
Which is more or less the point – Locali wants to recruit new green consumers. Consumers who right now live in neighborhoods that don’t really have supermarkets and so they buy most of their food at liquor and convenience stores.
Of course, one of the problems will probably be price. A 16 oz slushie at Locali is $5.49, while a 22 oz slurpee at 7-11 is just $1.40. But Kahn, the economist, thinks because Locali is smaller and more flexible than say a Whole Foods, it might actually have a better shot at making it in new neighborhoods.
“And so a smaller business might have to pay only a couple hundred thousand dollars rather then multi million dollars to build a big boxed store. And that lower fixed cost of entering a market makes it more likely that smaller green stores might experiment more.”
And apparently, the ecovenience experiment is something that a lot of people want to try. In the first six days of business, the owners received phone calls from people in Seattle and DC and cities all over Southern California. And they all asked the same thing: how soon can we open a locali in our local neighborhood.
In China, infant formulas contaminated with melamine killed four babies and made
thousands sick. (Photo courtesy of the CDC)
Earlier this year, when Chinese
infant formulas were found to be contaminated,
the US Food and Drug Administration banned
imports. The FDA said no amount of
industrial chemicals should be allowed in
infant formula. Now that the FDA has
found the same chemicals in US-made infant
formulas, the government says a little is
safe. Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Earlier this year, when Chinese
infant formulas were found to be contaminated,
the US Food and Drug Administration banned
imports. The FDA said no amount of
industrial chemicals should be allowed in
infant formula. Now that the FDA has
found the same chemicals in US-made infant
formulas, the government says a little is
safe. Lester Graham reports:
In China, infant formulas contaminated with melamine killed four babies and made
thousands sick. The FDA said no amount was acceptable.
Then the FDA started secretly testing infant formulas made in the U.S. It found
melamine or a related chemical, cyanuric acid, in Nestle’s Good Start formula and
Mead Johnson’s Enfamil. ‘
Suddenly, the FDA decided a trace amount, one part per million is safe.
Lisa Madigan is the Attorney General for the State of Illinois. She says the FDA
should stop sales of those formulas.
“We have directly asked them to make sure these formulas are recalled as well as to
make sure that people across the country are aware of the problem.”
The FDA stresses levels of the chemicals in the U.S. infant formulas are more than
10,000 times lower than the levels reported in the Chinese formulas.
For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.
Drilling for natural gas includes pumping water and chemicals at high pressure into the ground to force out pockets of gas (Photo courtesy of Argonne National Laboratories)
