Hexavalent Chromium and Cancer

Como será que andamos por aqui? Já foi dosado nos nossos aquíferos e no |Guaíba?

hexavalent chromium standards

Data from nearly 1,400 drinking wells across North Carolina show excessive levels of carcinogen

Some North Carolina wells contain levels of hexavalent chromium in excess of safety standards.

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November 21, 2019

A new study that combines measurements from some 1,400 drinking water wells across North Carolina estimates that more than half the wells in the state's central region contain levels of cancer-causing hexavalent chromium in excess of state safety standards. The NSF-funded findings are published in Science of the Total Environment.

"Though often thought of as a byproduct of industrial contamination, hexavalent chromium can form naturally in groundwater, depending on the local aquifer geology and water chemistry," said geochemist Avner Vengosh of Duke University.

Other studies have identified naturally occurring hexavalent chromium in groundwater in Arizona, California, Argentina, Brazil, Greece, Italy and Mexico.

Only a single North Carolina well in the study violated the maximum contaminant level for total chromium set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of 100 micrograms per liter. But the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Service's much lower health advisory level -- 0.07 micrograms per liter -- is set to protect against a one-in-one-million risk of cancer over a 70-year life span. That level of hexavalent chromium was exceeded by 470 of the 865 wells that were measured./.../

"Eating Credit Card's..."

You May Be Eating a Credit Card's Worth of Plastic Each Week - Study

By Reuters Staff

June 14, 2019

GENEVA (Reuters) - Plastic pollution is so widespread in the environment that you may be ingesting 5 grams (0.18 oz) a week, the equivalent of eating a credit card, a study commissioned by the environmental charity WWF International said on Wednesday.

The study by Australia's University of Newcastle said the largest source of plastic ingestion was drinking water, but another major source was shellfish, which tended to be eaten whole so the plastic in their digestive system was consumed too.

"Since 2000, the world has produced as much plastic as all the preceding years combined, a third of which is leaked into nature," the report said.

The average person could be consuming 1,769 particles of plastic every week from water alone, it said.

The amount of plastic pollution varies by location, but nowhere is untouched, said the report, which was based on the conclusions of 52 other studies.

In the United States, 94.4% of tap water samples contained plastic fibers, with an average of 9.6 fibers per liter. European water was less polluted, with fibers showing up in only 72.2% of water samples, and only 3.8 fibers per liter.

SOURCE: https://bit.ly/2MHhQJH

World Wildlife Fund 2019.

Água de Porto Alegre

Recomendado pela AMICOR Maria Inês Reinert Azambuja

Água de Porto Alegre está contaminada por agrotóxicos Reportagem da Agência Pública  A matéria mostra que 27 tipos de veneno foram detectados na água que sai das torneiras na Capital gaúcha, incluindo 11 associados a doenças crônicas (câncer, defeitos congênitos e distúrbios endócrinos), que estão listados abaixo:  - Alaclor (61 detecções em 65 testes) - Atrazina (57 detecções em 61 testes) - Carbendazim (37 detecções em 43 testes) - Clordano (55 detecções em 59 testes)  - DDT + DDD +  DDE (57 detecções em 61 testes) - Diuron (37 detecções em 43 testes) - Glifosato (37 detecções em 43 testes) - Lindano (57 detecções em 60 testes)  - Mancozebe (36 detecções em 41 testes)  - Permetrina (57 detecções em 61 testes) - Trifluralina (55 detecções em 59 testes)

Dia Mundial da Água

Water consumption: Nations

Which Nations Consume the Most Water?

Much of the life-sustaining resource is traded across national borders

By Mark Fischetti | Jun 1, 2012

A vast amount of water is used to produce the food and products that nations consume. Large population is the greatest factor, but inefficient agriculture or dependence on water-intensive cuisine can exacerbate demand; meat consumption accounts for 30 percent of the U.S. water footprint.

Certain countries, such as India and the U.S., also export significant quantities of water in the form of food and products, despite their own robust consumption. Populous nations that have little land or little water are huge net importers.

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Those insights come from engineers Arjen Y. Hoekstra and Mesfin M. Mekonnen of the University of Twente in the Neth­erlands. Over the long term, net exporters may want to alter trade policies to avoid creating their own water shortages or raise prices to reflect the cost of increasingly scarce water resources. Inefficient water nations might improve agricultural practices. And net importers might lower exports to save water for domestic use.

This article was published in print as "Water In, Water Out."

Water, Water

‘Water, Water Everywhere’ In The Solar System

Avaneesh Pandey 
Posted with permission from International Business Times

John Briscoe (1948 - 12/11/2014)

Perdi meu amigo: John Briscoe.

Eu não desejava acreditar, nem receber a notícia do falecimento do John, mas aos poucos fui me lembrando dele, e me dei conta que agora água não significa para mim simplesmente um líquido que mata a sede, essencial para criar, sustentar e desenvolver a vida, mas me recorda querido amigo que tive a ventura de conhecer, e a felicidade de com ele conviver bons momentos, e sonhar juntos.


Lembrei-me de ouvir dele que Economia era mais do que uma ciência ou arte de lidar com dinheiro e valores, mas era uma expressão numérica de apreciar e medir o relacionamento humano. Esta ideia eu a usei - dando-lhe o devido crédito - num artigo que escrevi para um jornal local.


Há um gráfico que lembro vê-lo desenhando numa folha de papel e que depois ilustrou uma publicação do Banco Mundial sobre “Brazil. The New Challenge of Adult Health”, para a qual ele viera solicitar minha colaboração. Tratava-se de uma curva hipotética, representando a vida humana. Para muitos, a partir de um ponto vai descendo até chegar ao zero com a morte. Para outros, o que seria o ideal, mantém-se cada vez por mais tempo num patamar elevado, e depois, abruptamente cai até zero, como folhas de árvores no outono-inverno. Temo que meu amigo não tenha tido a felicidade de terminar sua jornada como ele idealizava, mas pela sua carta sinto que conseguiu superar esta transição com tranquilidade e no conforto do lar com sua amada Conceição, Alexa e demais familiares.


Ele veio a Porto Alegre com o projeto de trabalhar comigo para uma publicação do Banco sobre Prevenção de Doenças Crônicas ou Não Transmissíveis. Tive a satisfação, durante nossas discussões, ao vê-lo adotar a proposta de um título positivo, contemplando a Saúde e não a Doença. Não sairá de minha memória o momento no qual fui busca-lo no aeroporto com um cartaz escrito “John Briscoe” para facilitar nosso encontro,  e terminei encontrando um amigo.



http://amicor.blogspot.com.br/2014/03/prof-john-briscoe-2014-stockholm-water.html
► 0:39► 0:39
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRBgIZEq9aM



06/11/2012 - Vídeo enviado por Muddied Waters
Professor Briscoe believes that the Water Act of 2007 is an abomination and was an attempt to put ...

Carta de Conceição Andrade, viúva do John,

Dear friends

John wrote the letter below for you, a few days before his passing away, on November 12th, 2014.  Please forward it to anyone you think might like to know.  Many thanks.

Love, Conceicao

Dear friends

It is tricky to know exactly how to communicate one's imminent death.   I am now on my last leg and wanted to say goodbye.

I lived a very blessed life as many of you know.  This is true with my friends, my family and with my profession.   I had every opportunity imaginable to a young boy from South Africa. And always my life was a lucky one with immense opportunity at every stage, including the 22 years at the World Bank and the last 6 at Harvard University. 

In some ways a culmination of my life in water was that I was named as the Stockholm Water Laureate (Often referred to as the Nobel Prize in Water) this year.  Here is a link to the award ceremony.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-pwbKUN_-1XOHNxZkJMUzdtb00/edit?usp=sharing

The last two and a half years I have lived with colon cancer.  I have been fortunate in being able to manage it at home with a tremendous amount of care and love from Conceicao, and friends and family.

You are getting this note because you were a very important part of my life.   I’m deeply thankful for that,  and I hope and trust that you and your family will have many happy years together.

Love

John

My wife's email address is conceicaoaandrade@yahoo.com 

If you wish to commemorate my passing in any ways, I have three suggestions.  

First, if you wish to you can send a note to Conceicao.   There will will no Ceremony now, but in the Spring, Conceicao will invite some friends to our house in Poolesville.  If you wish to send flowers, in lieu, you may make a donation to The John Briscoe STEM Award, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, for which a Development Fund has been set up as a Development Trust Account, at my high school in Kimberley:

Account Name:        St. Patrick's Development Trust Account

Account No.:            2007687526

Type of Account:      Savings

Bank:                        Nedbank, Chapel Street, Kimberley, South Africa

Bank Code:                10350200

Bank SWIFT code:    NEDSZAJJ

Earthquakes

Does Fracking Cause Earthquakes?

—By Alyssa Battistoni

| Mon Apr. 16, 2012 3:00 AM PDT

domesticat/Flickr

There are plenty of reasons to worry about fracking—groundwater contamination,methane leaks, that flaming tapwater thing. But can it really cause earthquakes? That's the question the US Geological Survey set out to answer after a spate of tremors in the Midwest—an area not usually known for earthquakes—alerted scientists to the possibility that some of them might be manmade./.../

Hygiene, Sanitation, and Water: Forgotten Foundations of Health

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1 Water Institute, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America, 2 London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, United KingomJamie Bartram¹, Sandy Cairncross^2*

Citation: Bartram J, Cairncross S (2010) Hygiene, Sanitation, and Water: Forgotten Foundations of Health. PLoS Med 7(11): e1000367. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000367

Published: November 9, 2010

Copyright: © 2010 Bartram, Cairncross. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funding: While writing this article, JB was a staff member of WHO, and SC was supported by the Higher Education Funding Council for England and by the Department for International Development (DFID). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: SC leads a UK Department for International Development-funded research programme consortium for research in sanitation and hygiene.

Abbreviations: DALY, disability-adjusted life year; GDP, gross domestic product; HSW, hygiene, sanitation, and water supply; MDG, Millennium Development Goal; ORT, oral rehydration therapy; PRSP, Poverty Reduction Strategic Plan

* E-mail: sandy.cairncross@lshtm.ac.uk

Provenance: Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

Summary Points

• A massive disease burden is associated with deficient hygiene, sanitation, and water supply and is largely preventable with proven, cost-effective interventions.
• The total benefits of these interventions are greater than the health benefits alone and can be valued at more than the costs of the interventions.
• Hygiene, sanitation, and water supply are development priorities, yet the ambition of international policy on drinking water and sanitation is inadequate.
• Hygiene, sanitation, and water supply continue to have health implications in the developed world.
• The active involvement of health professionals in hygiene, sanitation, and water supply is crucial to accelerating and consolidating progress for health./.../

UN: clean water is a 'fundamental human right'

28 July 2010 Last updated at 23:43 GMT

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UN declares clean water a 'fundamental human right'

Many people around the world have little or no access to clean drinking water

The UN has declared that access to clean water and sanitation is a fundamental human right.

About 1.5m children under five die each year from water and sanitation-related diseases.

The resolution was passed with 122 nations in favour, none against and 41 abstentions.

Abstaining countries said the resolution could undermine a process in the UN's Human Rights Council in Geneva to build a consensus on water rights./.../

Water profile: Brazil

Content Source: Food and Agriculture Organization (other articles)

Article Topic: Water

This article has been reviewed and approved by the following Topic Editor: Jim Kundell (other articles)

Last Updated: April 17, 2008

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Geography and population

Brazil is politically divided into twenty-six states and one federal district, in five regions: north, northeast, southeast, south and center-west. The total area of the country is 854.7 million hectares (ha), out of which the extension of cultivated land area was 49.1 million ha in 1996. A large amount of land is still available for further agricultural production, especially in the center-west of the country in the so-called "cerrado" areas. The annual population growth in 1997/98 was close to 1.3%. The average population density varies according to region: the north has 3.3 inhabitants/km², the northeast 29.8, the southeast 73.8, the south 41.0 and the center-west 6.76 inhabitants/km².

Pharmaceuticals lurking in U.S. drinking water

Key findingsHere are some of the key test results obtained by the AP:
Officials in Philadelphia said testing there discovered 56 pharmaceuticals or byproducts in treated drinking water, including medicines for pain, infection, high cholesterol, asthma, epilepsy, mental illness and heart problems. Sixty-three pharmaceuticals or byproducts were found in the city’s watersheds.
Anti-epileptic and anti-anxiety medications were detected in a portion of the treated drinking water for 18.5 million people in Southern California.
Researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey analyzed a Passaic Valley Water Commission drinking water treatment plant, which serves 850,000 people in Northern New Jersey, and found a metabolized angina medicine and the mood-stabilizing carbamazepine in drinking water.
A sex hormone was detected in San Francisco’s drinking water.
The drinking water for Washington, D.C., and surrounding areas tested positive for six pharmaceuticals.
Three medications, including an antibiotic, were found in drinking water supplied to Tucson, Ariz.