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Florida Regulators OK Plan To Increase Toxins In Water (washingtontimes.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Washington Times: Despite the objection of environmental groups, state environmental regulators voted Tuesday to approve new standards that will increase the amount of cancer-causing toxins allowed in Florida's rivers and streams under a plan the state says will protect more Floridians than current standards. The Environmental Regulation Commission voted 3-2 to approve a proposal that would increase the number of regulated chemicals from 54 to 92 allowed in rivers, streams and other sources of drinking water, news media outlets reported. The Miami Herald reports that under the proposal, acceptable levels of toxins will be increased for more than two dozen known carcinogens and decreased for 13 currently regulated chemicals. State officials back the plan because it places new rules on 39 other chemicals that are not currently regulated. The standards still must be reviewed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, but the Scott administration came under withering criticism for pushing the proposal at this time. That's because there are two vacancies on the commission, including one for a commissioner who is supposed to represent the environmental community.
The bottled water industry will be pleased as drinkable tap becomes more scarce all over the US. This is just part of the process. Maintaining a clean water supply is too difficult and expensive. So instead of raising the price, which is totally unjustifiable anyway, it's far easier to let the quality slip.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
And I thought Florida water couldn't taste any worse than it already did....
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
headline should read "Rick Scott's plan to POISON Floridians, you won't believe what happens next"
another serving of GREEN SLIME , please!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Without all of the data ("two dozen known carcinogens" in an unknown concentration), this could still be a net gain for Floridians. There are plenty of substances that the rest of the developed world believes to be inert in small doses, but that "are known to the state of California to cause cancer" at any dosage. If they are loosening the regulations on some substances using actual data to devise allowable limits, and again using actual data to further restrict those chemicals that are harmful, then perhaps this change is completely above the board, and inline with the best interest of the people. Drinkable water is a disappearing resource, so practical guidelines (do I need to mention using actual data again?), seems a prudent course of action, and this article doesn't provide enough information to determine if these changes are indeed practical or detrimental to consumers.
It is a big shame proper investigative journalism is disappearing, it would be interesting to know which companies that release the toxins whose increased concentration are allowed made contributions to the politicians involved.
Adding a limit for otherwise unregulated chemicals is not increasing pollution. Raising a limit for a chemical that was regulated artificially low (and not based on toxicity) is fine.
The linked talks about benzene a bunch. The proposed lowers the limit for Class III (recreation water) and increases it from 1.18ug/L to 2 ug/L for Class I (Drinking water). EPA limit for drinking water is 5 ug/L, for reference.
http://www.dep.state.fl.us/water/wqssp/classes.htm
https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/table-regulated-drinking-water-contaminants#one
https://depnewsroom.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/hhc-criterion-comparison.pdf
Tap water regulations are usually very strict.
Unless you live in Flint Michigan...
But once you bottle the water it becomes food, and food can contain pretty much anything.
Not even remotely true but thanks for trying. While there is (unfortunately) a lot of wiggle room, food production, marketing, and sales is actually pretty heavily regulated by the FDA and USDA among others.
Did you read this bit of TFA?
I don't think they're talking about the same thing.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Class III is all surface waters. It covers fish toxicity / breeding / etc. as well.
As a former geological engineer working in the environmental remediation business 16 plus years ago, I was responsible for design and construction of groundwater remediation systems at old landfills. Old landfills are notorious as many were just old gravel pits which were filled with garbage. In this garbage would be all sorts of hazardous waste from a time when nobody cared about such things. When looking at Mass Spectroscopy plots I would see hundreds of peaks representing some sort of organic chemical. Many of these could be identified as a pollutant, like benzene, but many were “unknowns”. As long as we met the Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCLs) established by the EPA all was fine, except the water would still contain many “unknowns”. And even if we had identified all the “unknowns” since no MCL was established we were still good-to-go. The treated groundwater had to go somewhere, either re-infiltrated off-site or discharged to a nearby stream or river. Again we had to meet discharge limits, which we did. But everyone knew full well that there were pollutants still in the water. Now what will happen in the future when one of these “unknowns” or unregulated chemicals become regulated? Good question.
Conservative, mod down for violating
It was nice of them to supply some Bud Light during an emergency.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
Yes, it's full of hydrogen which is very flammable and explosive in comfined spaces. The oxygen helps it burn too. I'd suggest gin, but, that's got water in it, and, anyway alcohol is inflammable and lethal too. We're doomed, I say, doomed.
On y va, qui mal y pense!