To Your Health Harris County, Texas--Eight Glasses of Radiation Per Day

"8 by 8" rule for healthy living - drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water per day.

Compelling investigative reporting by Forrest Wilder of the Texas Observer and Houston's CBS News affiliate KHOU has revealed some grave problems in the Lone Star State's drinking water supply in Harris County, Texas. The investigation found that its been going on for years, since the 1980s, and it appears that the state environmental agency, Texas Commission of Environmental Quality, (TCEQ) has been in on it and kept the public in the dark until they were caught, big time.

A state agency purposefully misleading the public? Hard to believe isn't it? NOT.

Investigation Finds Radiation in Texas Drinking Water

By Forrest Wilder

November 11, 2010

TCEQ was lowballng radiation levels

KHOU-TV in Houston is out with an explosive series on worrisome radiation levels in drinking water. Part I looked at the extent of the problem and what state and federal officials are doing about it.

Hundreds of water providers around the Gulf Coast region are providing their customers with drinking water that contains radioactive contaminants that raise health risks, according to state lab results and public health scientists.

The revelations came to light during a four-month KHOU-TV investigation, which examined thousands of state laboratory tests from water providers across Texas. The data, provided by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), ranged from 2004 to the present.

The radiation was first discovered as a part of required testing, under federal regulations, of all drinking water provided by community water systems in America.

It's important to note that the radiation levels in the drinking water are extremely low, on the order of parts per trillion. However, as KHOU reports, the tendency among environmental health experts and the EPA, is to regard any level as potentially dangerous to human health.

Part II aired last night and it reveals what appears to be scientific malpractice on the part of Texas Commission on Environmental Quality scientists. One expert in the KHOU story called it a "cover-up."

How can TCEQ defend this? Well, judging from the interview TCEQ staffer Linda Brookins gave KHOU they can't. Take a look.

KHOU: "What would you tell me if I told you that I have talked with numerous scientists across the nation that would say that what TCEQ did was bad science?"

Brookins: "Well, I guess I would have no comment on that."

"I do not believe that what TCEQ was doing at that time has impacted human health," she added.

KHOU also asked Brookins about the state’s continued subtractions for margin of error, even after the EPA published a federal rule banning the practice.

KHOU: "Did you happen to skip over page 76,727 of the federal rule? Because right here in 2000 EPA told you, ‘don’t subtract margin of error.’ Did you skip that part?"

Brookins: "It doesn’t say not to subtract."

KHOU: "It doesn’t?"

Brookins: "It is silent."

KHOU: "I’d like you to hold this in your hand for a moment and read the part underlined in blue."

Brookins: "I’m not going to do that on camera."

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The problem is not confined to Harris County, Texas alone:

One particular type of radiation that popped up again and again, in water provided by utilities all across Texas, was something called alpha radiation, which public health scientists say can be particularly problematic when consumed.

“The alpha particle -- this is the 800-pound gorilla of radioactive particles,” said Dr. David Ozonoff, an environmental health professor and the chair emeritus of the Boston University School of Public Health.

We're not surprised to hear of ineptness on the part of these state environmental agencies who are, more or less, purely figurehead entities who work in concert with the big polluters they make millions from. But, therein lies the problem as we have said before: How do you effectively regulate and enforce violations from these entities (many are known to the agencies as serial violators) when you are handsomely profiting from their emissions, discharges and permit fees?

ADEM and TCEQ are the poster children of state agencies gone nuts.

It's like one long and winding crazy train with the inmates running the asylum in Texas (TCEQ) and Alabama (ADEM) and unfortunately they've punched all of our tickets and won't let us off.

Governors Perry of Texas and the recently elected "Fife-ish" Bentley of Alabama, have made their positions clear on the EPA stepping in and attempting to force both states to comply with the federal laws (hum to the tune and tone of Barney Fife's famous "citizen's arrest" phrase):
                         "State's rights! State's Rights!"

Kudos once again to Wilder, the Texas Observer and KHOU's Mark Greenblatt.

Posted by Winger