I think I’m going to have to take a stand…
November 18th, 2008
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Things are really going a bit too far. Sure, it’s one town over, but as far as I’m concerned, the bad science fanatics are treading on the wrong turf. This shall not stand…
Madison knew of uranium in water for 2 years
Radioactive: Your kids
Uranium not just in Madison schools
Conn. Health Dir. Knew about High Uranium Levels
High uranium detected in water at two CT schools
How much is too much uranium?
I’m going to have to be writing to a lot of local media outlets and if there happen to be any more meetings on the topic, I’ll be sure to be there.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 at 8:18 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Culture, Education, Enviornment, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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November 18th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
So, time for some direct action, eh? Well good luck, and keep us posted.
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November 19th, 2008 at 2:42 am
Had one of those motivational speakers talk to our company this past spring. I felt he had a pretty sensible attitude to things… and the one catchphrase I picked up was this, because I already agreed with it:
- If it’s to be, it’s up to me.
Granted you can’t get everything done yourself… but you can get alot done on your own, as long as you have the slightest idea of what you’re doing. You can’t just sit around and wait for problems to fix themselves, or for anyone else to take care of them… get crackin’. There really is no reason to let things be if there’s something you can do about it.
So go for it Doc! Post back here if there is info you want us to help dig up.
Just remember to be a bit nice… telling people they are idiots never gains anyones attention other than to turn them away from you. Recognize that people are worried… use the “I hear you” approach.
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November 19th, 2008 at 2:43 am
Slightly elevated levels of uranium in drinking water can be highly dangerous. They’ve been shown to lead to mass epidemics of irrational panic and severe individual attacks of Stupid. The only proven method of containing the problem was employed by the public health official who didn’t tell anyone about it for two years, thereby isolating the meme in a small cabal of rational minds where it could do no harm. Now you have a real problem on your hands.
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November 19th, 2008 at 11:03 am
Finrod said:
Well, they can be if they’re elevated enough. I don’t know how you define “slightly” but much of the avaliable knowledge about the chronic effects of long term uranium exposure comes from people who have spent years drinking nothing but water pulled from an aquifer full of pitchblende. The health concequences from this are not enormous in general, but there have been signs that extended exposure to very high levels can cause some problems such as bone development, and possibly kidney damage, although the kidneys appear to be fairly resistant to dilute concentrations of uranium and require a fairly high concentrated dose to cause any real damage, in most cases.
That being said, I followed a few of the links and I do not believe that the levels detected warrant the kind of panic-like response that seems to have been inspired. They keep saying it is three times the standard, but I think the standard they are looking at is one for certain public water supplies, as opposed to the standards for acceptable uptake by end consumers. The standards in the US for public water supplies are very very conservative about this kind of thing.
I’m not about to say that these levels might not rise to the level where they might be worth considering a basic mineral filter as a precaution but it’s just not a big deal. It’s not an urgent matter though. Really, I’d not call it news worthy either. The elevations over the national average and over any standards are extremely modest. The idea that a human being living on this planet could be isolated completely from uranium uptake is silly. There’s uranium all around us and once in a while we’re going to ingest or inhale a microgram or two. It’s not that big a deal.
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November 19th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
An Actual Scientist, While your comments are usually succinct and insightful, in this case I have difficulty believing that you read beyond the one sentence in my comment you quoted.
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November 19th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Finrod said:
I did read it, and maybe I came off in the wrong way, but I was just saying that we shouldn’t write off the possibility of uranium in drinking water as harmless in all circumstances. I agree with you in so far as this circumstance being so slight that it doesn’t matter, but at the same time we shouldn’t go so far as to say uranium is not toxic and occasionally of concern, because that’s not the case either.
In this circumstance the biggest danger is mass panic or some kind of unnecessary expense that will hurt the school, like buying water filters out of the textbook budget. I’m just weary that if we don’t watch things then the danger is giving the impression that the claim is uranium is harmless, which could cause a loss of credibility and make us look as bad as the other side of the debate.
I think the author of this blog said it well when he said something like (and this is a paraphrase) “Depleted uranium is toxic, so don’t eat it”
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November 19th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
The critical argument in this case is the fact that uranium intake from food accounts for 77% of the average persons body-burden of the element. What little exposure that comes from drinking water is relatively minor in comparison. As for standards they have been set much too low given that most well-water has been found to exceed the legal levels, and millions drink from wells without lasting harm.
Another thing, absorption of uranium by the body is highly dependent on the valency of the ion and the presence of other mineral species in the water at the time of ingestion.
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November 19th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Near as I can reckon this concentration of uranium (110ug/L) constitutes about 3 Bq/L. Mid-range radioactivity due to potassium for normal human urine – which as far as I know has never been classified as a radiological hazard – is about 80 Bq/L (normal range 25-100 millimoles of K per L -> 30-130 Bq/L).
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November 20th, 2008 at 2:27 am
You know I’ve been reasearching the issues with uranium in humans recently and I’m starting to think I might have to take back my statements on uranium being analogous to lead as being a lot toxicity heavy metal. I had previously stated that although the effects on the body were somewhat different in the systems effected and accumulation that the lead was a rough aproximation of the toxicity.
The more I read about this, the more I find that uranium is in fact, considerably less toxic than lead. Granted the two are not a perfect comparison, but the cumulative damage from uranium uptake is actually surprisingly small. It seems that even in cases where the levels are high enough to cause kidney damage (which I reiterate is absolutely astronomically high), the damage is, in all but the worst cases, superficial and normally can be repaired easily. The damage that is not recoverable, where the tubes are scared or something – that seems to be lower from uranium than many other heavy metals. Uranium does not seem to accumulate as greatly in some of the more sensitive tissues and the effects on the nervous system are much less than other heavy metals like lead or mercury from chronic exposure.
The other thing is that to see general organ failure or to even begin to see major effects on reproduction and fertility in animals, they had to feed them staggeringly large doses of uranium over a period of time and it was administered as an organic (uranyl acetate) as uranium is really only absorbed readilly in a few such organic compounds. This probably would be equivelent to many times the same dosage as an equal amount of metal or oxide.
Of course, the standards set for uranium exposure are very conservative, and I’d never encourage anyone to disregard basic safety with uranium or any material. It’s always good common sense to use the correct handling and protection if you are working with it, but still, it seems that the real impact on health is extremely modest.
Actually, the impact from thorium appears to be slightly higher, although it’s not all that toxic either.
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November 21st, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Here’s a test of toxicity knowledge…
What metal element have I replaced with “mysterium”? What would be appropriate precautions for handling and use?
A call for excessive precautions would be ironic, I think
.
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November 21st, 2008 at 7:47 pm
Joffan said:
That’s too low to be mercury. I’ve heard that a couple hundred milligrams of arsenic is lethal, so it’s high for that. It’s definately too low for lead or beryllium.
I guess I’m going to guess thallium.
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November 21st, 2008 at 7:48 pm
It’s a metal element, so then cyanide doesn’t count, right? Or do you count semimetals?
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November 21st, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Wait… could it be iron?
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November 21st, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Ding ding ding! Iron it is… I thought my clue would be enough
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November 23rd, 2008 at 10:33 pm
Sorry I didn’t read all the links, so maybe this has already been said – but I was told long ago that the connecticut river valley has an elevated uranium level (one person told me it was almost high enough to make it worth looking for…) So, the point is, probably all (or maybe most) of the wells in CT would show uranium levels similar to that in the posted stories…
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November 23rd, 2008 at 11:10 pm
The amount of uranium in wells in Connecticut varies quite a bit depending on a number of factors. It basically comes down to how soluble uranium is in a given well’s water, and that varies quite a bit. Some areas have a lot of lime and that alters the Ph of the water and some areas have heavy iron, sulfur or calcium or some other minerals. Those factors will dictate how well the water is able to dissolve and hold uranium or other minerals.
It’s certainly not uncommon to have elevated uranium levels though.
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