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Poisoned Waters documentary by Frontline echoes water pollution issues here in Minnesota
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Excellent documentary! Every American needs this information.
Minnesotans should care about the new documentary, "Posioned Waters." This Frontline documentary aired on PBS earlier this year exposes the severe state of pollution in Chesapeake Bay and Puget Sound.
Why should Minnesotans care about poisoned waters so far away from home? These major coastal water bodies are indicative of the sorry state of all of America's waters.
The polluted state of these waters are the canary in the coal mine, a theme in the documentary. The situation is more intense, more pressing, more severe than we would like to believe. Poisoned Waters is not propaganda, it is reporting, exposing, teaching. It truly is alarmism using good reporting and good directing.
Weakened Clean Water Act
Broken promises, loosened regulations, voluntary compliance, and apathy have all weakened the Clean Water Act. Senator Barbara Boxer leads the bill to fortify the Clean Water Act back to its original intent.
The commercial agricultural lobbies are very strong when it comes to protecting the rights of the farmers. The lobbyists have managed to keep clean up of animal waste voluntary, which means that manure can freely run into streams and waterways unregulated. Lobbyists have also helped to deflect animal owners and growers and the agricultural industry in general from responsibility of any water pollution.
Agriculture Largest Source of Pollution of Waterways in the Country
According to Frontline's "Poisoned Waters," commercial agriculture is responsible for dead zones increasing year by year, the deaths of fish and other wildlife, and other detrimental effects to the aquatic ecosystem.
Chicken farm pollution is used as a poignant example of agricultural waste causing damage in the Chesapeake Bay. Small chicken farms have turned into huge industrial poultry factories. Nitrogen and phosphorous are two by-products of chicken manure that cause dangerous pollution when ending up in excess in the waterways.
Arsenic, also associated with chicken farms, shows up in the water 9 times more that what is naturally-occuring. Also from the chicken manure, the e-coli count is off the charts when the water is measured. This is obviously not safe for the aquatic life, nor is it safe to drink.
Other Major Sources of Water Pollution Include Runoff from Impervious Surfaces, Household Products, Pharmaceuticals
Minnesotans have heard this theme, as well. Stormwater runoff does not have the chance to get filtered through the ground if much of a city's surface is paved. Water runs straight from the impervious surface into the gutters, into stormdrains and into the streams, rivers, and lakes.
Cancer-causing PCB's are found in extremely high amounts in the endangered killer whales, the orca in Puget Sound. Why should Minnesotans care about PCB's? Because this is a common contaminant found in our waters. See the Minnesota DNR Lake Finder and the Minnesota Department of Health Fish Consumption Advisory Program.
Pharmaceuticals come from sewage treatment plant discharge that is not able to filter or treat for all of the drugs that humans are ingesting and not properly digesting. Trace amounts or not, these drugs disrupt the thyroid, cause immunodeficiency problems, and more. It's the combinations of these compounds that researchers and health officials are worried about.
According to an interview in "Poisoned Waters," with Robert Lawrence, PhD., Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, 5 million people are exposed to endocrine disruptors in the mid-Atlantic.
Endocrine Disruptors Killing and Deforming Fish
Another familiar theme with Minnesotans: deformed wildlife. Three-legged frogs, male fish with eggs, female fish with male genitalia, all are signs of pharmaceuticals in the water, specifically a class of compounds called endocrine disruptors.
Check out the video below to see a trailer of "Poisoned Waters" where the U.S. Geological Survey studies dead fish from pollution in the water.
Please comment below if you have seen the documentary.
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