Good chemistry trailer You may NOT re-post this Bible story

Good chemistry trailer

You may NOT re-post this Bible story. However, you may freely link to it, when they click on the link. To receive a new Bible story each week, enter your e-mail address under at You will be sent a message requesting confirmation of your subscription request. IMPORTANT! YOU MUST REPLY to this confirmation request to activate your subscription to this list. Last updated December 13, 20 Posted on November 9, 2010 at 11:00 PM Updated Thursday, Nov 11 at 2:58 PM HOUSTON 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. In Texas, the Department of State Health Services provides an independent lab to test the water for potential contaminants of all kinds and forward results to both the water system and TCEQ. Much to the surprise of many people, hundreds of water companies along the Gulf Coast and all across Texas pump water with some amount of radiation inside. 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 chair emeritus of the Boston University School of Public Health. Ozonoff obtained a medical degree from the Cornell University School of Medicine and serves on the Massachusetts Cancer Advisory Committee. He said drinking water with any amount of alpha particles, even when consumed in amounts below federal legal limits, raises your risk to develop health problems or, in rare cases, cancer. Examples of alpha particles found in the Gulf Coast region are those from uranium, radium and other minerals. Ozonoff describes alpha particles as a type of radiation that would not typically harm you unless inhaled or ingested. He warns, once you take it inside your body, your health risks immediately begin to rise. It cant penetrate very far, but when it hits something it does a ferocious amount of damage, he said. If I were to drink it, then many parts of your body are within knife-wielding distance of an alpha particle. Ozonoff said the danger in drinking alpha particles is that you bring them inside your body and right up against sensitive organs, where the alpha particles can damage DNA and create a possible mutation in your cells. He says the more you drink, the more you raise your risk for cancer. In fact, even the EPA says a single wild cell can give rise to a cancer, and that a single alpha passing through a cell is sufficient to induce a mutational event. The EPA made the disclosure in the federal register as part of the National Primary Drinking Water Regulations 2000 final rule that regulates all forms of radioactive elements in drinking water. The zero-threshold allowance for radionuclides, from a health-based standard, is one reason why the EPA set the drinking water federal health goal, called the MCLG Maximum Contaminant Limit Goal, at zero for all forms of ionizing radiation. Other potential contaminants in drinking water such as copper, selenium, barium, chlorine residuals, trihalomethanes, and many others that are not radioactive elements, all have goals set above zero. The EPA notes there are some who disagree with its conclusion that any amount of radiation has the ability to cause a mutation. However, it states in the federal register that EPA believes its position is based on weight of evidence and support from national and international groups of experts interested in radiation protection. Many of America s largest water systems attain the public health goal with no detectable amounts of radiation in their water supplies. Many, but not all of these water systems, depend on surface drinking water sources, like rivers, lakes and streams, to supply their communities. Most radioactive alpha particles end up in drinking good chemistry trailer only after it is pumped up from groundwater wells in good chemistry trailer of the country with natural uranium, radium or other radioactive deposits underground. In some cases, that are less common, radioactive elements do end up in surface water. However, the EPA sets a legal limit for these contaminants above zero, which it calls the MCL Maximum Contaminant Level. The government cannot force a water system to take action to clean up radioactive drinking water until the system good chemistry trailer that legal limit. However, as it pertains to radioactive materials in particular, Ozonoff says you are still put at risk if they are present, even in quantities below that legal limit. All you need is one cell to go bad, he said, to initiate the beginning stages of a cancerous event. While potential mutations could take place at any time when radionuclides are consumed, the risks are relatively small. For instance, the EPA estimates a radiogenic cancer risk of slightly less than one in 10, 000 for communities that consume drinking water over a lifetime with enough alpha radiation from uranium to reach the MCL of 30 micrograms. The odds have been calculated to be even lower for alpha derived from other isotopes. However, Ozonoff warns those risk levels are calculated in isolation from your other daily exposure to all types of carcinogens, with which we regularly come into contact. For example, he points out that water can also have other radioactive elements, and that the risk from those compounds with whatever cancer risk you are already receiving from alpha.